A MODERN TOPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF RING COMPOUND TAXONOMY CREATED BYREEXAMINING TAYLORS NOMENCLATURE SYSTEM

Taylor's seminal work on the nomenclature of organic chemistry remains a font for improving our understanding of chemical structure and taxo nomy. This report first examines the impact of various aspects of topo logy in constructing an 'efficient' taxonomy for molecular structure, with a view to including both organic and inorganic chemistry, and the n extends this system into new directions not anticipatable when Taylo r developed his organizational framework. Special emphasis is given to the dimensionality of the model used and the common practice of proje cting a molecule into a planar surface and examining the simplified im age so produced, with its faulty premise that such an image is isomorp hic with the actual molecule. This is followed by examining the practi ce of modeling molecules using 'simple' figures; in particular, the in herent mathematical problems associated with maintaining a bijection b etween a chemical molecule and a geometrical model. Such 'mappings' ar e of special interest when the chemical molecule, and thus the associa ted mathematical model, does not have a 'simple' geometry. (C) 1998 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.