In: Chemistry
How can enatiomers have the same chemical and physical properties- even have the same systematic name- but be completely different compunds? I am a little confused on this.
These are just like your right and left hands. Compare with your hands such that you can understand it better. If you check the atoms/groups clockwise in a chiral carbon by placing the least/highest priority group at the top, you can see the differences. But overall it will look like the same(!). Enantiomers have the same chemical structure and bonds but differ in the placement of atoms/groups such that they are mirror images of each other. It only differs when the chiral environment is present chemically and it will rotate the plane polarised light in opposite direction.