In organic chemistry, we don’t get a lot of fun names. Biology has names like Sonic hedgehog; we have names that you can’t say without spitting, like naphthalene and phthalic acid.
It is extremely rare that one encounters a humorous molecule name when reading organic chemistry literature. As such, I’d like to point out a class of molecules I encountered while reading about π-π stacking today. These molecules are called pizzanes.
The naming was no accident, as this paper from 1997 confirms:
“Because of the resemblance of their molecular `super-disc’ structure to the Italian pizza, these discotic compounds were termed `Pizzanes’.”
Speaking of pies, stay tuned for a post about π-π interaction being used to make tiny columns, as published by Seki et al. today in a JACS ASAP article.
I has had pizza.