Racemic mixture

Within the realm of stereochemistry, a racemic mixture represents a specific type of chemical mixture characterized by a 1:1 ratio of two enantiomers. Enantiomers are chiral molecules – meaning they are mirror images of each other – and possess identical physical properties except for their interaction with polarized light. Because of this opposing interaction with plane-polarized light, each enantiomer rotates it in equal but opposite directions. Consequently, the resulting mixture exhibits no net optical rotation, appearing optically inactive, despite containing two distinct chiral forms.