Some notes on homochirality

It has already been mentioned that the origin of homochirality in nature can be viewed in terms of the controversy between determinism and contingency. Is the L form of amino acids determined by some physical law of nature or is it a matter of chance in chemical evolution  

There are other physical mechanisms proposed as sources of symmetry breaking, such as circularly polarized light, or magnetochiral anisotropy (Rikken and Raupach, 2000). 

One other reason why many chemists and biologists are skeptical about parity violation and other subtle physical effects, is that the breaking of symmetry can be realized rather simply in the chemistry laboratory. According to Meir Lahav, one of the best known researchers in the field, breaking of symmetry is not the problem. He means by that, that the problem is rather the propagation and amplification of chirality. In sidebox 3.3 he summarizes some of the main concepts in particular, he considers crystals as agents of symmetry breaking (Weissbruch et al, 2003). 

Conceptually similar to those of Lahav are the experiments performed by Kon-depudi as well as by other groups working with saturated solutions of compounds, which exist in the crystal state in two enantiomorphous forms. In particular, the primary homogeneous nucleation process of the chiral crystals of sodium chlorate and sodium bromate is very slow compared to the sequential step of crystal growth. Kondepudi et al. (1990) and McBride et al. (1991) have demonstrated that when 

Crystals as agents for symmetry breaking and survival of homochirality in prebiotic chemistry 

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