Simplicity and Elegance

Simplicity is probably the least controversial trait that a molecule needs to be beautified in the minds of chemists, who have always been drawn to Platonic notions of beauty. And who could blame chemists for this line of thinking Simplicity is tied to the pleasing virtues of balance, symmetry, wholeness, and harmony. It is also tied to coherence and comprehension, which is tied to truth, which is tied to beauty. When a chemist examines a simple molecule, a network of these related concepts inevitably leaves him or her with a sense of pleasure and satisfaction. 

There is no lack of beautifully simple MIMs. The quintessential example is SchilFs all-hydrocarbon [2]catenane [167], the simplest non-trivial topology composed of the simplest atoms and bonds (Fig. 24). Other MIMs are simplified by highly symmetrical structures that make them easy on the brain , such as the 

Sauvage revived an all but forsaken discipline by introducing templates for synthesizing MIMs. His solution (Fig. 25) of using transition metals to position organic precursors appropriately to interlock them in subsequent reactions, which 

By moving from kinetically controlled to thermodynamically controlled reactions (Fig. 27), MIMs can now be synthesized in near-quantitative yields, primarily 

An elegant solution to building new mechanically interlocked architectures has been to make them amenable to further modification after their synthesis. This category is particularly broad, as it encompasses all manner of reactions that have been performed on MIMs, including their organization in scaffolds (e.g., MOFs, see Fig. 15, Sect. 3.3) and interfaces, polymerization [211, 212], and other 

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In preceding chapters we laid a foundation for the study of deconvolution. We presented several linear methods that exemplify the groundwork available before recent developments revolutionized the deconvolution field. Why, in their simplicity and elegance, did the linear methods fail to stimulate the wide adoption of deconvolution methods in spectroscopy After all, available instrumental resolution is limiting in many applications, and the simplicity of the microcomputer makes numerical processing attractive. 

The first purely chemical synthesis of fluorine was accomplished in 1986 by Christe2 and is remarkable for its simplicity and elegance. The two starting materials, potassium hexa-fluoromanganate(IV) and antimony(V) fluoride, had been known4 5 for almost a century and can be readily prepared from hydrogen fluoride solutions according to ... 

In the following sections, it is not the intention of the author to repeat the analysis of Kapral [285] in its detail or clear exposition, but rather to emphasise the simplicity and elegance of the description of a very complex situation, A few flags are raised to show the general trend of the analysis. It is hoped these will help the reader to dip into these articles. 

O Donoghue and Nilges, 1997), but these are neither more accurate, nor do they have the computational simplicity and elegance of the parametric approach. 

In order to calculate a physicochemical property, the structure of a molecule must be entered in some manner into an algorithm. Chemical structure notations for input of molecules into calculation software are described in Chapter 2, Section VII and may be considered as either being a 2D string, a 2D representation of the structure, or (very occasionally) a 3D representation of the structure. Of this variety of methods, the simplicity and elegance of the 2D linear molecular representation known as the Simplified Molecular Line Entry System (SMILES) stands out. Many of the packages that calculate physicochemical descriptors use the SMILES chemical notation system, or some variant of it, as the means of structure input. The use of SMILES is well described in Chapter 2, Section VII.B, and by Weininger (1988). There is also an excellent tutorial on the use of SMILES at www.daylight.com/dayhtml/smiles/smiles-intro.html. 

The degradative pathways of valine and isoleucine resemble that of leucine. After transamination and oxidative decarboxylation to yield a CoA derivative, the subsequent reactions are like those of fatty acid oxidation. Isoleucine yields acetyl CoA and propionyl CoA, whereas valine yields CO2 and propionyl CoA. The degradation of leucine, valine, and isoleucine validate a point made earlier (Chapter 14) the number of reactions in metabolism is large, but the number of kinds of reactions is relatively small. The degradation of leucine, valine, and isoleucine provides a striking illustration of the underlying simplicity and elegance of metabolism. 

Despite the simplicity and elegance of the process it is hard to justify when used with sueh chemicals that have been restricted or withdrawn from general use in many developed countries. 

The simplicity and elegance of the cross-correlation technique led to its adoption by many investigators in modeling studies of nonlinear physiologic systems [Stark, 1968 McCann and Marmarelis, 1975 Marmarelis and Marmarelis, 1978 Marmarelis, 1987,1989,1994). 

The development of quantum electrodynamics saw the introduction of diagrammatic techniques. In particular, Feynman [28], in a paper entitled Space-Time Approach to Quantum Electrodynamics, introduced diagrams which provide not only a pictorial representation of microscopic processes, but also a precise graphical algebra which is entirely equivalent to other formulations. They have a simplicity and elegance which is not shared by, for example, purely algebraic methods. 

The major step in the application of EoS in phase equilibrium calculations came in 1972 when G. Soave, following the pioneering work of G. Wilson (1964) and J. Joffe and D. Zudkevitch (1966), presented his famous modification of the RK EoS, that was successful in the correlation and prediction of phase equilibria in nonpolar systems. After the complicated BWR EoS, the field of EoS applications returned to the simplicity and elegance of the van der Waals form. 

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