Fuzzy Restrictions and Inherent Uncertainties in Chirality Studies

Fuzzy Restrictions and inherent Uncertainties in Chirality Studies 

Department of Chemistry Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey 08544 

The definitions of chiral and the associated terms homochiral and heterochiral made their first appearance in a footnote of a lecture, entitled The Molecular Tactics of a Crystal, that Sir William Thomson, who had been elevated to Lord Kelvin in 1892, delivered to the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club on May 16, 1893. The famous footnote reads  

From the context of the above quotation, similar may be taken to have the same meaning as congruent according to Kelvin s formulation, therefore, the only allowed operations are isometries—transformations in which the distances that separate any two points within the object remain 

Copyright 1997 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 

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K. Mislow, Fuzzy Restrictions and Inherent Uncertainties in Chiral Studies, in Fuzzy Logic in Chemistry, ed. by D.H. Rouvray (Academic, San Diego, 1997), pp. 65-90... 

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