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How Do You Balance ! Actions

a Chemical Equation?
Written by Anna Dubey
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Balancing chemical equations is a useful skill

in chemistry. The basis of chemical reactions
is the idea that atoms and molecules
frequently recombine into other molecules.
Reactants are the substances that enter a
chemical reaction, while products are formed
as the result of the reaction. Some examples of
chemical reactions you might know include
rusting, created by the reaction of iron with
water and oxygen, and soda losing its bubbles,
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caused when carbonic acid splits into carbon

dioxide and water.

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The fundamental principle behind balancing

equations is the law of conservation of mass,
which states that matter, meaning physical
substances like atoms and molecules, cannot
be created or destroyed. This means there
must be the same mass of atoms on both sides
of a chemical equation, and therefore the
same number of atoms. For example, consider
the simple chemical reaction Ca + Cl2 →
CaCl2. This equation is already balanced
because it has the same number of Ca and Cl
atoms on each side. Balancing an equation
involves changing the coefficients—numbers
placed in front of reactants or products to
multiply them.

Note that a coefficient, which appears to the

left of a molecule, is different from a
subscript, which appears in smaller print to
the right of a molecule. The coefficient
represents the number of molecules. The
subscript represents the number of atoms of a
given element in each molecule. For example,
in 3O2, the coefficient is 3 and the subscript is
2. To determine the total amount of the atom
present, multiply the coefficient by the
subscript—the number of total molecules
times the number of atoms in each molecule.
3O2 means 6 total atoms of O. Balancing
equations never involves changing the
subscript of a molecule, only altering the
coefficient. Altering the subscript would
change the chemical composition of the
molecule instead of the amount of molecules.

So how do you go about balancing an

equation? These are the steps: First, count the
atoms on each side. Second, change the
coefficient of one of the substances. Third,
count the numbers of atoms again and, from
there, repeat steps two and three until you’ve
balanced the equation.

Here is an example of a chemical reaction that

needs balancing: H2 + O2 → H2O.

$5,300 $1,025

$25 $3,400

$18,300 $6,300

The first step is to count the atoms on each

side. It is often helpful to make a chart or list
so you can visualize the numbers. On the left
side, there are 2 H and
$25 2 O, and, on$2,595
the right
side, there 250,000+
are 2 H and 1 O.
Cars To This equation
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not yet balanced because there are different
numbers of oxygen atoms.

Step two is to change the coefficient of one of

the substances, with the goal of equalizing the
numbers of each atom on the left and right.
Since there are too few O atoms on the right,
start by increasing the coefficient of the
product, H2O. When you choose a coefficient,
try to select one as low as possible. In this
case, a good guess for the coefficient of H2O
would be 2. Note that changing the coefficient
affects all of the atoms in the molecule:
putting a 2 in front of H2O multiplies the
amounts of both H and O atoms by 2. In
addition, take care to only change one
coefficient at a time so as to avoid confusion.

Step three is to count the atoms on each side

again and update your chart. Now that you’ve
changed the equation to H2 + O2 → 2H2O,
there are 2 H and 2 O on the left, but 4 H and
2 O on the right. You’ve balanced the O atoms,
but now there are too few H atoms on the left!
At this point in balancing the equation, repeat
steps two and three until the numbers of
atoms on each side are equal. If you change
the coefficient of H2 to 2, you now have 4 H
and 2 O on the left with 4 H and 2 O on the
right. The equation 2H2 + O2 → 2H2O is
balanced.

Now let’s examine another chemical reaction.

This one is a bit trickier to balance: CO2 +
H2O → C6H12O6 + O2. Counting the atoms
tells you that the equation is unbalanced. The
left side has 1 C, 2 H, and 3 O, while the right
side has 6 C, 12 H, and 8 O. Next, per step
two, change one coefficient. Try changing the
CO2 coefficient to 6 to equalize the number of
C atoms on each side. Following step three
and recounting the atoms, you now have 6 C,
2 H, and 13 O on the left, as well as 6 C, 12 H,
and 8 O on the right. Next, balance the H
atoms. Change the coefficient of H2O to 6 so
that the left has 6 C, 12 H, and 18 O, while the
right still maintains 6 C, 12 H, and 8 O. Now
the only unbalanced aspect is the O atoms. By
altering the coefficient of O2 on the right to
become 6, the right side now has 18 O, which
is the same amount that the left has. After a
final count, you can confirm that you’ve
balanced the equation as 6CO2 + 6H2O →
C6H12O6 + 6O2.

These three steps—count, change a coefficient,

and count again—will enable you to balance
any chemical equation according to the law of
conservation of mass.

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Were the Nazis ! Actions

Socialists?
Written by Michael Ray
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Were the Nazis socialists? No, not in any

meaningful way, and certainly not after 1934.
But to address this canard fully, one must
begin with the birth of the party.

Life can be
painful why

Pain causes many to look

for someone to blame.
In 1919 a Munich locksmith named Anton
Drexler founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
(DAP; German Workers’ Party). Political
parties were still a relatively new phenomenon
in Germany, and the DAP—renamed the
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
(NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers’
Party, or Nazi Party) in 1920—was one of
several fringe players vying for influence in
the early years of the Weimar Republic. It is
entirely possible that the Nazis would have
remained a regional party, struggling to gain
recognition outside Bavaria, had it not been
for the efforts of Adolf Hitler. Hitler joined the
party shortly after its creation, and by July
1921 he had achieved nearly total control of
the Nazi political and paramilitary apparatus.

To say that Hitler understood the value of

language would be an enormous
understatement. Propaganda played a
significant role in his rise to power. To that
end, he paid lip service to the tenets suggested
by a name like National Socialist German
Workers’ Party, but his primary—indeed, sole
—focus was on achieving power whatever the
cost and advancing his racist, anti-Semitic
agenda. After the failure of the Beer Hall
Putsch, in November 1923, Hitler became
convinced that he needed to utilize the
teetering democratic structures of the Weimar
government to attain his goals.

Over the following years the brothers Otto and

Gregor Strasser did much to grow the party by
tying Hitler’s racist nationalism to socialist
rhetoric that appealed to the suffering lower
middle classes. In doing so, the Strassers also
succeeded in expanding the Nazi reach
beyond its traditional Bavarian base. By the
late 1920s, however, with the German
economy in free fall, Hitler had enlisted
support from wealthy industrialists who
sought to pursue avowedly anti-socialist
policies. Otto Strasser soon recognized that
the Nazis were neither a party of socialists nor
a party of workers, and in 1930 he broke away
to form the anti-capitalist Schwarze Front
(Black Front). Gregor remained the head of
the left wing of the Nazi Party, but the lot for
the ideological soul of the party had been cast.

Hitler allied himself with leaders of German

conservative and nationalist movements, and
in January 1933 German President Paul von
Hindenburg appointed him chancellor.
Hitler’s Third Reich had been born, and it was
entirely fascist in character. Within two
months Hitler achieved full dictatorial power
through the Enabling Act. In April 1933
communists, socialists, democrats, and Jews
were purged from the German civil service,
and trade unions were outlawed the following
month. That July Hitler banned all political
parties other than his own, and prominent
members of the German Communist Party
and the Social Democratic Party were arrested
and imprisoned in concentration camps. Lest
there be any remaining questions about the
political character of the Nazi revolution,
Hitler ordered the murder of Gregor Strasser,
an act that was carried out on June 30, 1934,
during the Night of the Long Knives. Any
remaining traces of socialist thought in the
Nazi Party had been extinguished.

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