@CowperKettle I'm thinking that polyethylene has its name for the same reason that North American native people are still often called "Indians" even though we've known darn well for over 500 years that this isn't India. The first syntheses of polyethylene were involving diazomethane (which can form alkenes) and ethylene, so back when it was called "polymethylene" (a somewhat better name, in my opinion), the "ene" part probably came from less certainty and questionable agreement on nomenclature
and then when it became "polyethylene", it was probably just because it was from a polymerised form of ethylene.
The monomer in polyethene seems to drop the $\ce{C=C}$ bond and end up with a $\ce{C-C}$ bond. The polymer chain then looks like $\ce{[CH2-CH2]_{n}}$. If I were to look at that polymer chain I would probably call it polyethane not polythene (or I could even call it polymethane) because it doesn't...
@loong My university has a subscription to it (I think we've talked about this before) but its not searchable.. all the pages are just images. I tried OCR'ing the whole thing but it was woefully slow / basically impossible
@NotNicolaou Yeah, the current situation is not helpful. The IUPAC recommendations are not really a standard as long as most users do not have easy access to it.
@Loong I do find it odd how closed off they are. Most standards are at least available online in a useful format even if charges are made for hardcopies
> In the case of the antiviral drug ritonavir, not only was one polymorph virtually inactive compared to the alternative crystal form, but the inactive polymorph was subsequently found to convert the active polymorph into the inactive form on contact, due to its lower energy and greater stability making spontaneous interconversion energetically favourable. Even a speck of the lower energy polymorph could convert large stockpiles of ritonavir into the medically useless inactive polymorph
It would appear that nicael is correct, that's the complete list. Here's the most complete list of magic links I can find (both help center and other), from Laura's answer and the balpha answer nicael linked to:
[help] -> /help (the help center landing page for whatever site you're on)
[help/on...
Hey all! Sorry I had to be away and disappeared in such an abrupt manner. ISP issues and all. The issue will hopefully be resolved in a few days and I'll return with full strength. Long live chat
2
@CowperKettle 'cause the monomer
"A bunch of ethene guys happily sharing electrons"