Languages of Chemistry
- One reason chemistry can be difficult is that chemists often switch among three types of representations to help understand what we discover and the knowledge we construct:
atomic/molecular language (visualizing atoms),
macroscale language (observable quantities of matter),
symbolic language (formulas, graphs, and equations).
- We will ask you to become comfortable with all three languages, so ask us when it is unclear which language we are using.
G. Lisensky