In Chapter \(1\), we learned about one of the most fundamental reactions in organic chemistry: nucleophilic substitution. Before we move on, it is important to make sure that you have a good understanding of what the terms nucleophile, electrophile, and leaving group mean and that you are able to predict the products for a range of substrate molecules (electrophiles) with different leaving groups and nucleophiles. In this section, we move forward and look at nucleophilic substitution reactions in more detail by examining the evidence that leads us to understand how the mechanisms of nucleophilic substitutions were determined. 4.1: Kinetics and Mechanisms- 4.2: The \(\mathrm{S}_{\mathrm{N}} 1\) Reaction 4.3: Rearrangements- A Consequence of Generating Unstable Carbocations 4.4: Eliminations 4.5: In-Text References