2 Polnts

What do the letters in the boxes of the periodic table represent?

A. The letters stand for the names commonly used for the elements.

O

B. The letters are a one - or two-letter symbol assigned to each

element.

O

C. The letters are an abbreviation of the element's name in English.

O

D. The letters represent the name of the element when it was

discovered.

Answer: B

In chemistry, a symbol is an abbreviation for a chemical element. Symbols for chemical elements normally consist of one or two letters from the Latin alphabet and are written with the first letter capitalised.

Earlier symbols for chemical elements stem from classical Latin and Greek vocabulary. For some elements, this is because the material was known in ancient times, while for others, the name is a more recent invention. For example, Pb is the symbol for lead (plumbum in Latin); Hg is the symbol for mercury (hydrargyrum in Greek); and He is the symbol for helium (a new Latin name) because helium was not known in ancient Roman times. Some symbols come from other sources, like W for tungsten (Wolfram in German) which was not known in Roman times.