Question

How many elements make up one molecule of carbon dioxide?

Answer 1

Hint Before solving this question, first we have to understand the basic definitions of atoms and elements. We all know that the atom is the smallest unit while the molecule is the combination of two or more atoms.

Complete step by step solution:
We know that atoms are the smallest unit while elements consist of atoms with the same number of protons in the nucleus. For example, some elements are nitrogen, phosphorus etc they contain atoms with 7, 15 protons in their nuclei. Another example is we know gold is an element, the smallest piece of gold that has the same characteristics is a single atom of gold.
Similarly, for carbon dioxide i.e. $ C{{O}_{2}}$ . It contains 2 elements i.e. carbon and oxygen and one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen respectively.

Additional information:
The chemical symbol is used to represent an atom or an element. The chemical symbol of an element usually consists of one or two letters from the Latin alphabet and the first letter is always capital. There are many sources from which the symbols are derived, it includes Greek name of an element or German name etc. The chemical symbol for carbon dioxide is $ C{{O}_{ 2}}$ . The symbol for carbon is C and for oxygen is O.

Note: The constituent particles of an atom are protons, neutrons, electrons and many other particles. But in the beginning of the atom theory the atom was considered the smallest particle which cannot be divided further.