when to multiply empirical formula [ENDORSED]

[Divya Pimparkar 1E]

When you divide the molar mass of the molecular formula by the molar mass of the empirical formula, if i get 3.5, do i multiply by 4 or 3?

[Lily Benitez 2G]

You multiply by the smallest possible value; that will give you a whole number.

[Dayna Pham 1I]

If you are at 3.5, you can multiply by 2 to get 7! Hope this helps.

[Venya Vaddi 1L]

In these problems, you always want to make sure you are multiplying by a whole number to ensure you have whole numbers of atoms.

[Maria Solis Disc 1G]

You would multiple all the coefficients by 7, since you can't have 3.5 as a coefficient. You can't use 3 or 4 because that wouldn't uphold the exact proportion of 3.5.

[Rehan Chinoy 1K]

You want to make sure all the stoichiometric coefficients are whole numbers. So if you have 3.5, you will most likely multiply all of the coefficients by 2 or a multiple of 2 to ensure whole numbers.

[AlyssaBei_1F]

You want to multiply by the smallest possible number that will give you a whole number. I would multiply 3.5 by 2 to get 7.

[Mayaal_Khan_4H]

You need to multiple the answer by the smallest possible number which would turn the answer to a whole number. For example, if your answer is 1.33, you will have to multiply it by 3 to get 4.

[EllaBerry]

Always multiply by the smallest number possible to get a whole number. In this case it sounds like you would multiply by 2 so that the 3.5 would turn into 7, a whole number.

[Julia Jones 1G]

If you get a number like 3.5, multiply everything by 2 to get the whole number of 7 (this will be your subscript for the element in the molecular formula)