Question

What is meant by the term empirical formula?

Answer 1

`"The empirical formula is the........."`

Explanation:

The empirical formula is the simplest whole number ratio that relates constituent atoms in a species.

For molecules such as `C_4H_10` or `C_8H_20` the empirical formulae is thus clearly `C_2H_5`. Why so?

See here, and here for an example in which an empirical formula is calculated.