May 3, 2025
Science

Why do the symbols of some chemical elements consist of letters that are not in their names?

  • September 28, 2024
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Agree Why are some of these symbols called? Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a letter included? For example Why is the symbol for lead not “Ld”

Agree Why are some of these symbols called? Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a letter included?

For example Why is the symbol for lead not “Ld” because it corresponds to English? “Pb”, which consists of letters that don’t exist at all?

Abbreviations of chemical elements are used as a two- or one-letter symbol.

Apart from the harmony in the names of some elements, the ‘meaningless’ letter combination in some of them makes many people think. We gave lead as an example, the symbol of lead is “Pb”; what is here Neither the letter “p” nor the letter “b”, As you can see, it has a direct relationship with the name of the element. This situation arises from the universal nature of the science of chemistry and reflects historically diverse cultural interactions.

Because the elements were discovered in different geographical areas and time periods, their names often come from different languages. Take tungsten for example: the symbol is “W”, because this element is used in Germany. “tungsten” It is mentioned.

So we can actually say that this situation is the result of a consensus among scientists.

In addition, classical texts and the influence of different languages ​​play an important role here. Mercury, Latin “hydragyrum” It is derived from the word ‘water silver’ and means ‘water silver’, a reference to the luster of the liquid state of mercury.

The puzzle is solved: Lead comes from the Latin word ‘plumbum’. Since Latin is a scientific language, we also get the answer from this. This situation seems to have arisen because scientists in the past used Latin and Greek as a common language.

Sources: University of Hawaii, LOC

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