What’s in a name? As it turns out in chemistry EVERYTHING

Chemists like things to be clear, and the way they succinctly and unambiguously name molecules serves to clearly describe each one- you just* have to become familiar with the rules of IUPAC nomenclature and the wonder of Fischer Projections.

I spent many hours this week learning basic carbohydrate terminology and practicing my Fischer Projections. Fischer Projection is a convenient way of drawing molecules that have multiple stereocenters and they look something like this:

 

Figure 1: The Fischer projection of the aldose D-glucose and the ketose D-fructose.

(*unfortunately, there are many, many rules and just when you think you know them all they become updated! But, don’t be discouraged only chemists are responsible for the truly complicated larger molecules!)