Symmetry is an important topic in chemistry. It is a
determining factor for many of the chemical's physical and reactive properties,
and is therefore a topic that should be touched upon even in first year
chemistry.
If you take a look at the
structures in the database, you will find that there are many molecules that
are obviously symmetrical:
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And some that are obviously not:
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But if you take a closer look, you
will find that it is actually pretty hard to find molecules that don't have a
plane of symmetry or an axis of rotation. Even the really large, complicated
ones are almost always symmetrical:
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So, the activity we suggest, is simply
to make an assignment or a class activity centered around finding molecules
that are symmetrical. I used the "full database" in this case, and searched by
shape. The database is great for this because the molecules rotate in all
directions, and its easy to find planes of rotation, and to visualize the
symmetry.