It happens all over the periodic table. The chemical symbol for lead is Pb. For mercury, Hg. For antimony, Sb. My chemistry teacher in high school cracked up every time she referred to the symbol for ...

There are lots of different substances but only just over a hundred elements. An element is a substance that is made up of only one kind of atom. The atoms in a particular element are the same as each ...

These rules help in identifying and writing chemical symbols consistently across all elements. The symbol serves as a shorthand notation for each element's name in formulas and equations, making ...

SYMBOLS are both an aid and an obstacle to thought. Their brevity and simplicity may help us, working according to a fixed system, to perform mental operations which without their aid might be ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...

Oh dear—π day 2016 has gone by and I still haven’t memorized p in what I used to call the ‘‘elementary’’ way that I invented some decades ago. Somebody recently suggested the much better name ...