IUPAC / IUPAC nomenclature

IUPAC stands for International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry. In 1919 the union was founded in the USA by chemists to specifiy consistent, internationally valid names, symbols and standardised weights and measures, etc. in the field of chemistry. Thus, scientific word, research results, etc. became comparable and international cooperation possible. The worldwide accepted IUPAC nomenclature was established listing the guidelines for the denomination of chemical compounds. One example is the determination of the prefixes as Mono = 1 (di = 2, tri = 3, tetra = 4, penta = 5 etc.), oligo = few, poly = many in combination with the syllable -mer = part, etc.