Silicon in organic syntheis. 13. The 1-trimethylsilylcyclopropyl anion and its formal equivalent

Reaction of lithio 1-trimethylsilylcyclopropane or its formal equivalent [CH₂ = C(Li)SiMe₃; CH₂I₂, EtZnI] with carbonyl compounds leads to carbinols which dehydrate without rearrangement. Other attempts to induce ring expansion of the silicon substituted three-membered ring by ionic pathways are reported.     

Formation and chemical stability of metallic glass particles prepared by thermolysis of Fe (CO)5

A ferrofluid has been prepared by thermal decomposition of Fe(CO)₅ in an organic liquid. Mössbauer spectroscopy and x-ray diffractometry studies show that the ferrofluid contains small particles of a metallic glass. The particles are only partly oxidized even after exposure of the ferrofluid to air at room temperature for 30 days.     

On the separation power and the completion of partial latin squares

Let n and m be natural numbers, n ? m. The separation power of order n and degree m is the largest integer k = k(n, m) such that for every (0, 1)-matrix A of order n with constant linesums equal to m and any set of k 1's in A there exist (disjoint) permutation matrices P₁,…, P_m such that A = P₁ + … + P_m and each of the k 1's lies in a different P_i. Almost immediately we have 1 ? k(n, m) ? m ? 1, yet in all cases where the value of k(n, m) is actually known it equals m ? 1 (except under the somewhat trivial circumstances of k(n, m) = 1). This leads to a conjecture about the separation power, namely that k(n, m) = m ? 1 if $\text{m ? [}\text{n}\text{2}\text{] + 1}$. We obtain the bound $\text{k(n, m) ? m ? [}\text{n}\text{2}\text{] + 2}$, so that this conjecture holds for n ? 7. We then move on to latin squares, describing several equivalent formulations of the concept. After establishing a sufficient condition for the completion of a partial latin square in terms of the separation power, we can show that the Evans conjecture follows from this conjecture about the separation power. Finally the lower bound on k(n, m) allows us to show, after some calculations, that the Evans conjecture is true for orders n ? 11.