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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1998  > September  >
Viewpoints
Anatomy of an Elementary Chemical Reaction
Andrew J. Alexander and Richard N. Zare
Stanford University, Department of Chemistry, Stanford, CA 94305-5080
Cover
September 1998
Vol. 75 No. 9
p. 1105
Abstract
The alchemists of old sought the knowledge to transform one material to another-for example, base metals into gold-as a path to the elixir of life. As chemists have concerned themselves with the transformation from compound to compound, so they have become involved in trying to uncover the structures of molecules and the pathways that reactions follow. Classically, the study of reaction mechanisms in chemistry encompasses reaction kinetics, the study of velocities or rates of reactions, and reaction dynamics, the study of the nanoscopic motion and rearrangement of atoms during a reactive event. An essential aim of this article is to bring the reader to a favorable vantage point with a brief introduction to reactive dynamics, and from there to describe some examples of recent strategies that have been employed to promote a fundamental understanding of the anatomy of elementary chemical reactions. In the final section we ponder future directions for this rapidly evolving field of research.

Featured on the Cover
More Information
*  Citation
 Alexander, Andrew J.; Zare, Richard N. J. Chem. Educ. 1998 75 1105.
*  Keywords
 kinetics, physical chem, lasers, laser spectroscopy, mechanisms, molecular modeling, dynamics
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 June 21, 1999
June 24, 2005
Link to Cover added (April 2004).
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