I loved playing with Lego when I was a young boy and I don't think it is an over-statement to say that the love of building more complicated constructions from simple Lego building blocks led, at least in part, to me becoming an organic chemist!

I distinctly remember the turning point in my organic chemistry studies. It was mid-way through my first full Organic Chemistry course. I felt like I was drowning in reactions and mechanisms. There seemed endless! So, I wrote them all out on a large sheet of paper, and stuck it to the back of the toilet door (TMI?). Eventually, after repeatedly seeing all those reactions written out, the patterns emerged and it started to make sense. The good news is that you don't need to re-decorate your water closet to get the same results!

Want to eat organic nomenclature problems up for breakfast? Let's put the system for naming alkanes to work and revise the process with one big, convoluted molecule - I'm calling it "alkane spaghetti"!  

Naming organic molecules is... complicated! Or, it can sure seem that way. There's alkynes of rules in organic nomenclature 🙂 What are the most important things to know when naming alkanes? What is a system for naming compounds? And, what is going to be on the exam?

I made an app! MoleculAR is an Augmented Reality app for iOS and Android that gives you the ability to visualize and interact with molecules. Point your device's camera at a MoleculAR structure in your lecture notes, and an interactive, 3D representation of that molecule will appear before your eyes!