Homework Help: Organic Chemistry

Posted by Sam on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 7:16pm.

This is a bit weird to me. We're doing R and S configurations and I think of it as a steering wheel - steering to the right is an R configuration and steering to the left is an S configuration.

These questions are drawn out as molecules in our book and I listed them going clockwise.
So..

If a chiral center has an H, OH, C-CH3 and CH3 shouldn't it be an R configuration? Why is it S..(according to the solutions manual)

If a chiral center has a H, OCH3, CO2H, HOCH2, then shouldn't that be R as well.. Why is it S?

In the compound Prostaglandin E1 there are 4 chiral centers. Apparently there are 3 Rs and 1 S. I don't understand the S. Shouldn't that be an R?

Is there anyway anyone can explain the priority thing to me because that's where I'm confused when it comes to bigger molecules. Thanks!

Organic Chemistry - GK, Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 5:25pm
Study the references below:

1. For the R/S system in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)

2. For assigning priorities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahn_Ingold_Prelog_priority_rules

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