israelanenoun · 1982
Well attestedA molecule named for a flag: the carbon skeleton draws a Star of David.
The Israeli chemist David Ginsburg proposed israelane along with helvetane in 1982 as a pair of flag-shaped hydrocarbons, in an article meant humorously. Neither compound has been made, and both are calculated to be enormously strained. Computational studies in the following years found helvetane the more stable of the two by a wide margin, which is an unusual afterlife for a joke.
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