How are dextrorotatory compounds, laevorotatory compounds, D form and L form different from each other?
1 Answer
These are very old terms, but they relate to chiral compounds. The
Explanation:
You know (I think) that organic compounds exhibit optical isomerism. Carbons (generally but not exclusively attached to 4 different groups) have the possibility of handedness; they exhibit a type of geometric isomerism such that the left handed isomer cannot be superimposed on the right. (Think of your left and right hands; they are mirror images but you can't superimpose your left hand on your right hand, nor your left hand on your identical twin's right hand.)
Pasteur in the 19th century laboriously separated left and right-handed crystals of sugars. He found that the left and right-handed forms would rotate plane-polarized light in opposite directions; hence the
