Pasteur’s law

An immediate consequence of Pasteur s law is that the relationship between enantiomers is established by symmetry alone and does not require any knowledge of molecular bonding connectedness (constitution). This is in contrast to diastereomers, the other class of stereoisomers Diastereomers are not related by symmetry, and their relationship can be defined only by first specifying that their constitutions are the same—otherwise, there would be nothing to distinguish them from constitutional isomers. Thus enantiomers, which have identical scalar properties and differ only in pseudoscalar properties, have more in common with homomers than with diastereomers, while diastereomers, which differ in all scalar properties, have more in common with constitutional isomers than with enantiomers.51, 52 It therefore makes more sense, in an isomer classification scheme, to give priority to isometry rather than to constitution.52 In such a scheme there is no need for the concept stereoisomer the concept retains its usefulness only because it normally proves convenient, in chemical reaction schemes, to combine enantiomers and stereoisomers in a common class. 

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