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The empirical formula for a typical carbohydrate is CH2O. When this was discovered, it led some early chemists to speculate that carbohydrates might be formed from water (H2O) stuck on to carbon (C), so they called it a carbohydrate - a hydrate of carbon. As it turns out, they were wrong: this is not an accurate model of carbohydrate structure. The name stuck with us anyway. *shrug*

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14y ago

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