Last Update 26/ 03/ 2001
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Introduction
This page enables an interactive study of symmetry applied to crystallography and inorganic chemistry. The figure can be rotated around two rotation axes by the user. Every coloured sphere may represent a linkage in a coordination compound with chromium or cobalt at its centre, similar to those studied by Alfred Werner, first Nobel Prize laureate in inorganic chemistry in 1913.
Description
Initially the figure presents the octahedron with its four fold axis directed perpendicular to the monitor screen. Depending on the selected icons on the right side of the figure this may a two fold axis. It can be operated by a push and drag mouse action on the horizontal scrolling bar on the figure. After a push and drag mouse action on the scrolling bar at the bottom of the figure a two or three fold axis (or neither) can be oriented perpendicular to the monitor screen, depending on the selected object
Suggested symmetry exercise
Which of the available structures have two, three and four fold axis and which have more than one symmetry axis?
Bibliography
Huheey, J.E., Keiter, E.A. and Keiter, R.L., Inorganic Chemistry: Principles of Structure and Reactivity, HarperCollins Pub., N.Y., 1993, pg.387.
Cotton, F.A., Wilkinson, G. and Gauss, P.L., Basic Inorganic Chemistry, John Willey & Sons, N.Y., 1987, pg.160.
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