Organic Chemistry, Fifth Edition

About this Title

Loudon's Organic Chemistry is known for its clear writing, high standard of accuracy, and creative problems. The fifth edition contains 1,668 problems—many of them new and taken directly from the scientific literature. This edition, more than ever before, encourages students to analyze and synthesize concepts. The text is used at a wide variety of schools, such as the University of Wisconsin; University of Maryland (College Park), Boston College; University of Illinois; University of Colorado, Boulder; Duke University; University of California, Berkeley; California Institute of Technology; University of Vermont; Reed College; Yale University; University of California, Irvine; Purdue University; Queens University; Bryn Mawr; Hamilton College; Franklin and Marshall College; Kent State University; Indiana State University; Washington State University; Merrimack College; the Colorado School of Mines, and many more. Roberts and Company has partnered with Sapling Learning to offer an online homework system that is specifically tailored to the match the topic flow of the textbook. See below for more information.

About the Author

Marc Loudon received his BS (magna cum laude) in chemistry in 1964 from Louisiana State University and his PhD in organic chemistry in 1968 from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked with Professor Donald S. Noyce. After two years of postdoctoral study with Professor Daniel E. Koshland in the Biochemistry Department at Berkeley, Dr. Loudon joined the chemistry faculty at Cornell University, where he taught organic chemistry to both pre-professional students and science majors. He received the Clark Teaching Prize of Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences in 1976. Since 1977, Dr. Loudon has been Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Purdue University. Dr. Loudon teaches organic chemistry to pharmacy and pre-pharmacy students at Purdue, where he has twice won the School of Pharmacy's Henry Heine Outstanding Teacher Award. In 1988, he received the Class of 1922 Helping Students Learn Award. In 1996, Dr. Loudon was among three faculty at Purdue who were the first to be named Distinguished Professor on the basis of teaching and teaching scholarship; as result of that award, Dr. Loudon became the Gustav Cwalina Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. In 1999, Dr. Loudon won Purdue's university-wide Charles B. Murphy Award for undergraduate teaching and, in the same year, was listed in Purdue's permanent "Book of Great Teachers." In 2000, Dr. Loudon was named "Indiana Professor of the Year" by the Carnegie Foundation. In 2001, Dr. Loudon served as a member of the Chemistry Panel of BIO2010, which was commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences to make national recommendations for the biology curriculum.

Table of Contents

1. CHEMICAL BONDING AND CHEMICAL STRUCTURE
2. ALKANES
3. ACIDS AND BASES. THE CURVED-ARROW NOTATION
4. INTRODUCTION TO ALKENES: STRUCTURE AND REACTIVITY
5. ADDITION REACTIONS OF ALKENES
6. PRINCIPLES OF STEREOCHEMISTRY
7. CYCLIC COMPOUNDS: STEREOCHEMISTRY OF REACTIONS
8. INTRODUCTION TO ALKYL HALIDES, ALCOHOLS, ETHERS, THIOLS, AND SULFIDES
9. THE CHEMISTRY OF ALKYL HALIDES
10. THE CHEMISTRY OF ALCOHOLS AND THIOLS
11. THE CHEMISTRY OF ETHERS, EPOXIDES, GLYCOLS, AND SULFIDES
12. INTRODUCTION TO SPECTROSCOPY. INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY AND MASS SPECTROMETRY
13. NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPY
14. THE CHEMISTRY OF ALKYNES
15. DIENES, RESONANCE, AND AROMATICITY
16. THE CHEMISTRY OF BENZENE AND ITS DERIVATIVES
17. ALLYLIC AND BENZYLIC REACTIVITY
18. THE CHEMISTRY OF ARYL HALIDES, VINYLIC HALIDES, AND PHENOLS. TRANSITION-METAL CATALYSIS
19. THE CHEMISTRY OF ALDEHYDES AND KETONES. CARBONYL-ADDITION REACTIONS
20. THE CHEMISTRY OF CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
21. THE CHEMISTRY OF CARBOXYLIC ACID DERIVATIVES
22. THE CHEMISTRY OF ENOLATE IONS, ENOLS, AND a,b-UNSATURATED CARBONYL COMPOUNDS
23. THE CHEMISTRY OF ENOLATE IONS, ENOLS, AND a,b-UNSATURATED CARBONYL COMPOUNDS
24. CARBOHYDRATES
25. THE CHEMISTRY OF THE AROMATIC HETEROCYCLES
26. AMINO ACIDS, PEPTIDES, AND PROTEINS
27. PERICYCLIC REACTIONS

Praise

“We have used a number of editions of Loudon for our second year organic course. Although each edition has represented a major advance in the presentation of new chemistry, they have all retained the lucid presentation and order of topics that attracted us to the first version. The problems and examples provide excellent reinforcement of the contents of each chapter. The inclusion of modern methodology in the newest edition will prepare students for graduate school and demonstrates the continuing evolution of organic chemistry.” —Robert H. Grubbs, California Institute of Technology

“My colleagues and I have used the Loudon text here at Harvard for a number of years. The latest edition of this textbook refines the author's approach to the teaching of organic chemistry on a mechanism-based approach that was first introduced by Cram and Hammond more than 50 years ago. I consider it one of the premier texts of this generation.” —David Evans, Harvard University

“The fifth edition of this text continues to refine the author's characteristically elegant, mechanism-based framework for introducing organic chemistry. Professor Loudon has inspired several generations of students with his clear and insightful presentation style. In no other text does the logic, power and sheer beauty of organic chemistry shine through so clearly.”  —Bruce Ganem, Cornell University

“Organic Chemistry by Marc Loudon is one of the most up-to-date organic textbooks on the market today. With sections on alkene metathesis, Suzuki and Stille cross-coupling reactions, and examples drawn from modern medical practice, this text provides students with clear and thorough explanations, while simultaneously giving instructors the freedom to teach topics that are on the cutting edge of today's synthetic organic chemistry.” —Carolyn E. Anderson, Calvin College

“This book is simply marvelous. It has plenty of stimulating illustrations and examples, and its many problems progress gradually from trivial to challenging and instructive. But, most importantly, its exposition is rock-solid, full of the lucid analogies and consistent mechanistic logic that make organic chemistry tractable.”  —AMAZON (a student at Caltech)

“From over thirty years in the classroom, Marc Loudon knows how students learn. His problems are the work of a master teacher; they are original, range in difficulty levels, and are all based on real examples from the literature. This edition is clearly a labor of love and reflects Professor Loudon’s desire to give students the very best learning tool possible. This book is a symphony of great ideas and will open students’ eyes to the wonders of modern organic chemistry.” —John Grutzner, Purdue University

Online Homework and our Partnership with Sapling Learning

Roberts and Company has partnered with Sapling Learning to offer an online homework system that is specifically tailored to the match the topic flow of the textbook. The portal offers automatic grading, an easy-to-use interface, and instructive feedback. Professors can select from a wide variety of existing problem sets or they can modify the questions or author them from scratch. Over 100,000 students currently use Sapling's platform. Many of our adopting schools have decided to create their own online assessment, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, Duke University, and Purdue University. For more information go to Sapling Learning; for an online demonstration or pricing, please contact james.caras@saplinglearning.com; for the press release, please see http://www.saplinglearning.com/about/rcp-press-release.

Errata

Loudon's Organic Chemistry is currently in its fifth printing so many of the corrections in the errata sheet have already been made in the printed textbook. For those with an earlier printing, the following list of corrections may be useful: errata.