Why do you write a chemical formula?

Answer 1

Chemical elements are also described using symbols. These short forms of chemical elements are useful to scientists as it has made their job much easier. It would have been time consuming if they were have to write full names while doing their paper work.

Answer 2

The blunt answer is they're not. They don't give any information about the reactivity of compounds. What they do tell you is a rough (slightly misleading) distribution of the valence charges around each of the atoms, and a basic structure. So do they do have some utility as a descriptive tool.

Answer 3

A chemical formula tells you what that chemical is made of. It tells you what elements it contains and in what ratio, and even, in the case of organic chemistry, the arrangement of those elements. If you are engaged in any kind of chemistry, for example, the synthesis of that chemical, then you will naturally need that information.

Answer 4

Symbols are easier to use rather than their systematic names when it comes to balancing chemical equations as the symbols are shorter and easier to recognize. Let us take the reaction between sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid as an example.

Corresponding word equation:

Aqueous sodium hydroxide + Aqueous hydrochloric acid -> Aqueous sodium chloride + Liquid water

Corresponding equation with symbols:

NaOH(aq) + HCl(aq) -> NaCl(aq) + H2O(l)

Answer 5

Because it tells how many electrons are involved in a molecule with bonded elements.

See the link below for details.

Answer 6

The dots represent the number of valence electrons for that element, which in turn, determine its chemical properties - in other words, how it reacts with other elements.