Application of the Permutation Group to Stereoisomer Generation for Computer Assisted Structure Elucidation

The purpose of this paper is to describe a recent effort to generate, classify, and enumerate the stereoisomers of all organic chemical structures consistent with a given empirical formula. The resulting theory is then converted into an algorithm which is programmed for a computer. The resulting program is used as an aid for computer assisted structure elucidation (1). The proper group theoretical formulation is the key to the solution of the problem and will be discussed here. Simply stated, the problem is to generate, classify and enumerate the possible stereoisomers for an organic chemical structure of defined constitution. (Constitution is the specification of the atoms in the molecule and their connectivity by bonds).