Question

Question #039d5

Answer 1

If I understand you would try just to balance mulecular masses.
It woul be right, but not sufficient to balance the reaction because it would give just one constraint on coefficients (you need several)

Explanation:

Example
`2H_2O=2H_2+O_2`

We start from
`aH_2O=bH_2+cO_2`

Then realize that we can multiply both terms for a constant so we can put `a=1`

Then equal the molecular masses:

`2+16=b*2+c*32`
`b=9-16c`

This is true in our balanced equation (where `a=1, b=1, c=1/2`), but not sufficient to find b and c.