Synthesis+C.+Fuller

Synthesis is the combining of two or more simple substances to form a greater substance or compound. Synthesis may be shown generically as X + Y--> XY, with X and Y being the simple substances and XY being the greater substance or compound.

A real life example of synthesis would be the following statement: Magnesium bonds with oxygen to form magnesium oxide. The conversion of this statement into a synthesis would be to replace the statement with the given elemental symbols, so in this case it would be: Mg + O2 --> MgO. Then, we must balance this equation or else it will not be stable. To do so, we must place the opposite of a given number to counter any positivity or negativity. So in this case, we would place the number two in front of MgO, which would create two oxygens on the right, but that leaves us with two magnesiums as well. We must then place the number two in front of Mg on the left side of the equation to counter this. The result is as follows: 2Mg + O2 -> 2MgO.



Return to the Main Page