2006-06-19 04:11:10 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
Becasue if you take the constituent atoms of a carbohydrate molecule and break them down, you could put them together to form water and carbon.
For example, sucrose -- C12H22O11 -- could be broken down into 12 atoms of carbon and 11 molecules of water.
2006-06-19 04:16:36 · answer #1 · answered by Dave_Stark 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on who you're talking to. Biochemists, Organic Chemists, and Biologists use different names for the same things. It's getting better but general names are still prefered for a lot of things and it's not standardized, and that makes conversations and reading journals etc. interesting sometimes. As for calling it a water carbon it's all about the components.
2006-06-19 04:52:12 · answer #2 · answered by shiara_blade 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can break the word down into two separate ones "carb" and "hydrate". The "carb" is pertaining to a sugar, which have a back bone of a long chain of carbons, and the "hydrate" is to water. This is also explained in one of the above answers involving sucrose.
2006-06-19 18:30:58 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think because of their general formula Cn(H2O)n. (This applies only to monosaccharides)
2006-06-19 04:16:06 · answer #4 · answered by RS 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋