Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives
Published on: February 7, 2017
Isotope chirality in long-armed multifunctional organosilicon ("Cephalopod") molecules
Béla Barabás1, Róbert Kurdi2, Claudia Zucchi3
1Department of Mathematics, University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary.
Abstract:
Long-armed multifunctional organosilicon molecules display self-replicating and self-perfecting behavior in asymmetric autocatalysis (Soai reaction). Two representatives of this class were studied by statistical methods aiming at determination of probabilities of natural abundance chiral isotopomers. The results, reported here, show an astonishing richness of possibilities of the formation of chiral isotopically substituted derivatives. This feature could serve as a model for the evolution of biological chirality in prebiotic and early biotic stereochemistry.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...
Naming Enantiomers
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Stereoisomerism of Cyclic Compounds
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...
Prochirality

