An analogous Twisted Little Tale on the significance of unusual infrared frequencies

Abstract

The autobiographical 2024 Brief Report published in Structural Chemistry by the heterocyclic chemist Professor José Elguero prompted the author to describe his recollections of a similar yet twisted little tale of an incident occurred in 1964 during his Organic Chemistry Ph.D. period at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The trait d’union between the two tales is the significance of unusual infrared frequencies in the characterization of newly synthesized organic compounds. The absence of an infrared band at the 1800–1900 cm⁻¹ region was a sufficient condition for ruling out a cyclopropanone structure (Elguero’s little tale). The presence of such an infrared band was a necessary condition for the presence of a triafulvene and triapentafulvalene systems (author’s twisted little tale). The related experience in the publication of Communications to the Editor articles in the Journal of the American Chemical Society is also described. A further teaching of the author’s tale is the importance of early learning of ethics and integrity in the scientific publication process.