Optical Activity and Chiral Discrimination : Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute held at the University of Sussex, Falmer, England, September 10-22, 1978

For Louis Pasteur, the two distinctive properties of dissymmetric systems, optical activity and chiral discrimination, provided prime evidence for a Divine origin to the universe. Handedness appeared to be built into the macrocosm of the galaxies, each with a non-superposable mirror image by virtue of its rotation, as well as the microcosm of each molecule of most natural products. The best that the chemist in the laboratory could accomplish appeared to be the synthesis of the detordu internally-compensated meso-form and, as Pasteur ultimately came to admit, the externally-compensated racemic­ form. In the latter case the chemist generated not merely one but two chiral structures, although parity, and secondary­ symmetry generally, seemed to be conserved in the enantiomer­ antipode pair. The cosmic element in the Pasteur tradition received an augmentation in secular form from demonstrations of the non­ conservation of parity in the weak interactions, and from the discovery of net circularity in the extra-terrestrial photons, such as those from the less-distant planets, particularly the photons from the Jupiter red-spot. The development of the photoacoustic circular analysers a decade ago was received in fact with as much enthusiasm by the astronomers as by the chemists. It would be just to add, however, that the majority of these circular analysers are now to be found, not in the observatories, but in the physical and chemistry laboratories devoted to the molecular aspects of the Pasteur tradition. Front Matter....Pages i-xi General Models for Optical Activity....Pages 1-24 Chiroptical Properties of Organic Compounds: Chirality and Sector Rules....Pages 25-41 Chiroptical Properties of Organic Compounds: Some Applications to Unsaturated Systems....Pages 43-55 Circular Dichroism and Fluorescence Detected Circular Dichroism of Macromolecules....Pages 57-85 Natural and Magnetic Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy in the Vacuum Ultraviolet....Pages 87-106 The Optical Activity of Lanthanide and Transition Metal Complexes....Pages 107-160 The Ligand Polarization Model for the Spectra of Metal Complexes....Pages 161-187 Circular Polarization Differentials in the Luminescence of Chiral Systems....Pages 189-217 Raman Optical Activity....Pages 219-262 Vibrational Circular Dichroism: The Experimental Viewpoint....Pages 263-287 A Vibrational Rotational Strength of Extraordinary Intensity. Azidomethemoglobin A....Pages 289-292 Chiral Discrimination....Pages 293-318 The Dispersion and other Chiral Discriminations....Pages 319-337 Diastereoisomeric Discriminations in Chiral Metal Complexes....Pages 339-351 The Origin of the Pfeiffer Effect....Pages 353-367 Back Matter....Pages 369-372