Many organic compounds

A hydrocarbon that contains carbon atoms joined to form a ring is called a cyclic hydrocarbon. When all
carbons of the ring are saturated, we call the hydrocarbon a cycloalkane. They are also called alicyclic (ali means
aliphatic and cyclic from their ring structures). The general formula of a cycloalkane is CnH2n. Cycloalkanes of ring
sizes ranging from 3 to over 30 abound in nature, and, in principle, there is no limit to ring size.
Five-membered (cyclopentane) and six-membered (cyclohexane) rings are especially abundant in nature
and have received special attention. Figure 3.3 shows the structural formulas of cyclobutane, cyclopentane, and
cyclohexane. When writing structural formulas for cycloalkanes, chemists rarely show all carbons and hydrogens.
Rather, they use line-angle formulas to represent cycloalkane rings. Each ring is represented by a regular polygon
having the same number of sides as there are carbon atoms in the ring. For example, chemists represent cyclobutane
by a square, cyclopentane by a pentagon, and cyclohexane by a hexagon. Cycloalkanes contain two fewer hydrogen
atoms than an alkane with the same number of carbon atoms. For instance, compare the molecular formulas of
cyclohexane (C6H12) and hexane (C6H14).