Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
As observed in all consequent experiments, both left-handed (L) and right-handed (D) optical isomers were created in a racemic mixture.
|
I just want to point out that this last statement is the really hard part. Every naturally occurring building block of life is only one optical isomer. Getting a racemic mixture means that you have a 50:50 mix of each optical isomer (they are mirror images of each other). Nobody knows where this chirality (that's what this is called) came from but it is really neat either way. Synthesizing one optical isomer over the other one is extraordinarily difficult.