Talk:Hill system

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The contents of the Hill system page were merged into Chemical formula on 2016-08-26 (UTC) and it now redirects there. For the contribution history and old versions of the merged article please see its history.

Under the Hill system, hydrogen bromide would be written as BrH. This is in contrast to the typical method where the cation is listed before the anion for ionic compounds regardless of alphabetical order (e.g., NaCl instead of ClNa under the Hill system). An American Chemical Society workshop says the following: "If no Carbon is present, put all elements in alphabetical order."

Here's what Hill wrote in his article on page 484:

In our system, the arrangement of the formulas is governed
by the following general principles in the following order :
1st. The number of C atoms )
2nd. The number of H atoms ) . in carbon compounds.
3rd. The alphabetical arrangements of the symbols of the
remaining elements (including H in other than carbon
compounds).
Practically, in indexing, or in using the digest as an index,
the only thing to be remembered is, that in carbon compounds
C comes first and H second, and that otherwise the rearrangement
of formulas and the arrangement of such formulas in the
digest is always alphabetically by the symbols, instead of by
the names of the component elements.

(The "in carbon compounds" is next to a brace that connects the "1st" and "2nd" principles.)

Finally, the external link itself on the article page lists hydrogen bromide as "BrH". Talu42 (talk) 06:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]