Abstract: The Cope rearrangement of l, n-divinylbicycloalkanes has been employed for the synthesis of a series of meso-bridgehead dienes, molecules that contain two torsionally distorted carbon-carbon double bonds held in proximate relationship. The rate of Cope rearrangement does not correlate with reaction exothermicity or release of strain energy. A frontier molecular orbital explanation is one of several considerations offered to account ...