What is chiral and achiral in organic chemistry and what is the definition of electrophile and nucleophile?
Taking the last, first. The root words are nucleus loving and its conjugate (see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleophile… Chiral and achiral are names applied to compounds that are defined by their ability to rotate a plane of polarized light Chiral ones do, achiral ones do not. By definition then chiral compounds have one or more Cs that have 4 different groups attached (the simplest definition). Achiral ones have no carbons that are ‘assymetric’ (four different groups attached). All the groups attached to all the Cs have a similar group attached. There is a special group of chemicals that are achiral, but do have Cs that have different groups; such is meso tartaric acid. It’s achiral because in the meso form (or so called d,l form), there is a point or plane of symmetry when the molecule is looked at as a whole.
