Molecular orbitals and organic chemical reactions

the long version

As a sequel to 'Frontier Orbitals', this book is both a simplified account of molecular orbital theory and a review of its applications in organic chemistry. This text provides a basic introduction to organic chemistry with illustrative examples. Molecular orbital theory is used by chemists to describe the arrangement of electrons in chemical structures. It is also a theory capable of giving some insight into the forces involved in the making and breaking of chemical bonds--the chemical reactions that are often the focus of an organic chemist's interest. Organic chemists with a serious interest in understanding and explaining their work usually express their ideas in molecular orbital terms, so much so that it is now an essential component of every organic chemist's skills to have some acquaintance with molecular orbital theory. Molecular Orbitals and Organic Chemical Reactions is both a simplified account of molecular orbital theory and a review of its applications in organic chemistry; it provides a basic introduction to the subject and a wealth of illustrative examples. In this book molecular orbital theory is presented in a much simplified, and entirely non-mathematical language accessible to every organic chemist, whether student to research worker, whether mathematically competent or not. This book serves in a sense as a second edition of the author's influential earlier book Frontier Orbitals and Organic Chemical Reactions, but has been completely rewritten, greatly enlarging the chapters on molecular orbital theory itself, and on the effect of orbital interactions on the structures of organic molecules. There is more on the theoretical basis for the principle of hard and soft acids and bases, adn a whole chapter on the stereochemistry of the fundamental organic reactions. Correlation diagrams have been added to the discussion of pericyclic chemistry, and a great deal more in that, the largest chapter. A number of new topics, both omissions from the earlier book adn work that has taken place in the intervening years, are included, adn there are more words of caution in discussing frontier orbital theory itself.