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Chemical Formula

|< < Prev #3200 (January 28, 2026)

Title text: Some of the atoms in the molecule are very weakly bound.

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Explanation

This is one of 60 incomplete explanations: This page was created by the carbon in the universe . Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

The supposed "chemical formula for the universe" merely lists the numbers of atoms of each element. As is common practice for real compounds that contain organic structures or substructures, the numbers of atoms of carbon and hydrogen are listed before all of the others; the others are listed in alphabetical order. There are estimated to be 10⁸⁰ atoms of hydrogen (H), by far the most common element in the universe. The next most common element, helium (He), is a long way to the right in the list, and out of view, but would be about a third as many as the hydrogens.

These numbers are large, but they are not nameless. Using the long and short scales, these numbers can be described as:

Pos	Symb	Name	Quantity	Short Scale name	Long Scale name(s)	Ranked quantity*
1	C	Carbon	1076	Ten quattuorvigintillion	Ten thousand duodecillion Ten duodecilliard	4
2	H	Hydrogen	1080	One hundred quinvigintillion	One hundred tridecilllion	1
3	Ac	Actinium	1067	Ten unvigintillion	Ten undecillion	≈84
4	Ag	Silver	1069	One duovigintillion	One thousand undecillion One undecilliard	≈68
5	Al	Aluminium Aluminum	1075	One quattuorvigintillion	One thousand duodecillion One duodecilliard	14
6	Am	Americium	1026	One hundred septillion	One hundred quadrillion	≈84
7	Ar	Argon	1075	One quattuorvigintillion	One thousand duodecillion One duodecilliard	11
8	As	Arsenic	1070	Ten duovigintillion	Ten thousand undecillion Ten undecilliard	≈40
9	At	Astatine	1047	One hundred quattuordecillion	One hundred thousand septillion One hundred septilliard	≈84
10	Au	Gold	1069	One duovigintillion	One thousand undecillion One undecilliard	≈68
11	B	Boron	1071	One hundred duovigintillion	One hundred thousand undecillion One hundred undecilliard	≈61
12	Ba	Barium	1070	Ten duovigintillion	Ten thousand undecillion Ten undecilliard	≈33
13	Be	Beryllium	1079*	One hundred duovigintillion	One hundred thousand undecillion One hundred undecilliard	≈61
43*	He	Helium	1079*	Ten quinvigintillion	Ten tridecilllion	2
73*	O	Oxygen	1079*	One quinvigintillion	One tridecilllion	3

* - Information not provided by the comic

The matter originally created in the Big Bang was unbound protons and neutrons. In the first few minutes, some of these combined to form lightweight nuclei, but most remained as protons, i.e. the nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Other, more complex atoms formed later as a result of stellar nucleosynthesis, up to atomic mass 56. Still more massive nuclei have been formed via supernova nucleosynthesis. Although the proportions of these atoms depend in a complex way on the fusion processes involved, and on the stabilities of those nuclei, the most massive atoms are generally both less favored to form and short-lived, so their elemental abundances in the universe are very small. As shown above, the number of americium (Am) atoms is much smaller than those of any other element in the visible part of the "formula". There are slightly fewer atoms of americium in the entire universe than the total number of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen in 1.0 L of liquid water.

This may be poking some fun at the relative usefulness (or rather, uselessness) of chemical formulas for large organic molecules. While it is a useful concept for teaching people about chemistry and balancing equations, and it was useful in the early days of chemistry to try to categorize and learn about molecules via stoichiometry - it does not give much useful information. For example even the simple formula C₁₁H₁₅NO₂ has 302 registered isomers. Many of them are NOT good to eat.^{[citation needed]}

Transcript

This is one of 40 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[A long panel with a chemical formula trailing off the right side]

C_10⁷⁶ H_10⁸⁰ Ac_10⁶⁷ Ag_10⁶⁹ Al_10⁷⁵ Am_10²⁶ Ar_10⁷⁵ As_10⁷⁰ At_10⁴⁷ Au_10⁶⁹ B_10⁷¹ Ba_10⁷⁰ Be

[Caption below the panel:] The approximate chemical formula for the universe

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