Had a pretty interesting Advanced Organic lecture today; had a short "debate" with Prof. Wu on one interesting phenomenon. He was teaching us on using Frontier Orbital Theory to account for reactivities of organic compounds and he asked us why is it that when we have an electron donating group like amine and oxide (the enolate type) directly bonded to an alkene, it will react with an alkyl halide whereas normal alkene won't react with alkyl halide. I answered that when there is an electron donating group bonded to an alkene, it's HOMO energy level will increase and it will lie closer to the C-X antibonding sigma orbital, thereby having a better overlap with it (less energy mismatch) and thus explains it's reactivity. I guess he didn't really get what I mean and he told the class that that is not the main reason. He explained saying that steric factor played a more important role here since when an alkene approaches an alkyl halide from the back (to do a SN2), it will kinda be difficult since the methyl group (in the case of methyl halide) will block it from approaching. However what I felt was that since C-X antibonding sigma orbital points in the opposite direction, there won't be much steric factor involved. He went on citing the example of proton extraction of methane via alkyl radical is easy but that methyl extraction of ethane is not easy; steric is the one involved. Hmm probably but I still feel that this can be explained via HOMO-LUMO gap as well; will not go into the details though.

Hmm anyway doesn't really matter since I've dropped him an email and waiting for his clarification.

I'll be going down to the University of Hong Kong for a Chemistry seminar tomorrow after class. The title of the seminar is "Towards homogenous Fischer-Tropsch catalysts" and the speaker is Prof. Malcolm Green from Oxford! He's a world renowned Prof. in the field of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry. Looking forward to this seminar. :)

Before that, I'll be having 2 tests ... stress ...