Talk:Organic chemistry

oragnic compound

I'm not ready officially to propose a merger, but could organic compound be merged with this article? Olin 21:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Although there is some obvious overlap between the two articles, I think there are enough differences so that each warrants a separate article. Edgar181 15:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Considering that an organic compound is a noun in the sense of being a 'physical' object, whereas organic chemistry is a concept or subject, they don't seem to be possible for merging. I can understand what organic chemistry is, but I may want specifics on organic compounds. Better to leave them divided rather than clutter this page up.--OMG LAZERS 13:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

definition of organic chemistry

Why don't we say that the subject of chemistry has two main divisions: 'inorganic chemistry' which deals with the elements and naturally occurring chemical compounds, and 'organic chemistry' which deals with the rest ?

From the introduction the reader does not realise the fact that the 'organic' name has become a misnomer, and how it has become such. (A hypertext reference to carbon is not enough). How the name 'organic compound' has originated from the fact that these compounds are important constituents of living, or once living organisms, and that they were found always to contain carbon, and that the 'organic' context has now been superseeded in reality by the fact that carbon compounds found in organisms and compounds like them can be and are being artificially manufactured. Thus: organic chemistry could be justifiably called 'carbon chemistry' because the number of carbon compounds that 'inorganic chemistry' could justifiably deal with is a negligible proportion of the totality. LouisBB 07:40, 14 April 2006

Reactions

My goal is to eventualy organize them by type (i.e.: amine, benzene, alkyl, etc...). Does anyone think it might be better to move them to their own page, as this list can get extensive?

It would be nice if you could flesh them out or reorganize things. As it is right now, it's sort of an indiscriminate collection of information. Isopropyl 02:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The Organic reaction page, linked from the beginning of the "Organic Reactions" section that you edited, already has a good start, including links to the many existing relevant subpages. DMacks 02:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I see. I didn't notice the link. I'll remove my list and work on that page. Also sorry about the indiscriminate collection of information, I did plan on working on it to make it more informative over time. Thanks for the page, though. I'm new and need to start reading more of the guidlines now that I want to post. jimktrains 12:51am 18 Apr 2006 (EST)

Naming of organic compounds

What is the correct and most common method (or most modern) for naming organic compounds? I have been taught to name the chemicals in the table below as follows (see bold names). What naming method is most commonly used in the real world?

Family name	Functional group	Example		Note No
Alcohol	-OH	Methanol	CH3OH
Aldehyde	-(H)O	Methanal	HCH(O)	1.
Ketone	=O	Propan-2-one	CH3-C(O)-CH3
Ether	-O-	Methoxymethane	CH3-O-CH3
Amines	=N-,or =NH,or –NH2	Dimethylamine	CH3-NH-CH3
Carboxylic acid	-C(O)OH	Methanoic acid	H-C(O)OH	2.
Ester	-C(O)O-	Methyl methanoate	H-C(O)O-CH3

The real question is do you want to be IUPAC-compliant or do you just want to communicate, and if the latter, what's the audience? Yours are correct by IUPAC, but they are fairly rare in modern literature (especially in the US) and most other situations where the goal is "communication" not "pedantic correctness". Maybe pay a visit to Organic nomenclature. DMacks 20:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• Do we really need this table? Keeping this table up to date seems to me mission impossible IV The complete table is already maintained in functional group V8rik 23:18, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

opening sentence not an improvement

Currently a lot of work done on the opening line but the quality deteriorates. The text even contains redlinks. There was nothing wrong in my mind with the opening line of lets say 2 months ago:

Organic chemistry is the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and synthesis of organic compounds that by definition contain carbon. It is a specific discipline within the subject of chemistry. Organic compounds are molecules composed of carbon and hydrogen, and may contain any number of other elements. Many organic compounds contain nitrogen, oxygen, halogens, and more rarely phosphorus or sulphur. V8rik 23:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Alteration of Aromatic and Polymers sections

These two sections need extensive revision and are factually incorrect. For example, the word hydroaromatic is made up, there is no mention of the chair confomration in cyclohexanes, no mention of the rules of aromaticity i.e. cyclic, conjugated, planar, 4n + 2 pi electrons, the random placing of the words "radical" and "monomer" in the polymer section to render the first sentence inconprehensible!

Note polymers can be constructed by radical and condensation reactions and the term monomer is defined as sub unit that the polymer is derived from.