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Similar: Does IUPAC nomenclature have the ability to name all organic compounds? - The answer to this question was no.

A relevant statement from the linked, though it is not explained:

The closest thing to an absolute method of describing a compound's structure is to have a table of positional data (XYZ coordinates) giving the relative positions between the atoms determined from X-ray/neutron diffraction. Any attempt at simplifying this data will be lossy, whether the structures are drawn (not too lossy) or named (very lossy).

Do SMILES, InChl, or any other chemical naming system have the capacity to name all possible chemical compounds? What would be required to demonstrate that a certain naming system has this property?

imrobert
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    Not if the compound is unknown, e.g. a peak in a GC-MS analysis that does not match any known compound. – Karsten Dec 21 '23 at 23:27
  • What is exactly the point of this question? Why not ask straight out what are the limitations of the systems. A few days ago someone asked whether they could be used to transmit information about orbital occupancy (answer is no). – Buck Thorn Dec 22 '23 at 10:53
  • These naming systems (similarly to any other but uniquely in the way they are encoded) are designed for exchange of particular information and are entirely utilitarian. Presumably they are updated if novel unforeseen structures should present themselves. – Buck Thorn Dec 22 '23 at 10:54
  • On the philosophical (scientific methodology) question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductionism – Buck Thorn Dec 22 '23 at 10:56

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