shapes due to rotations about one or more bonds. Different conformations can have different energies, can usually interconvert, and are very rarely isolatable. For example, there exists a variety of Cyclohexane conformations (which cyclohexane is an essential intermediate for the synthesis of nylon–6,6) including a chair conformation where four of the carbon atoms form the “seat” of the chair, one carbon atom is the “back” of the chair, and one carbon atom is the “foot rest”; and a boat conformation, the boat conformation represents the energy maximum on a conformational itinerary between the two equivalent chair forms; however, it does not represent the transition state for this process, because there are lower-energy pathways. The conformational inversion of substituted cyclohexanes is a very rapid process at room temperature, with a half-life of 0.00001 seconds. There are some molecules that can be isolated in several conformations, due to the large energy barriers between different conformations. 2,2',6,6'-Tetrasubstituted biphenyls can fit into this latter category. Anomers Anomerism is an identity for single bonded ring structures where "cis" or "Z" and "trans" or "E" (geometric isomerism) needs to name the substitutions on a carbon atom that also displays the identity of chirality; so anomers have carbon atoms that have geometric isomerism and optical isomerism (enantiomerism) on one or more of the carbons of the ring. Anomers are named "alpha" or "axial" and "beta" or "equatorial" when substituting a cyclic ring structure that has single bonds between the carbon atoms of the ring for example, a hydroxyl group, a methyl hydroxyl group, a methoxy group or another pyranose or furanose group which are typical single bond substitutions but not limited to these. Axial geometric isomerism will be perpendicular (90 degrees) to a reference plane and equatorial will be 120 degrees away from the axial bond or deviate 30 degrees from the reference plane. Atropisomers Atropisomers are stereoisomers resulting from hindered rotation about single bonds where the steric strain barrier to rotation is high enough to allow for the isolation of the conformers. More definitions A configurational stereoisomer is a stereoisomer of a reference molecule that has the opposite configuration at a stereocenter (e.g., R- vs S- or E- vs Z-). This means that configurational isomers can be interconverted only by breaking covalent bonds to the stereocenter, for example, by inverting the configurations of some or all of the stereocenters in a compound. An epimer is a