Following the discussion here of Kekulé’s suggestion of what we now call a vibrational mode (and which in fact now bears his name), I thought I might apply the concept to a recent molecule known as [2.2]paracyclophane.

In the previous post, I ruminated about how chemists set themselves targets. Thus, having settled on describing regions between two (and sometimes three) atoms as bonds , they added a property of that bond called its order . The race was then on to find molecules which exhibit the highest order between any particular pair of atoms.