Foundations of Organic Chemistry

Take a more detailed look at atomic structure and chemical bonding. What exactly drives an atom's desire to bond? What are the differences between ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and polar covalent bonds? How does the hybridization of atomic orbitals work, and how does it explain the complex geometries of carbon frameworks?

Investigate some of the key methods scientists employ to communicate the right structural information about molecular compounds, including their identity, the ratio of elements that comprise them, and their connectivity. Explore Fischer projections, Newman projections, and stereoimages - all of which help us overcome the challenges of conveying the three-dimensional positions of atoms.

You've learned how to depict molecules as they exist at a single point in time. How about as time passes? The answer: much like a cartoonist. Here, learn about this scientific art form, including writing reaction schemes, expanding them into elementary steps, using curved arrows to chart molecular progress, and more.

Focus on the first of several fundamental classes of reactions you'll encounter throughout this course: the proton transfer reaction. You'll learn the three classifications of acids and bases; the Arrhenius, Bronsted-Lowry, and Lewis definitions; how chemists predict proton transfer reaction outcomes; two kinds of intramolecular proton transfer reactions; and more.

Make sense of a crucial concept in organic chemistry: the handedness of molecules, or, as chemists call it, "chirality." Topics include the definition of chiral tetrahedral centers; the creation of stereoisomer sets via inversion of handedness; and intriguing examples of stereoisomers (including enantiomers and double-bonded stereoisomers) and their unique chiral centers.

Start examining various classes of organic compounds with alkanes, whose hydrocarbons consist entirely of hydrogen and carbon. How can a few simple carbon atoms lead to millions of possible alkane structures? How does structure affect their physical properties? And what curious role did they play in 19th-century whaling?

Turn now to cyclic alkanes, in which the closing of a loop of carbons forms a whole new class of alkanes with properties all their own. As you learn more about this new class of hydrocarbons, you'll cover the phenomenon of ring strain, the equilibrium between chair conformers, and bicyclic hydrocarbons.

How can pi bonds change the chemistry of hydrocarbons? How did one of the greatest rivalries in chemistry lead to an understanding of trends in stability among regio- and stereoisomers with the same molecular formula? Why do terminal alkynes have such unusual acidity? Professor Davis has the answers to these and other questions.

Explore alkyl halides, hydrocarbons where one or more hydrogen atoms are replaced by a halogen atom. You'll examine how larger halogen atoms decrease the volatility of alkyl halides compared to their alkane counterparts (which radically changed the science of refrigeration). You'll also learn about the reactivity of alkyl halides and the phenomenon of carbocation rearrangements.