Organizing Organic Chemical Reactions?

thethinkingilia asks: "I am studying organic chemistry and I am seeking an intelligent way to organize all the reactions that I am responsible for memorizing. In general, one can think of this as a directed state machine where a functional group can be transformed to another functional group given set conditions. It must be robust enough to allow for tens of states, the possibility of connection between any of said states, and be able to display not only the states, but conditions for transition between these states. This could be accomplished with HTML hyperlinks, but it would be great to have an elegant flow chart-type solution. Please, help me bring some software sanity to the life sciences!"

Comments

Now you want us to do your studying for you?

[Bootle]

Come on, this is ridiculous...

I took Organic in school, the only way to get through it is to suffer. My course was meant not to teach, but to weed out pre-meds. Damn! Don't forget the 5 hour labs where you sneeze and your whole yield is gone POOF!

Here's a great studying tip: suck it up! The alternative is to grow a pair and realize chemistry is crap and jump ship to the real science, physics! Everything else is stamp-collecting, as Rutherford said.

If I sound bitter it's just because I am. Goddamn pre-meds...

Re:Now you want us to do your studying for you?

[bmwm3nut]

IAAC, the memorizing is a terrible way to learn chemistry (actually it's a bad way to learn anything). you'll never learn anything by memorizing rules. the best thing to do is learn what's going on underneath, then you won't need to know 50 different reactions, just know the one guiding principle. how do you think your chemistry teacher knows all the reactions, i guarantee you that they don't memorize 1000's of reactions. they know trends: electrons usually go from here to there under these conditions. so rather than wasting your time cataloging reactions (repetition of work that's already been done in your book). take a step back and learn why the reaction happens.

Re:Now you want us to do your studying for you?

[ChuckleBug]

IAAC, the memorizing is a terrible way to learn chemistry (actually it's a bad way to learn anything). you'll never learn anything by memorizing rules.

This is partially true, but I think your generalization is too broad. There are some things in organic chem you just have to memorize. Easy things like names of functional groups and stuff, but also some named reactions are just too complex to be able to just derive from basic principles. Especially knowing reaction conditions. Do you need heat, a catalyst, an oxidizer or reducer, or what? You have to memorize what Tollen's reagent is, and so on. I agree that it's important to understand the broader concepts, but there's no way around a lot of memorization in organic.

I'm one of those weirdos who always loved this stuff. Organic labs produce the most wonderfully indescribable odors. Even something mundane, like pyridene, has an odor I have never been able to adequately describe to anyone. You have to experience it. (DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend inhaling large amounts of pyridene vapor.)

Re:Now you want us to do your studying for you?

[SilverspurG]

Have a biscuit

Implying that you know better than the teachers how best to teach

The success of the home schooling community supports my assertion.

Similar to how Linux, the made at home alternative, is drawing the attention of Microsoft.

Big bad federal government with all its power and authority and tax money still can't educate our children near as well as their own parents can if they can afford the proper tools and time. It's just too bad The Man is keeping most people down with the tax rate.

Honestly...

[Shadow Wrought]

Instead of focusing efforts on finding ways to organize all the information you have to memorize, just memorize it. Whatever time you've allotted, use to just study the stuff over and over again.