Question: cholesterol has 256 possible diastereomers. how many chiral carbons are there in cholesterol?
Answer: Stereoisomers that are not enantiomers are called diastereomers. where x is the number of possible isomers and n is the number of chiral centers. Thus, for molecules with two chiral centers there are four possible stereoisomers. (e.g. cholesterol, which has eight stereogenic centers, has 256 possible stereoisomers!! )