How to solve chemical equations?

Balancing chemical equations : Assume you were doing a trade game, you have to balance profit and loss so that you can manage the game. It is the same way to balance a chemical equation. There are different atoms (assume them as different fruits/balls) and the reaction arrow separates reactants on left (loss) and products on right (profit). Now, just guess and try to arrange numbers in a way that you get the equal number of same atom (fruit/ball) on both sides. Try this until all atoms got equally on both sides.

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A chemical equation is balanced when the number of atoms of each type on each side of the equation is the same. Which means if you have 12 hydrogens on the left hand side of the equation, you must have 12 hydrogens on the right hand side, if there are 4 oxygens on the left, there must 4 oxygens on the right, and so on. This is because of the law of conservation of mass - you can't make or destroy atoms during a chemical reaction. But you can't just add atoms at random to each side, you have to work with the molecules of the reactants. Also, you will find it very tricky to try to balance a word equation, it is very much easier to use a chemical equation with chemical symbols, as then you will be able to see how many atoms of each type are in each chemical.

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