![]() You’ve just measured out 10 g of sucrose on the laboratory balance but need to know how many moles of sucrose you have. This is one of many dimensional analysis problems you will encounter in chemistry. Let’s look at a common chemistry conversion: converting mass to moles. Using this knowledge, if you had two gallons, you could multiply 3.785 by 2 to get 7.571 liters: By typing “ convert 1 gallon of water to liters”, we see that it is equal to 3.785 liters. Let’s convert one gallon of water to liters. Let’s start with a more familiar unit: gallons. On top of that, most units in chemistry are in metric, also known as SI, units, which may be unfamiliar to those living in the US. It is one of the most common things for students to get wrong on their first chemistry exam, usually by multiplying instead of dividing or vice versa. But if you think about it, they’re just fractions, which we covered in the previous section. Unit ConversionsĮvery chemistry student’s worst nightmare: unit conversions, such as converting from centimeters to meters, milliliters to liters and so on. ![]() Not as bad as it looks at first, right? 2. Looking at step 4, your equation dwindles down to * = 6 moles of NaCl. Looking at the stoichiometry step-by-step results, we can see that the answer would be six moles of NaCl. Assuming you have two moles of AlCl3, how many moles of NaCl can you make by running the reaction to completion? Well, you can type “ 2 mole AlCl3 + NaOH -> Al(OH)3 + NaCl” into Wolfram|Alpha: This may be something that doesn’t look familiar to you now, but it soon will! Consider the chemical reaction AlCl3 + NaOH -> Al(OH)3 + NaCl. Next, let’s look at a chemistry problem that uses fractions. What is the solution for 4/3 * 2/3? Wolfram|Alpha provides a comprehensive step-by-step solution as a refresher on how to multiply fractions: Let’s take a look at a basic example of multiplying and dividing fractions. ![]() In Wolfram|Alpha, if you type “ simplify (x + 1) – 2 (x^2 + 10 * x)”, you can find the step-by-step solution for this:įractions are another thing that you will see a lot in chemistry, particularly in stoichiometry problems. This is done by distributing the negative coefficient to all parts in the parentheses, combining like terms and ordering terms from the highest exponent to the the lowest exponent. Simplify the following expression: ( x + 1) – 2( x 2 + 10 * x). ![]() If you read these problems closely enough, you will see that most of the work is really just an algebra problem.įirst off, let’s look at an expression to brush up on algebra skills that may appear in equilibrium constant, problems. However, most of the algebra is hidden behind fancy chemistry words like “reactants,” “products,” “moles,” “molarity” and so on. Basic AlgebraĪ lot of chemistry skills involve the application of basic algebra. Here are six important math skills that you will definitely use on a regular basis in your chemistry class and how they relate to different chemistry concepts. Essentially, step-by-step solutions are like your own on-demand math tutor: in addition to calculating the answer, Wolfram|Alpha shows you how it got there. ![]() Being a chemical engineering student, I understand this, especially for students who just have to get chemistry out of the way as a general education requirement. Math is one of the main things that deters students from wanting to learn more about chemistry. ![]()
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