Small Molecules as Exemplars of Emergent Properties and Diversification into the ‘Adjacent Possible’

Emergent chemodiversity: The case of stereoisomerism in acyclic alkanes

The objective of this pen-and-paper study is to witness the emergence of stereoisomeric properties when comparing lower to higher families of homologs. Specifically, the study compares all acyclic hexanes (five constitutional isomers, a.k.a. regioisomers), all nine heptanes, all 18 octanes, all 35 nonanes, and all 75 decanes. The first part of the work examines the nature and number of stereoisomeric properties seen to emerge in chemical structures featuring one chiral center (i.e., enantiomerism) or two such centers, in which case more complex stereoisomeric features emerge (enantiomerism, diastereoisomerism, pseudoasymmetry, and meso-isomers). The first emergence of chirality (i.e., enantiomerism) occurred in some heptanes. Diastereoisomerism and meso-isomers appear with some octanes, while a pseudoasymmetric center exists in a decane regioisomer. The second part of the work is an attempt to rationalize the numbers of regioisomers, chiral centers, and stereoisomers as these numbers grow from one family of regioisomers to the higher ones. Far from being random, such increases prove regular and ordered.