Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 11 Solid-state structure
of a [3]catenate from
Sauvage's group. The use of
color gives unprecedented
clarity (and beauty) to the
image. Reprinted with
permission from [
74
]
(copyright 1987 Wiley-VCH)
Gradually, color made its way past crystal structures and into ordinary structural
drawings (Fig.
12
). Although we were confronted with heavy criticism, our group
was an active participant in this movement, even in the face of what appeared to be
extortionate costs imposed by some journal editors. Our first use of color in primary
publications came with the initial report of cyclobis(paraquat-
p
-phenylene)
(CBPQT
4+
) in two communications [
79
,
80
] in 1988. Since then, both CBPQT
4+
and the use of color have become major workhorses in mechanostereochemistry.
From the very beginning we have used royal blue to represent
p
-acceptors (which is
why CBPQT
4+
is known as the little blue box) and pillar-box red to represent
p
-donors, and have stayed true to this motif to this day (Fig.
12a,b
). Though we
were among the minority of scientists who chose this approach at the beginning,
today the use of color has spread to many research groups and well beyond MIMs;
now scientists in most fields of chemistry use color very effectively to enhance
clarity and comprehension.
Several examples of colored MIMs are shown in Fig.
12
. In particular,
these examples [
75
-
78
] illustrate that color-coding the constituents of a MIM
forms a cohesive link between its various representations, two-dimensional,
three-dimensional, graphical, or otherwise. The coherence and readability of
these figures is what makes them beautiful, in addition to our natural proclivity
for color. We will discuss shortly the use of graphical representations (cartoons) to
represent MIMs, a context in which color can be employed to great effect. We
conclude that colors communicate molecular information clearly, precisely, and
consistently. To the scientifically minded person, the beauty that color gives to an
image often has less to do with its aesthetic appeal than with the augmented
intelligibility it imparts.
