Anonymous user
Talk:Paraffins: Difference between revisions
→Algorithm?
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and explain why there is only 1 paraffin for 4 or less carbon atoms? and why there are 2 for 5 and a few more, so that those of us who don't know organic chemistry can get some understanding of how the results are created?--[[User:EMBee|eMBee]] 16:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
:Even just some general rules about how the atoms are allowed to be arranged would help. I know that carbon atoms can have 4 bonds (usually...I remember a Christmas carol from my high school chemistry class called "Rudolph the 5-bond Carbon"). It also looks like for this class of molecules that cycles aren't allowed? --[[User:Mwn3d|Mwn3d]] 17:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
:4 to 6 carbon configuations: (if any "c" doesn't have 4 bonds already, imagine it's connected to invisable hydrogens). The basic algorithm would be some kind of recursive tree generation, probably with memoization for large numbers.<lang>4:
c-c-c c-c-c-c
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c
5:
c-c-c-c-c c-c-c-c-c c
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c c-c-c
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c
6:
c-c-c-c-c-c c-c-c-c-c c-c-c-c-c c-c-c-c c
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c c c c c-c-c-c
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c</lang>
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