Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The aspect of a structure or property, such as the configuration of a molecule or the spin of a particle, that renders that structure or property distinguishable from its mirror image or symmetrical opposite.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In optics, the power possessed by certain crystals and optically active substances of turning the plane of polarization of light to the right or left hand.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The phenomenon, in chemistry, physics and mathematics, in which objects are mirror images of each other, but are not identical.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek χείρ (kheir, "hand").

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Examples

  • BTW, for me, chirality is much the strongest evidence for common descent, especially when considered with all the basic biochemical structures and processes that are almost universal, with their rare and fascinating exceptions.

    Always finish what you start… 2008

  • BTW, for me, chirality is much the strongest evidence for common descent, especially when considered with all the basic biochemical structures and processes that are almost universal, with their rare and fascinating exceptions.

    Always finish what you start… 2008

  • They'd like to launch an instrument into space that could detect the "chirality" - or handedness-of the light from molecules on other planets.

    Popular Science 2009

  • Many carbon-based molecules have a property called 'chirality'-they can exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other

    Latest Articles 2009

  • He eventually discovered that everything that is alive has a twist in it, that there's something deep in nature called chirality, and that everything that is made - every animal, every plant, every human, everybody ...

    NPR's Krulwich Solves Science Puzzles Big And Small 2010

  • He eventually discovered that everything that is alive has a twist in it, that there's something deep in nature called chirality, and that everything that is made - every animal, every plant, every human, everybody ...

    NPR's Krulwich Solves Science Puzzles Big And Small 2010

  • He eventually discovered that everything that is alive has a twist in it, that there's something deep in nature called chirality, and that everything that is made - every animal, every plant, every human, everybody ...

    NPR's Krulwich Solves Science Puzzles Big And Small 2010

  • From the GW perspective, the solution to the original problem is that the notion of chirality gets modified on the lattice: Lattice Dirac operators satisfying the so-called GW relation (with the overlap Dirac operator being the main explicit example) break usual chiral symmetry but have instead an exact lattice-deformed version of chiral symm which can be used to decompose the action into left - and right-handed pieces as in the continuum.

    String Theory is Losing the Public Debate Sean 2007

  • In the researchers' model, this superconducting ability depends on what's called chirality.

    Ars Technica Matthew Francis 2012

  • The monomers exhibit axial chirality, which is recognized by their partner cage during the template-free interlocking assembly process.

    Naturejobs - All Jobs Tom Hasell 2010

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