helvetane
noun · first attested 1982
A chemist drew two molecules shaped like national flags and named them after the countries.
A hypothetical isomer of [12]prismane whose carbon skeleton forms a cross.
46.7986°N 8.2320°E · Q39
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1982
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Switzerland
- In English
helvetane
David Ginsburg introduced helvetane and israelane in Nouveau Journal de Chimie in 1982, in a piece written as a joke: one skeleton echoes the cross of the Swiss flag, the other the Star of David. Neither has ever been synthesized. Helvetia is the Roman name for the land of the Helvetii and serves as Switzerland's neutral label on stamps and coins, since the country has four official languages. Later chemists took the molecules seriously enough to calculate their strain energies.