(1885) Chemistry Named after German chemist Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917) who pioneered synthesis of organic compounds. Baeyer was Professor of Chemistry at Strasburg and Munich and won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1905. Also known simply as strain theory, this was formulated to explain the relative stability of certain types of organic compounds.

Bayer's strain

When carbon is bonded to four other atoms, the angle between any pair of bonds is the tetrahedral angle 109.5°. Deviations from this angle in cyclic (ring) compounds such as cyclopropane cause molecules to be strained and therefore relatively unstable. The greater the deviation from this angle the more unstable a molecule is and thus the more prone it is to ring opening reactions. Parts of Baeyer’s theory have been discarded as they are based on false assumptions. The theory does not apply to rings with more than four carbon atoms.

Source: R T Morrison and R N Boyd, Organic Chemistry (Boston, 1987)

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A carbon atom is always tetravalent due to its hybridised state. so all the groups or atoms joined to it are always at an angle of 109.5⁰ due to repultion. and it is its most stable state. any deviation from this tetrahedral angle in structure is known as strain . due to strain the groups or atoms comes near apart and thus results repultion. this repultion cause high energy and the high energy results low stability.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      so all deviation either +or - cause unstability of rings in cycloalkaneane.