ABSTRACT
The 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Otto Diels and Kurt Alder for “their discovery and development of the diene synthesis.” Diels and Alder had found the following general reaction to be the case for the reaction under study. Although some aromatic rings do undergo a Diels-Alder reaction, the parent aromatic compound benzene, does not unless very specifically substituted as in styrene. Even a casual glance at the species that undergo a Diels-Alder reaction reveals that a variety of dienes and dienophiles will work. A chemical reaction shows cyclopentadiene reacts with maleic anhydride to produce the dicarboxylic anhydride bicyclic compound. A Diels-Alder reaction depicts an allylic rearrangement, with the molecules are connected in which the double bonds in the diene and dienophile shift to the next carbon atom in the combined structure. Alder also notes a structural similarity between the diene synthesis reaction and substituting addition reaction.
