How is chirality determined?
I get the concept of two variants of a molecule that are mirror images of each other. I don't get what allows us to look at a specific enantiomer and say "this is left handed" or "this is right handed" such that we can say all amino acids are left-handed and all metabolizable sugars are right handed.
I read that we trace the path from the "lowest" to the "highest" priority groups and then see whether this motion is clockwise or counterclockwise...but the same rotation will be either clockwise or counterclockwise depending on which side you view it from.
What am I missing?