That means we are dealing with a series of reactions. Sometimes, you may see a whole series of compounds linked from one to the next by reaction arrows. Nevertheless, the idea implied by the reaction arrow is always the same. Sometimes in biochemistry a simple acronym is used to stand for the compound, such as NADH or AcSCoA, because the structures are relatively complicated. Sometimes we leave out the structure and just use the formulae of the compounds, although we are losing some information that way. These structures might be complete Lewis or Kekule structures, or they might be abbreviated line structures in organic compounds. The reactants and products themselves are usually drawn using symbolic structures. The important thing is that the arrow points from reactant to product. Normally the reaction is written from left to right, with the reactant on the left and the product on the right, but that isn't always necessary. The thing that formed is called the product. The thing that reacted is called the reactant. The reaction arrow is used in an "equation of reaction". The arrow points from the old thing (the thing that reacted) to the new thing (the thing that forme A reaction arrow just tells you that a change has taken place, and one thing has turned into another. You probably already know a little about some of these symbols, but now that you have encountered them a few times, we should review.Ĭonveying Relationships Between StructuresĬhances are, the first arrow you encountered in a chemistry class was a reaction arrow. We also use arrows, lots of different kinds of them, to convey a number of different ideas. The most important symbols may be those used for the elements themselves, such as C for carbon or Fe for iron. In chemistry, we start using this symbolic notation early on, as well. In fact, symbolic notation is really how all of mathematics works when we see the number three, we immediately associate it with a trio of objects (***). We have used them so often that we instantly get the idea of what is going on. We don't even need to think about what these signs mean because we learned about them in elementary school. Alternatively, we could use that plus sign to indicate that we have a surplus (a positive number) or that minus sign to show that we have a deficit or a debt (a negative number). In mathematics, we use a plus sign (+) to indicate that we are putting these things together we use a minus sign (-) to indicate we are taking some of these things away. Sometimes in mathematics and science we need to convey an idea based on concepts we have learned previously.
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