Water
In Our Time
00:00
The History of H2
The sun could split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is something that will happen on planets without an atmosphere. Mancole Alexander Williamson was able to show that water was really the parent of a whole class of molecules in which you can include alcohols and ethers. And if we think of water as being HOH, you can replace one of the hydrogens with a carbon-containing thing,. We'll call that ROH. If you replace the other hydrogen, then you get an ether, R-O-R. In many ways, that sort of cemented the unity of water with organic chemistry.
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