• Marxism-Fennekinism
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    1 year ago

    This is, according to legend, what inspired the discovery of the benzene molecule, the first major instance of carbon rings being considered in chemistry. Supposedly, benezine had been isolated and had certain properties that chemists couldn’t really explain with their theory that it was an open molecule. The story goes that the discoverer had a dream of a snake eating its own tail, which led him to consider that “hey! Maybe benzene is a closed ring!” Specifically, that it’s a closed ring of six carbons with three single and three double bonds. Perfectly symmetrical and a planar (flat) molecule.

    Benzene is an extremely important industrial chemical building block, and benzo rings are everywhere in biology.