For Louis Pasteur, the two distinctive properties of dissymmetric systems, optical activity and chiral discrimination, provided prime evidence for a Divine origin to the universe. Handedness appeared to be built into the macrocosm of the galaxies, each with a non-superposable mirror image by virtue of its rotation, as well as the microcosm of each molecule of most natural products. The best that the chemist in the laboratory could accomplish appeared to be the synthesis of the detordu internally-compensated meso-form and, as Pasteur ultimately came to admit, the externally-compensated...

For Louis Pasteur, the two distinctive properties of dissymmetric systems, optical activity and chiral discrimination, provided prime evidence for a Divine origin to the universe. Handedness appeared to be built into the macrocosm of the galaxies, each with a non-superposable mirror image by virtue of its rotation, as well as the microcosm of each molecule of most natural products. The best that the chemist in the laboratory could accomplish appeared to be the synthesis of the detordu internally-compensated meso-form and, as Pasteur ultimately came to admit, the externally-compensated racemic...