Accepted Ways of Depicting Heptane
There are many ways to draw the strucure of a given molecule. Although
the structures may look different, all of them show the seven carbons and
sixteen hydrogens of heptane bonded together in the same connective sequence.
Molecular Graphics of Heptane
These pictures try to show the actual shape of a molecule and the space
that it occupies. Heptane is a flexible molecule and can assume different
shapes or conformations. Two different conformations are shown here. With
the aid of computers it is easy to generate such pictures of much larger
molecules and predict their shapes and sizes.
This link compares heptane and its isomers.
Heptane and its Isomers
The heptane molecule is made up of seven carbon atoms and sixteen hydrogen
atoms bonded together in a certain way. If these same atoms are bonded
in a different connective sequence, we have what is called a structural
isomer of heptane. Each isomer is a different chemical substance with
different properties and a name of its own.