Talk:Mod:holyzarquonsingingfish

1.1 Energies are spot on; the discussion of the thermodynamic vs. kinetic control and contributions to the strain in the dihydro products is accurate, but could have done with more detail.

1.2 Energy values are good again; the first dihedral angle is expected to be a little larger, but it is in the right orientation. Discussion of the mechanism is correct and the answer is nicely presented.

1.3 The CO-down isomer is indeed the most stable, but the value for your CO-up isomer is a bit high. It is a shame there is no jmol image uploaded to see what may have been the issue. Hyperstable olefin definition is good, the olefin strain cannot strictly be calculated by MM2 since the two molecules under comparison aren’t isomers.

1.4 It appears from the jmol images that the optimisations are fine (but it would be better to report the energy values as well). Contrary to what the literature report says, it does in fact seem possible to orientate each isomer into a reactive conformation, so the MM2 calculations can’t give the complete picture in this case. Factors that will facilitate the reaction are close approach of nucleophile (as you mentioned) and also angle of approach (e.g. Burgi-Dunitz)

1.5 MO orbital diagrams and calculations appear to be good, the C-Cl bond is in fact expected to become stronger when the exo alkene is hydrogenated, because this double bond donates electrons from its pi cloud into the C-Cl sigma* antibonding orbital.

MP - Good choice of project, your conclusions seem reasonable. It might have been useful to plot the differences between the experimental and calculated chemical shifts to show the how good the fit is.