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by jeangenie 4219 days ago
How can you distinguish between two chiral molecules and two identical molecules one of which has been rotated 180 degrees with respect to the other?
2 comments

That's the definition of chirality. If you have a tetrahedral orientation of four different atoms around a center atom (e.g. carbon), there will exist a "right handed" and "left handed" version.

You can rotate the "left handed" version any way you want, but you won't be able to superimposed it on the "right handed" version.

There's no way to rotate a clockwise screw that makes it a counter-clockwise screw. Try it.