On the Relative Measures of the Degrees of Chirality and General Asymmetry

Abstract Presented here are comparisons of the numerical measures for the degrees of chirality and analogous in addition to the less often used measures for some more general asymmetry types, and some general trends are investigated. The relations between these two types of measures reveal a virtual hierarchy of symmetry deficiencies, which appear informative from a chemical, but especially, from a biochemical perspective. The relative roles of various types of imperfect symmetries can be characterized by numerical measures, and these measures are suggested for correlations with some of the physically measurable properties of biochemically important molecules.