Question

What are the rules to represent an element?

Answer 1

Elements are represented in a short form with the help of alphabets and such representations are called chemical symbols. The chemical symbol of an element is the short form of its chemical name.
1)The symbol of an element is written in English script.
2)The first letter of the English name is used as the symbol for the elements. For example, hydrogen, oxygen, boron, etc. can be represented as H, O, B respectively.
3)A pair of letters can be used when the initial letter of two or more elements are the same. For example, both carbon and chlorine have the first letter C so carbon is represented as C whereas chlorine is represented as Cl.
4)The symbols of some elements have been derived from their Latin names. The Latin name of gold and sodium is Aurum and Natrium respectively. So Au and Na is the chemical symbol of gold and sodium respectively.