Some chemical elements have two-letter symbols. The first is written as a capital, and the second small (lower case).
Examples:
gold = Au
iron = Fe
These symbols for chemical elements are derived from their names in Latin. "Cal" represents calcium and "Si" represents silicon. The symbols are typically chosen based on the first one or two letters of the element's name in Latin.
Not all elements can be identified by a single letter. For example, Carbon (C) and Chlorine (Cl) both start with a "C" and have "C"'s in their symbols. Another letter had to be added to distinguish the two. Also, the Periodic Table has over 100 elements and there would not be enough letters to cover them all if they were only single letters.
Most elements have either 1 or 2 letters but some elements such as Ununpentium, have 3 (Uup)
The symbols of the elements named after planets are: Lead (Pb) named after the planet Saturn Mercury (Hg) named after the planet Mercury Platinum (Pt) named after the dwarf planet Pluto Uranium (U) named after the planet Uranus Other elements also have symbols that may resemble planet symbols, but these are specifically named after planets.
The symbols for elements are derived from their names in various ways. In the case of iron, its symbol "Fe" comes from the Latin word "ferrum." Over time and through historical conventions, these symbols have become standardized even if they may not seem directly related to the element's name at first glance.
some elements do not use their first letters of their English names as their symbols. The symbols for these elements may come from the names of the elements in a different language.
Elements are give symbols consisting of letters, and these are related to the names of the elements (in some language at some date). There are 26 letters in many alphabets, but more than four times that number of elements. So it is necessary to use some mechanism to distinguish among elements with names that start with the same letter. Adding numbers is done to designate the number of atoms in a compound, the isotope, and so on. The best solutions is to use pairs of letters for most elements.
most of these use the letters from the Latin name. in fact most element symbols come from Latin words not English, even when the letters are the same.
These symbols for chemical elements are derived from their names in Latin. "Cal" represents calcium and "Si" represents silicon. The symbols are typically chosen based on the first one or two letters of the element's name in Latin.
Not all elements can be identified by a single letter. For example, Carbon (C) and Chlorine (Cl) both start with a "C" and have "C"'s in their symbols. Another letter had to be added to distinguish the two. Also, the Periodic Table has over 100 elements and there would not be enough letters to cover them all if they were only single letters.
Carbon (C) Hydrogen (H) Iron (Fe)
A way to know what this means is to know that the reason being is because it is a Isotope. An istotope is something that has too many nuetrons or more than one nuetron. So that is what they call it...
Most elements have either 1 or 2 letters but some elements such as Ununpentium, have 3 (Uup)
Some symbols used to represent letters in music notation are .
some elements have their symbols directly from their names. Eg: oxygen-O,nitrogen-N some get symbols from their latin names. eg: Potassium-K from Kalium (Latin for potassium)
The letters on the periodic table represent the name of the elements. They are called the element's "symbols." They are usually related to the English names, but some, like lead, are related to their Latin names.
He is the chemical symbol for Helium. In the periodic table we use the chemical symbols to identify elements easily because some elements have rather long names.