Chapter 4 Homework Questions

1. What is the difference between organic and inorganic chemistry?

2. What is vitalism and how does it relate to organic chemistry?

3. How many possible oxidation states are there for carbon? Given an example of the most reduced form of carbon and the most oxidized.

4. How many different types of isomers are there and what are their names? How are they distinguished from one another?

5. List all the functional groups that are important to biological molecules.

6. Which functional groups would be considered basic? which neutral? which acidic?

7. What is the base molecule for estridiol (estrogen) and testosterone? By how many functional groups do the differ?

8. What is thalidomide? L-Dopa?

9. How many possible enantiomers of glucose are there? Which is biologically important?