Chairs in Organic Chemistry

First-time Chair Club writer Rui has sent in a piece on the chair conformation of 6-membered rings. It's chemistry, but not how we know it...

In organic chemistry, we can sometimes draw a 6-membered ring, in the so called ‘chair conformation’.

6-membered ring, 6-membered ring in chair conformation and beach chair, for comparison.

Although practical and informative for chemists, up until recently, nobody really understood the importance of these structures. Recent research has conclusively demonstrated that these chair-like rings are in effect portals, passages between our reality (Earth 616) and the Chair Dimension (Earth 22) (also called Chair Zone, or just C-Zone.)

Artist’s impression of the C-Zone

The C-Zone has no free energy. Instead it is filled with matter, or, more precisely, chairs. Between two adjacent chairs, there is a 3rd chair, down to the C-Zone’s Exclusion Principle, that states that no chair can have less than one leg. This is just one example of how the laws of physics are different in this new reality.

Many have suggested that these microportals could very well explain the origins of Captain Chair’s powers, without the need for toxic waste or chickens, but they were probably:<p>

a) lying,
b) misinformed,
c) drunk,
d) don’t know who or what Captain Chair is.

Chair-like conformations also minimize the bond strain on 6-membered rings in organic molecules, but we prefer the C-Zone explanation.

- Rui, June 2006

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