Abstract
WHAT Dr. Dyson has given us in this volume is less a book on nomenclature than a ‘blueprint’ or a code manual for the professional indexer. Although the system of notation which he describes demands, and indeed merits, careful scrutiny and examination by organic chemists who are specialists in different fields, it can scarcely be regarded as a contribution to the problem of organic chemical nomenclature properly understood, and the ordinary organic chemist will find what he requires in Dr. Dyson's original lecture last October as since published by the Royal Institute of Chemistry rather than in the present book. The major part of the book is devoted to a careful and detailed exposition of Dr. Dyson's system of ciphering, in which the basic carbon skeleton is first ciphered by a linear series of letters and numerals, with the assistance of commas, stops and semi-colons. All fused-ring systems are enumerated in terms of six conventional ring systems. The functional groups are then similarly ciphered, and the system is logical as well as ingenious and concise. Dr. Dyson claims, moreover, that it has the advantage that there is only one possible cipher for any one chemical compound.
A New Notation and Enumeration System for Organic Compounds
By Dr. G. Malcolm Dyson. Pp. iv + 63. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1947.) 7s. 6d. net.
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BRIGHTMAN, R. Names Into Cipher. Nature 160, 175 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160175a0