General Question

kelly's avatar

why is the periodic table symbol for sodium, Na ?

Asked by kelly (1918points) March 11th, 2008
7 responses
“Great Question” (3points)

you would think it would be So, like carbon is C, and oxygen is O

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Answers

omfgTALIjustIMDu's avatar

Many of them, like lead (Pb) are named after their latin roots.

omfgTALIjustIMDu (9272points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Response moderated
omfgTALIjustIMDu's avatar

Also, with lead, Pb stands for plumbumb, which is where we get the word “plumber” from, because they originally worked with lead and piping.

omfgTALIjustIMDu (9272points)“Great Answer” (3points)
jrpowell's avatar

Read the first page of the wiki link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium

And this was a good question.. I am not snarking.

jrpowell (40562points)“Great Answer” (1points)
ordosingularis's avatar

There should be a question category for questions that can be answered with a chimp, 3 minutes, and Google.

johnpowell: I AM snarking.

ordosingularis (58points)“Great Answer” (1points)
winblowzxp's avatar

Sodium’s chemical symbol is Na for Nacium

winblowzxp (498points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Beans4life's avatar

Most elements on the periodic chart their symbols are based on either their Latin root words. That is how Dmitri Mendeleev organized it.

Beans4life (69points)“Great Answer” (0points)

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