Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 424
CHIRALITY OR SIDEDNESS IN NATURE image of the group moving from right to left cannot be superimposed on the group moving from left to right because of the opposite direction of their movement. . Likewise, though all molecules spin, all do not spin in the same direction. Some move from right to left, while others do so from left to right. Some compounds of exactly the same chemical formula may contain both the right spinning and the left spinning molecules suspended together in a single solution; while some others are composed only of such molecules as move in just one direction. But chirality is not confined to the molecular level alone, even the tiniest of subatomic particles display chirality. . THE EVIDENCE of chirality in nature. T ☐ hundred and fifty years ago. It came to light only some one. LOUIS PASTEUR was Louis Pasteur, the great French scientist who discovered chirality in the spin of molecules in 1848. It is a great tribute to his exceptional intelligence and keen observation that while examining a certain salt of tartaric acid he noticed that there were two types of crystals, each a mirror image of the other. He carefully separated the two, dissolved them in water and made a beam of light pass through the solution. . He was surprised to discover that the polarized light was rotated differently by the two specimens. One was rotated clockwise and the other anticlockwise. This clearly meant that the molecules of the two separated specimens of tartaric acid were either spinning to the right or to the left - neither could be superimposed on the other. This was the first ever case of chirality observed by scientists at the elemental level. '. Another singularly significant discovery in the same field was made yet again by Pasteur in 1857. One day he 413