Figure 1
(a) Ball-and-stick diagram showing the supposed CO2 molecule being attacked `incipiently' by a hydroxide ion (O atoms depicted as orange spheres). (b) Histogram taken from literature crystal structures showing that the C17—O3 distance is much longer than normal C—O distances, but without realizing that O3 is actually the C atom of a methyl group. (Reproduced with permission of Wiley.) |