Names You Can Draw: Naming Compounds | General Chemistry 1.11

Sulfuric acid was once called oil of vitriol, a name that said nothing about what it is. This episode shows how a chemical name became a recipe: the 1787 system of endings that count charge and oxygen, Roman numerals for metals like iron(II) and iron(III), Greek prefixes for molecules, and the Geneva and IUPAC rules that let you draw an organic molecule from its name. By the end you can decode names like 2-methylbutane, cyclohexane, ethanol and ethanoic acid. Chapters 0:00 Oil of vitriol and a name that is a recipe 0:31 Why names must carry structure 1:41 1787: a method of chemical naming 2:19 Five endings on one root 2:52 Naming simple salts 3:39 Iron(II) and iron(III) 4:20 The oxyanion ladder 5:29 Naming acids 5:57 Decoding a name 6:16 Two nonmetals: Greek prefixes 7:02 Geneva 1892: naming organic compounds 7:39 Alkane chains 8:07 Branches and numbering 8:51 A harder case: finding the longest chain 9:25 Rings and cyclo- 10:08 IUPAC and the Roman numerals 10:39 The ending names the family 11:33 A few syllables, a whole molecule 12:05 Three things to take away Reference: Steven S. Zumdahl and Susan A. Zumdahl, *Chemistry*, 7th ed, section 2.8. Historical sources: Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet and Fourcroy, Méthode de nomenclature chimique (1787): https://archive.org/details/b2803806x · Method of Chemical Nomenclature, English translation by St. John (1788): https://archive.org/details/bim_eight... · Armstrong, The International Conference on Chemical Nomenclature, Nature 46, 56 (1892): https://archive.org/details/sim_natur... · IUPAC, Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (Red Book, 2005), history of the Stock system: https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/bibliog/RedB... · IUPAC Blue Book, preface (Geneva 1892, Liège 1930, IUPAC 1957): https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/BlueBook/P0.... · IUPAC, Our history: https://iupac.org/who-we-are/our-hist... Previous episode: 1.2 "Silver Tree". Next episode: 1.3 "Why Gases Are Simple". Narration: AI voice (ElevenLabs); music: AI-generated (Lyria) and original synthesized tracks.