Tetrahedral carbon and stereochemistry
Carbono tetraédrico y estereoquímica
- Date
- 1874 · confidence high
- Place
- Utrecht, Netherlands (van 't Hoff); Paris (Le Bel)
- Credited to
- Jacobus van 't Hoff and Joseph Le Bel (independently)
- People
- 👤 Joseph Le Bel1847–1930
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Carbon's four bonds point towards the vertices of a tetrahedron; a carbon with four different substituents is asymmetric and gives rise to enantiomers. It explains Pasteur's optical activity and gives molecules a three-dimensional shape.
Simultaneous publication (van 't Hoff in September, Le Bel in November 1874), with no contact between the two.
What it led to
- Stereochemistry
- Chemistry of chiral drugs
- Conformational chemistry
Built on
- Molecular chirality (Pasteur's tartrate resolution)1848
- Pasteur's chirality
- Kekule's structural theory
Made possible
- Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rules1951-1966
- three-dimensional molecule design