The possibility of treating the environment of molecular structure groups having quasi-stable absorptions as a perturbation on some basic state of the absorbing group is suggested and briefly investigated by the study of homologous series of both esters and acids. It is concluded that the series possess only one group which can be treated in this fashion with certainty, the carbonyl group. Absorptions commonly assigned to C–O–C in the esters, and C–C–O in the acids are probably nonlocalized vibrations of the entire hydrocarbon skeleton, in which the oxygen undergoes large displacements.
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