A chemical formula is defined as a collection of chemical symbol that is used to show the elements present in any compound and its proportion. Before we foray into the area of writing a chemical formula, we must acquaint ourselves with the basics of chemical formulae. Let us proceed further!
What is An Atom?
Have you noticed how a house is made, brick by brick? It all starts with laying the first brick which gradually graduates into a full-fledged wall. If this wall is a chemical compound, then the brick is the atom. An atom is the smallest indivisible particle in any chemical equation.
While they may be the smallest unit of a chemical compound, their importance is pretty much like that of the brick used to build the house. Without it, there will be no house. Similarly, our entire universe is made up of atoms.
Symbols for Atoms of Various Elements
Every element in nature is signified with a chemical name, a chemical valency and a symbol which is used to refer to this element while creating chemical equations. This symbol denotes a singular atom. That is to say, when we refer to Aluminium as Al, it refers to a single atom of Aluminium.
The first scientist to use symbols for chemical elements was Dalton. He was the one who used the symbols of the elements in a specified quantity, i.e one atom of the element. Later on, Berzilius suggested that we could use one or two letters of the element to form its symbol.
Initially, symbols for the name of elements were derived from the place they originated from. So copper was taken from Cyprus, while gold was meant yellow and so it was denoted accordingly. However, today the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry approves the element names.
Traditionally, the first letter of the name of the element in upper case followed by the second letter which is in lower case is written as the symbol of the element. Sometimes you may see that the alphabets denoting the symbol of the element does not match the name of the element. This happens when the name of the element is written in English but the symbol is derived from its name in Latin, Greek or German.
For example, the chemical symbol for Potassium is K. This ‘K’ is derived from Kalium. Iron is denoted by ‘Fe’ which comes from the Latin word “Ferrum”. H for Hydrogen, Co for Cobalt. This ensures that each element has a unique symbol.