Organic chemistry describes the structures, properties, preparation and

reactions of
,
molecules called organic compounds. There are many different
organic compounds, but the main atom in all of them is carbon. These
carbon atoms form the carbon skeleton or carbon skeleton with other
attached atoms such as H,
N, O, S, and the halogens (F, Cl, Br, and I).
We often hear the term "organic" in everyday language where it
describes or refers to
"natural" substances. This probably stems from the understanding of
early scientists that all
,
organic compounds originated in living systems and had a "life force".
However,
chemists found out more than 170 years ago that this is not the case.
Organic compounds are the basic components of
living systems, but chemists can make many of them in the laboratory
from
substances that have no direct relation to living systems. Chemically, a
pure sample of an organic substance such as vitamin C prepared in a
laboratory is chemically
identical to a pure sample of vitamin C isolated from a natural source
such as an orange or other citrus fruit.
Your journey through organic chemistry will be difficult because you will
have to learn and understand a huge amount of information. However,
we study this
topic systematically, so that it is not a large number of individual facts.
What is learned in one chapter is the building blocks of material for the
next
,
chapters. In this sense, you may notice that organic chemistry is
different from general chemistry.
 The course consists of several separate subjects, which are usually
divided into separate sections in the
textbooks. Conversely, your organic chemistry teachers present a course
where each
new topic uses information from previous topics to take your
understanding of organic
chemistry to a progressively higher level.
This chapter provides a foundation for the study of organic chemistry. It
begins with an
introduction to important classes of organic molecules, followed by a
(
,5,9,11,12/98)(1,9,10/99) Neuman Chapter 1

chemical bonding description of these. molecules. It ends with a brief

overview of the various topics
in organic chemistry and a description of how we present them in this
text.
1.1 Organic molecules
All organic molecules contain carbon (C), almost all contain hydrogen
(H), and
most contain oxygen (O) and/or nitrogen (N) atoms. Many organic
molecules also have
halogen atoms, such as fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br) or iodine
(I). Other organic compound atoms
include sulfur (S), phosphorus (P) and even boron (B), aluminum (Al),
and magnesium (Mg).
The number of different types of atoms in organic compounds suggests
that they are structurally
complex. Fortunately, we find these atoms in relatively few special
solutions because of their favorable bonding properties. For example, C
atoms bond mainly to each other to form the molecular framework or
framework of organic molecules, while H atoms bond to different C
atoms or other atoms such as N and O, almost like a "skin" around the
- a molecule You can see some of these properties in the organic
molecule lauric acid
, which is one of a group of molecules called fatty acids. [Scheme 1.1]
Since atoms such as
N, O, and halogens (usually X) are attached to the carbon framework
in a typical manner that determines the properties of the molecule, we
call these atomic groups
functional groups. The functional groups define the class to which the
organic molecule belongs
.
Bonding properties of atoms
You can see that most of the atoms mentioned above are in the first
three rows
of the periodic table [Scheme 1.2] But their position in a particular
column of the
periodic table tells us how many chemical bonds they usually form with
other atoms in a
molecule. For example, C and Si are in the fourth column (group
A) and each
molecule usually has four bonds, while F, Cl, Br and I are in column 7A
and
they usually form only one bond.
periodic table. The partial periodic table shown here does not include
columns with "transition elements
" (groups 1B through 8B). We show them in the full periodic table inside
cover
of your text. Some of these transition elements occur in organic
molecules, but in much smaller amounts,
than the other atoms we have mentioned. We discuss mandatory
settings for transition elements
throughout the text where possible.