Names pronouncing chemical formulas

As noted earlier, more than one compound may have the same molecular formula (isomers), but a structural formula is unique to one compound. In addition, there are many chemicals which possess more than one chemical name, for the same reason mentioned above. The most common organic chemicals are those that have the shortest carbon chains. This fact is also true of their derivatives. The inclusion of a double bond in the structural formula has a profound effect on the properties of a compound. Table 2 illustrates those differences through the properties of alkenes. The presence of a double bond (and, indeed, a triple bond) between two carbon atoms in a hydrocarbon increases the chemical activity of the compound tremendously over its corresponding saturated hydrocarbon. The smaller the molecule (that is, the shorter the chain), the more pronounced this activity is. A case in point is the unsaturated hydrocarbon ethylene. Disregarding... 

In 1839, Eduard Simon, an apothecary in Berlin, distilled storax resin obtained from the Tree of Turkey , (liquid ambar orientalis) with a sodium carbonate solution and obtained an oil which he analysed and named styrol (what we now call styrene) [1]. He recorded the following observation that with old oil the residue which cannot be vaporised without decomposition is greater than with fresh oil, undoubtedly due to a steady conversion of the oil by air, light and heat to a rubberlike substance . Simon believed he had oxidised the material and called the product styrol oxide. Later, when he realised that it contained no oxygen, the product became known as metastyrol. This puzzled the early chemists as there was no change in empirical formula despite the very pronounced alteration in chemical and physical properties. Unknowingly, this was the first recorded instance of polymerization. 

---