The basics

of atoms, moles, formulas, equations, and nomenclature

chem1 virtual textbook

a reference text for General Chemistry

Stephen Lower

Simon Fraser University

The chapters in this unit are absolutely essential for anyone embarking on the serious study of Chemistry. The material covered here will be needed in virtually every topic you will encounter in the remainder of your first-year course, as well as in subsequent Chemistry courses -- so you might as well master it now!

The Chem1 Virtual Textbook is a resource for General Chemistry aimed mainly at the first-year university level. It offers a more comprehensive, organized, and measured approach than is found in most standard textbooks. It should also be accessible to advanced high-school courses, and helpful as review material for students in more advanced courses in chemistry, biology, geology, and engineering.

To access the desired page, click one of the lesson titles immediately below; you can also go directly to any sub-section within a lesson by clicking on a smaller heading.

1- Basic atomics: elements, atoms, and the nucleus

- The idea of the atom
- The elements
- Atoms become real
- Atomic masses and combining weights
- The nuclear atom
- The atomic weight scale
- What you should be able to do

2- All about Avogadro's number and the mole

- Counting atoms: understanding Avogadro's number
- Moles and their uses: chemical arithmetic
- What you should be able to do

3- Formulas and their meaning

- How to read and write formulas
- Relating formulas to weights and mole fractions
- Simplest formulas from experimental data
- Experimental methods: elemental analysis, the analytical balance
- What you should be able to do

4-Chemical equations and stoichiometry

- How to read and write chemical equations
- Net ionic equations
- Mass relations in chemical equations
- Understanding limiting reactants
- What you should be able to do

5- Naming chemical substances

- The Chemistry name game
- Names and symbols of the elements
- Naming binary molecules
- Ions have names too!
- Names of salts and acids
- Naming organic compounds
- What you should be able to do

Some useful references

Online book chapters

... from John Hutchinson's Concept Development Studies in Chemistry:

- The Atomic Molecular theory (Laws of chemical combination)
- Relative atomic masses and empirical formulae

Khan Academy videos

Elements and Atoms - Introduction to the Atom - Molecular and Empirical Formulas - The Mole and Avogadro's Number - Formula from Mass Composition - Another Mass Composition Problem - Stoichiometry - Stoichiometry Limiting Reagent

Web sites

- Drill on Stoichiometry and Balancing Chemical Reactions (Mark Leach)
- Avogadro's Number and the Mole: a student-professor dialogue (Brent Caldwell)
- Chemblancer and element quiz games

Video lectures

UC-Berkeley Chemistry - choose the first few lectures of Chemistry 1A for any available semester.

Simon Fraser University
Burnaby Mountain campus,
looking North