Question

Can someone please please help me balance And name chemical reactions

Answer 1

Suppose you have sodium in water to produce sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas:
This means: \(\sf \color{red}{Na^+ + H_2O \rightarrow NaOH + H_2}\)

Well, if you look here, you see that you have on
REACTANT SIDE(left hand side)
1 Na
2 H
1 O
PRODUCT SIDE (right hand side)
1 Na
3 H
1 O

see, you don't have same number of hydrogen on both sides! Thus, you need to balance. Why? B/c in a chemical reaction, all atoms go somewhere and MUST be taken into account for. They do not just magically disappear into nothing.

It follows the same rules as in algebra: distributive property. For example in the reaction above, YOU SHOULD get: \(\sf \color{red}{2}Na + \color{red}{2} H_2O \rightarrow \color{red}{2}NaOH + H_2\)

now, you have on both sides same # of atoms!