How are experimental data used to show that a compound obeys the law of definite proportions?
1 Answer
Let's do this by example
Iron
They always react in the proportion 7
If you use too much iron, you can still detect the remaining iron from the (ground-up) mixture with a magnet.
If you use too much sulphur, you can still burn it, giving the characteristic
In the past, chemists have found these ratios (or definite proportions) for almost all reactions they knew at the time.
This led to the idea of atomic weights, in which all elements were compared to the weight of hydrogen
(later the unit was shifted to
In this system