HELP...balancing equations...i'm so confused?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?

Question

hey, i'm in the 8th grade and we're studying balancing equations, but i don't get it...at all...do u know a website i can go to where it explains, or somethin, i just need help...FAST...thank you guys/grls soooo much...

Answer 1

it comes down to algebra that you cant move the letters.

you can juggle the coefficients to make everything add up.

to see if the equation is balanced, pick any atom and look at the subscript. then multiply that number by the current coefficient in front of that molecule. do the same thing for every molecule on the left side of the equation for that atom only and sum the values up. basically like this:

1 (X) + 1 (3X)

only 2 molecules might have atom X. you have 4 of atom X. just ignore the other atoms for the moment. now do atom X on the right side of the equation. it might be an addition reaction where the 2 molecules fuse into 1 and it looks like this:

1 (5X)

i have all the coefficients set to 1 because we haven't done any balancing yet but sometimes things start with coefficients. we have 4 on the left and 5 on the right. you cant reduce the right side less than 1 so look at the left. you need to increase by 1 X. you cant touch the one with a 3 subscript. if you bring it up to a 2 you will get 7X on this side. too much. but if you do the other one it balances.

2 * ( X ) + 1 * ( 3X ) = 1 * ( 5X )

now test the other atoms and see if they got balanced by that step. if not you might need to play with the coefficients a bit. i think its something you have to get a feel for with the more complicated ones.

Answer 2

You cannot ask your question in this way. Post the equations that you want to see balanced. Suggestion: Post your equations one at a time. Do not flood Yahoo Answers with a lot of equations.

Answer 3

http://www.chemtutor.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_equations