Talk:Mod:cb208

1.2.1 Cp dimers: Jmols? Not the clearest explanation of kinetic vs thermodynamic control, or the endo rule. Your energies are good.

1.2.2 NAD: Nice minimisation. Your answers are good, if a little brief.

1.2.3 Taxol: Your cyclohexane in 9 is not in a twist-boat, it’s a chair! Your energies are spot on.

1.3.1 Carbene: Jmols? Your molecule has a plane of symmetry yet your orbitals are not symmetrical. This is something I would have expected you to pick up on. The problem is caused by a bug in MOPAC PM6. Moral of the story: question the results the computer gives you, learn to identify these errors and how cope with them.

Mini-project: An actual mechanism in the ‘Reaction Mechanism’ section would have been nice. It’s a very lucky man who finds any assignments for 13C in the literature. Nice to see you presenting the differences in a graph, pity it’s between the experimental NMRs and not between your predictions and the experimental values. Do you really think C16 will resonate at 218ppm? The molecule would not change its structure!

Overall: Your explanations were a tad shaky in places, you need to be more thorough in your writing to demonstrate a deeper understanding (do not confuse this with adding waffle for the sake of it!). Some good work here though.