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Eight
of the H's are missing.
Now one of the men who was worried over this benzene puzzle was the
German chemist, Kekule. One evening after working over the problem all
day he was sitting by the fire trying to rest, but he could not throw
it off his mind. The carbon and the hydrogen atoms danced like imps on
the carpet and as he watched them through his half-closed eyes he
suddenly saw that the chain of six carbon atoms had joined at the ends
and formed a ring while the six hydrogen atoms were holding on to the
outside hands, in this fashion:
H
|
C
/ \\
H-C C-H
|| |
H-C C-H
\ //
C
|
H
Professor Kekule saw at once that the demons of his subconscious self
had furnished him with a clue to the labyrinth, and so it proved. We
need not suppose that the benzene molecule if we could see it would look
anything like this diagram of it, but the theory works and that is all
the scientist asks of any theory. By its use thousands of new compounds
have been constructed which have proved of inestimable value to man.


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