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Milchar
May-June 2004 issue
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Kashmir's International KP Logo - Proposed
& Designed by Sandeep Sopori, USA
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Children’s Page
… Compiled by ‘Kostur’
The Ourobouros of Organic Chemistry
One of the most famous aromatic compounds in organic chemistry is benzene, whose molecules each consist of six carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms: but what is benzene's molecular structure? Today, the answer to this question is well known, but during much of the nineteenth century, it was a profound mystery.
One night, after yet another fruitless attempt to discover the structure, German chemist Friedrich August Kekule fell asleep and dreamed a bizarre dream in which the various atoms of benzene were cavorting all around him, combining and recombining in a dizzy phantasmagoria of shapes. Suddenly, right before his amazed eyes, they united to form an ourobouros - a snake-like dragon that clasps its own tail in its mouth, forming a ring. Instantly, Kekule awoke and knew that at last he had found the answer: the six carbon atoms of benzene were linked to one another not in a line, or in a series of branched connections, but in a closed ring! And he was right.
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