I don't want to flood the board with inherently flawed ideas, so I'll just share this here. If it is valid, then I guess I'll start a thread on it, but if it's garbage - well, then at least the ignorance is isolated to a single thread. :)
I was looking at this document: https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/peracid.html (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/peracid.html)
I think there's another relatively simple way to make isosafrole glycol.
Cyclohexene can be oxidized with potassium permanganate in cold water for 1.5 hours, giving a 33% yield of cis-1,2-cyclohexanediol. Cyclohexene can also be oxidized with sodium chlorate with osmonium tetraoxide as a catalyst, at 50C for 9 hours, to give a 46% yield of cis-1,2-cyclohexanediol.
I'd think that this could be applied to preparing isosafrole glycol. And I'd think that this could be heated with dilute H2SO4 to yield the beloved MDP2P via the pinacol rearrangment. Comments?
Edit: Corrected idiotic error...
Plutonium is a necessary ingredient in the recipe for nirvana.