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Topic: Chemical formula  (Read 5262 times)

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Offline Zidane

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Chemical formula
« on: August 23, 2018, 07:44:55 AM »
Chemical formula for Lactic acid is C3H6O3 ... can't we divide these number by a common number and write CH2O..?
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Offline sjb

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Re: Chemical formula
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2018, 08:15:55 AM »
At a simple level, no - what is the formula for e.g. formaldehyde, or glucose? It may be that CH2O is a useful way of thinking of this though depending on context
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Offline mjc123

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Re: Chemical formula
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2018, 08:20:48 AM »
Look up "Empirical formula" and "Molecular formula".
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Chemical formula
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2018, 02:51:55 PM »
Quote from: Zidane on August 23, 2018, 07:44:55 AM
Chemical formula for Lactic acid is C3H6O3 ... can't we divide these number by a common number and write CH2O..?

Just because you can doesn't mean it is chemically significant. You could write H2O as H0.2O0.1, but you would lose the chemical significance that each molecule of water has exactly two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
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