Question

What is meant by the term chemical formula?

Answer 1

Hint: To answer this question it very important to understand the main use of writing a chemical formula. Without writing the chemical formula of a compound, chemistry would not be easy to study.

Complete step by step answer:
The symbolic representation of the composition of the chemical compound is known as chemical formula. A chemical formula gives us information about the number of particular elements and helps us exactly figure out the kind of element present in what proportion, etc. in the compound. If there were no thing like chemical formula understanding chemistry would be very difficult as there would be no chemical equation so understanding a reaction will be still tougher.
For example:
HCl is the chemical formula of hydrochloric acid, this gives us the information that one hydrogen atom is bonded to a chlorine atom chemically.
${{H}_{2}}O$ is the chemical formula of water, the chemical formula gives us the information that two atoms of hydrogen are bonded to an oxygen atom.
Now let's see the basics to write chemical formula,
-It is very important to know about valence electrons and valencies .
Valence electrons are the electrons present in the outermost shell of an atom. The valence electrons can easily react with the electrons in the outermost shell of another atom. The valency is the capacity of an atom to make bonds. Capacity to make bonds depends on the number of valence electrons.
-Let's assume there are two elements X and Y , let its valency be 1 and 2 respectively:

Then, the chemical formula be ${{X}_{2}}{{Y}_{1}}$.
${{X}_{2}}{{Y}_{1}}$ contains 2 atoms of element X and an element Y.

Note: To write chemical formulas, it is very important to know the valency. The symbolic representation of the composition of the chemical compound is known as chemical formula. The 2 and 1 in ${{X}_{2}}{{Y}_{1}}$ are known as subscripts. The X and Y in ${{X}_{2}}{{Y}_{1}}$ are known as the chemical symbols.