Introduction to Alkane Structures and Nomenclature

Professor Davis gives a short introduction to the structures and names (both common and IUPAC) of some common alkanes. Saturated hydrocarbons are some of the simplest structures in Organic Chemistry, but the phenomenon of structural isomerism makes them an incredibly diverse set of compounds none-the-less. In this micro-lecture he introduces the structure and formulas of some simple alkanes and discusses how we cope with naming the tremendous library of alkane isomers using the IUPAC nomenclature system.