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Topic: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012  (Read 17524 times)

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Offline Borek

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Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« on: September 17, 2012, 12:56:12 PM »
An olefin reacting with Br2 yields a substance containing 69.50% bromine and a single chiral carbon. Name the olefin.
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Offline fledarmus

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2012, 01:42:19 PM »
I'll try this one! How about "George"? Or maybe "Bob"? Or "Sue"...


Offline discodermolide

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2012, 01:46:05 PM »
I think I know the answer, but will not spoil it for others.
But following Fledarmus's lead I will call it Fred as in Flintstone.
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Offline Borek

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2012, 01:54:11 PM »
Nice try, but I was thinking about more systematic approach  :P
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Offline discodermolide

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2012, 03:08:38 PM »
Well I used my drawing tools, which give elemental analysis. Going through the parameters you give it spat out Fred Flintstone.
I stlll don't want to spoil it for others. You must insist that I provide an answer. But let's wait a bit >:D
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Offline CrazyAssasin

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2012, 03:26:00 PM »
I'm not certain about the answer, but I think it's should be 2-metil-1-butene

Offline Rutherford

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2012, 10:21:14 AM »
I don't understand how only one olefin could be the answer. I got two actually.

Offline CrazyAssasin

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2012, 10:38:36 AM »
Could you name them, because I can find only one.

Offline Rutherford

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2012, 11:13:25 AM »
Yours, and 1-pentene, which has a chiral C atom too (H, Br, CH2Br and C3H7 are bonded to him).

Offline CrazyAssasin

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2012, 11:27:01 AM »
Yes you're right, I didn't think about this one.

Offline fledarmus

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2012, 01:22:10 PM »
What about 2-methyl-2-butene?

Offline Rutherford

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2012, 01:42:24 PM »
Yes, that one has a chiral C, too.

Offline Schrödinger

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2012, 01:56:47 PM »
Yeah, so don't we have 3 possibilities? Just consolidating : pent-2-ene, 2-methylbut-1-ene and 2-methylbut-2-ene.
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Offline Borek

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #13 on: September 18, 2012, 02:07:22 PM »
You should already know if the question I posted contains word "chirality", something must be wrong  >:D

More seriously, question was intentionally lousy. To be honest I didn't even know how lousy it is - that is, I knew of two possible reasons why the answer is not unique (BTW: one was not yet mentioned in the thread, although I was contacted by PM by fledarmus), could be there are even more problems with the question. But I wanted to stir a discussion and I know from experience best way to catch your attention is to post some kind of nonsense  :P

I wanted to ask you about Problem of the Week - do you think it makes sense to continue (I do plan to), do you have any ideas about how to make it more interesting, do you know questions that you think will fit, or perhaps you just have an idea that you think could be made into an interesting question with some work?
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Offline Rutherford

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Re: Problem of the week - 17/09/2012
« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2012, 03:43:45 PM »
" do you think it makes sense to continue"
Continue please, there were many interesting problems.
These are my favorites till now:
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=59349.0 interesting because of the story
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=57924.0 interesting because of using more maths (quadratic inequality)
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=58982.0 one really really nice problem. Would like to see similar.
I didn't like some of the inorganic guessing tasks (this is only my modest opinion of course), and I would like to see organic more (would be nice to have some problem of the week in the organic section that is for students-not professionals. I started to learn it 3 months ago and I found it very interesting, but never mind).

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