Biphenyl is optically active or not
Biphenyl is generally optically inactive, meaning it does not rotate plane-polarized light. However, if it is substituted with bulky groups at the ortho positions of both benzene rings, and those groups are not identical, it becomes optically active. This occurs because the steric hindrance caused by the substituents prevents the two rings from being coplanar, resulting in a lack of symmetry and the ability to rotate plane-polarized light.