Interpret and describe an example of a chemical formula. Summarize the two parts a chemical formula must have.

Answer and Explanation:

A chemical formula is composed by chemical symbols (in letters, which indicate the chemical elements) and subscripts (numbers). For example, let see the chemical formula for carbon dioxide:

CO₂

The letters C and O are the chemical symbols for the elements carbon (C) and oxygen (O). The number 2 in subscript indicates that there are 2 atoms of O per molecule. The subscript 1 is generally not indicated in chemical formulae, so it is assumed that the number of atoms of C is 1.

Summarizing, the chemical formula CO₂ indicates us that the molecule if formed by 1 atom of the element carbon (C) and 2 atoms of the element oxygen (O).