Understanding Line Notation in Chemistry

Understanding Line Notation in ChemistryOne of the latest innovations in chemistry is line notation. The idea is simple and yet, to many it may seem counter intuitive. It is not often that a subject about which a person is a little unsure comes across as being exciting to them. With some curiosity, curiosity will give way to confidence and you may well then be on your way to the field of science of which you are aspiring.A line is a unit of distance in science, where the length is dependent on the letter 'a'. As the shortest length would be one meter, the longest distance would be a kilometer, so one line of a molecule is equivalent to approximately one-half of a kilometer, and so on.In one respect, line notation is quite simple. For example, if one wishes to represent a millionth of a milligram of sodium chloride, then they could write '000' in the middle of the blank. This would be the concentration in the glass.In another respect, line notation is more complicated, and for this re ason it is likely to take a bit of time to get used to. However, once you are convinced that it is true and correct, then you can expect the other aspects of chemistry, not just as to what is written on the sheet of paper, but also as to how it is read, to fall into place.Consider for example, a sodium ion. If one were to say 'one thousand two hundred nine thousand seven hundred twenty-nine-ten meters of sodium chloride', then this would be a known reading. The fact that the word 'line' is written after the number is merely used to indicate the distance in which the read element is located from the point on the paper.Line notation can, of course, be misleading. For example, if one were to draw a line representing the location of a sodium ion at a particular time, then this would be inaccurate, because this would be impossible to do, since it could not be established where the ion actually was. Therefore, the ion would actually be placed anywhere along the length of the hydrogen atom .Another, perhaps less difficult application of line notation is the use of it for organizing recipes. For example, if a recipe were to be organized by 'acid', then if 'a' was to be written down next to the 'acid', then it would be easy to remember exactly where the acid was placed.If a student were to organize a type experiment using powdered glucose, he or she could determine the amount of glucose in the flask with the help of this form of notation. It is more widely used than you might imagine, because of its usefulness.