Question

What is the old symbol for mercury?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D) None of the above

Answer 1

Chemical symbols are abbreviations used in chemistry for chemical elements to represent reactions, molecules and complexes. Element symbols for chemical elements normally consist of one or two letters of the Latin alphabet or names and are written with the first letter capitalized.

Complete answer:
-Antoine Lavoisier was a notable person of the eighteenth century who had a large influence on both the history and chemistry and history of biology. Antoine Lavoisier was the first to introduce the system of chemical nomenclature. He published the first modern chemical textbook in the year 1789 which presented a unified view of new theories of chemistry. This book also contained a list of 33 elements or the substances that could not be broken down further.
-John Dalton in the year 1808 was the first to propose a new set of standard symbols for the chemical elements in the first volume of his book named ‘New System’. He gave symbols to the 36 known elements of that time.
-Berzelius, a Sweden chemist suggested the use of letters for representing the elements. Using these criteria, he named 47 known elements of that time. He named elements in the following manner-
(i) In the first class, which he called metalloids, he employed the initial letter only as a chemical sign.
(ii) In the second class of metals, he used the first two letters of the word as a chemical sign.
(iii) If the first two letters are common for two metals, he added the initial letter of the first consonant which they have not in common.
-In the first decade of the nineteenth century, approximately 14 new elements were added. Periodical systems now came into existence, in which various scientists tried naming and arranging the elements known so far in a convenient way for study.
-In the year 1869, Mendeleev assembled detailed descriptions of more than 60 elements. In his classification, he arranged elements according to their atomic weights and the chemical elements with similar properties have nearly similar atomic weights. This classification is the most accepted system of classification as it gave places even for the unknown elements.
- Recently, a three-letter temporary symbol is also used to assign the symbol to newly synthesized elements like Unniloctium which has the symbol as ‘Uno’.
-Dalton used symbols for representing Mercury.

Hence, the correct answer is option D.

**Note:**Symbols used by Dalton for representing 36 elements are given below-