I'm having a hard time figuring out what is cis and trans in regards to carbon rings. I have tried finding help online, but everything I look for is alkenes where as the specific rings we are assigned are alkanes. Is there a set of rules for determining if a cyclohexane with various bonds is cis or trans?

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majikdusty · Answer

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majikdusty · Answer

This is the specific problem we are assigned, but we haven't really covered cis and trans in class besides very briefly. I know what the structure looks like, I just don't know how to tell if a lewis structure looks a specific way.

photon336 · Answer

@majikdusty 

STEP #1 

A dash means that the group is facing away from you:

A Wedge means that the group is coming at you.

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photon336 · Answer

you can then number your carbons

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so our carbons are 1,4 that have dashes or wedges on them.  

if two groups are both dashes or wedges they are considered cis.

if one group is coming at you while the other is facing away from you then it's trans.