How can a compound be achiral if it has a chiral(s) center?
A compound that has only one chiral (or asymmetric center) will always have stereoisomers. However, a compound that has two asymmetric centers and is symmetric will have three stereoisomers. A pair of enantiomers and a meso compound. The two enantiomers are optically active and the mseo compound, the answer to your question is not, therefore it is achiral. The reason it is achiral is because when you take the mirror image of the compound, it will be the same. Therefore it is superimposable and is not optially active. An example is CH3CHBrCHBrCH3 Here you can see that the two asymmetric centers are the two C’s bonded to the Br’s. It is hard to explain without pictures but if you draw the dashed-wedge diagram for one of the three CH3CHBrCHBrCH3 configurations and try try to take the mirror image of that, you will have the same configuration. This is the meso compound. An easy way to tell if it is a meso compound is if it has a plane of symmetry. In the case of CH3CHBrCHBrCH3, there is a
