Mnemonics for Sugars
Mohammed Farooq
(-OH) groups in the monsaccharides. I found few "old" mnemonics for
remembering the names in series the web such as "All altruists gladly
make gum in gallon tanks" for allose, altrose, glucose, mannose,
gulose,idose, galactose,talose.
Any suggestions.
Thanks
David Bostwick
How long has this one been around? I learned it in 1970.
Mohammed Farooq
How did you learn their stereochemistry?
João Antonio
Doesn't it sound medieval to you?
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Mohammed Farooq
> Mnemonics for stereochemistry of sugars...
> Doesn't it sound medieval to you?
PSmith9626
Visual mnemonics are very medieval. Check out " The art of memory" by F. Yates.
They are based on visual images and so appropriate for stereochem.
best
Penny
dave e
Mnemonics isn't generally helpful for memorizing structures (which is
more of a geometry problem). I suggest you obtain a model kit, and
build the structures, then take them apart and build them again. Then
draw them on paper. Practice many times.
Dave
João Antonio
student, but I find memorising such things (when you can
easily find it in a book) unnecessary display of wasted
brainspace.
But it's just a personal view.
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Mohammed Farooq
> Maybe that's beacuse I'm no longer an undergraduate
> student, but I find memorising such things (when you can
> easily find it in a book) unnecessary display of wasted
> brainspace.
> But it's just a personal view.
Einstein held the same view. Einstein was once asked how many feets
are in a mile. Einstein's reply was "I don't know. Why should I fill
my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard
reference book?"
Why do you think people memorise the periodic table?
Steve Turner
>Einstein held the same view. Einstein was once asked how many feets
>are in a mile. Einstein's reply was "I don't know. Why should I fill
>my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard
>reference book?"
But I'll bet that Einstein had memorized plenty of things relevent to
his work. The number of feet in a mile didn't qualify as being
relevant to his work. A surveyor, on the other hand, had better know
this figure or he's going to look incompetent.
Steve Turner
Real address contains worldnet instead of spamnet
Eric Lucas
"Steve Turner" <srtu...@spamnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:a60vjv8q2qar3nl9n...@4ax.com...
> faro...@hotmail.com (Mohammed Farooq) wrote:
>
> >Einstein held the same view. Einstein was once asked how many feets
> >are in a mile. Einstein's reply was "I don't know. Why should I fill
> >my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard
> >reference book?"
>
> But I'll bet that Einstein had memorized plenty of things relevent to
> his work. The number of feet in a mile didn't qualify as being
> relevant to his work. A surveyor, on the other hand, had better know
> this figure or he's going to look incompetent.
Good point, but it goes much farther than looking incompetent--the only way
I can actually perform my job at a minimal level is by having memorized
certain facts up front. In the creative processes in my daily work, I need
to know the relationship of the elements in the periodic table. If I have
to go and look them up every time I tried to dream up a new reaction, or
speculate about the mechanism of a reaction I observe, it would drastically
slow down my thought processes. Given that I have the attention span of a
small mollusk sometimes, I need to see those relationships and move on to my
next thought as quickly as possible. My job would simply not be possible if
I didn't know the locations of the elements in the periodic table. It
seemed silly when I memorized the periodic table in college, but as my
career has proceeded, I'm glad I did. I imagine anyone who works with
carbohydrate chemistry will find the same thing with the stereochemistries
of the different isomers. Yes, not everybody who learns carbohydrate
chemistry needs that information...but a school would be remiss if it didn't
teach it to those who do need to know it just because there's someone in the
class who doesn't.
I agree with modern education's view of teaching concepts as a means of
teaching a person how to think. However, take it from someone who has made
chemistry his career--you just simply can't get around memorizing some
facts, too. If you have to derive every fact from first principles every
time you use it, you're not going to have much brain power left over to do
anything else!
Eric Lucas
Eric Lucas
"dave e" <dgen...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:10ffa4e4.03081...@posting.google.com...
I took carbohydrates from Derek Horton as an undergrad, and about all I
(think I) remember of the structures is *all*ose has *all* of its OHs on the
same side (in a Haworth projection), *tal*ose has the last (*tail*) OH on
the opposite side (C5, as C6 is a non-stereogenic center), and glucose (from
sheer frequency of usage) has the third OH on the opposite side. I suspect
if I'd used a verbal mnemonic (or if I actually used the information on a
daily basis since then), then I would probably still remember the rest.
Eric Lucas
Mohammed Farooq
There is an article in the Journal of Chemical Education by the title:
"SOS: A Mnemonic for the Stereochemistry of Glucose" by Ronald
Starkey. The abstract of which is that the mnemonic SOS (Same,
Opposite, Same) can be helpful to recall the stereochemistry in either
D-glucose or L-glucose. It refers to the configurations of C-2, C-3,
and C-4 relative to that of C-5 in an aldohexose.
I don't have access to J.Chem.Ed, though.
Has anyone read this article?
João Antonio
It's available at my university, unfortunately only
print issues, no pdf.
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dave e
> news:66756669.03081...@posting.google.com...
> > "Eric Lucas" <eal...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > >
> > > (think I) remember of the structures is *all*ose has *all* of its OHs on
> the
> > > same side (in a Haworth projection), *tal*ose has the last (*tail*) OH
> on
> > > the opposite side (C5, as C6 is a non-stereogenic center), and glucose
> (from
> > > sheer frequency of usage) has the third OH on the opposite side. I
> suspect
> > > if I'd used a verbal mnemonic (or if I actually used the information on
> a
> > > daily basis since then), then I would probably still remember the rest.
> > >
> > > Eric Lucas
> >
> > There is an article in the Journal of Chemical Education by the title:
> > "SOS: A Mnemonic for the Stereochemistry of Glucose" by Ronald
> > Starkey. The abstract of which is that the mnemonic SOS (Same,
> > Opposite, Same) can be helpful to recall the stereochemistry in either
> > D-glucose or L-glucose. It refers to the configurations of C-2, C-3,
> > and C-4 relative to that of C-5 in an aldohexose.
> > I don't have access to J.Chem.Ed, though.
> > Has anyone read this article?
>
Starkey's article can be found in Journal of Chemical Education, June
2000
Vol. 77 No. 6 p. 734. Sorry, I don't have a copy.
Back when I had to memorize that crap, I learned "galactose" because
the symetry of the Fischer projection reminded me of a galactic space
ship, flying toward the left.
D-Galactose:
CO
C--OH
HO--C
HO--C
C--OH
COH
And the Fischer projection for D-glucose (which also starts with the
letter "g") differs only in the fourth carbon.
Bear in mind:
Use of mneumonics of to learn stereochemistry is like using mneumonics
to learn to ride a bicycle. Sure, you can memorize the pithy phrase
"PRetty PLease, Roger", then learn that this means "Pedal Right, Pedal
Left, Repeat." But you won't know how to ride until you get on the
damn bicycle.
Stereochemistry of 6 carbon sugars is a piece of trivia, you will
likely never use again (beyond the next exam). The ability to think
stereoscopically is a transferable skill. Build models to learn
stereochemistry. Study the models carefully, then come up with your
own mneumonic devices to learn the names.
Dave