Chirality amplification--the accumulation principle revisited.

The chirality amplification mechanism proposed by Yamagata in 1966, relying on an Accumulation Principle which involved the parity violating energy difference (1 + epsilon) presumed to be operative at each step in the formation of a homochiral biopolymer, is briefly surveyed historically. The Accumulation Principle is then examined analytically and found to be incapable of producing a unique homochiral polymer in any realistic polymerization process. The extension of the Accumulation Principle to crystallizations which afford enantiomorphic crystals is also scrutinized and found to be misapplied and invalid.