Home > Community > Why is Magnesium called Mg and not Ma? Like usually elements are like Calcium is Ca and stuff. So whys Magnesium Mg?
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Kein Timothy Capuno

Why is Magnesium called Mg and not Ma? Like usually elements are like Calcium is Ca and stuff. So whys Magnesium Mg?

David Miller  Follow

Wikipedia is informative:

‘The name magnesium originates from the Greek word for locations related to the tribe of the Magnetes, either a district in Thessaly called Magnesia or Magnesia ad Sipylum, now in Turkey. It is related to magnetite and manganese, which also originated from this area, and required differentiation as separate substances’

So, because there are two elements with similar names, magnesium and manganese, use of ‘Ma’ for either would cause confusion. So both elements use the first and third letters of their names for their abbreviations, rather than the first and second.

So magnesium is Mg and manganese is Mn.

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Brandon Lesche  Follow

Magnesium has the lowest melting (923 K (1,202 °F)) and the lowest boiling point 1,363 K (1,994 °F) of all the alkaline earth metals. Pure polycrystalline magnesium is brittle and easily fractures along shear bands. It becomes much more ductile when alloyed with small amount of other metals, such as 1% aluminium.?

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Daniel Andrews  Follow

If calcium, magnesium, and other normal soluble ions are removed, the water could be considered distilled, R. O., or de-ionized.

If the calcium and magnesium have been replaced with sodium, but the rest of the cations and anions remain the same as the source water, the product could have been produced via ion-exchange softening, resulting is soft water.

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David Brower  Follow

Simple because magnesium is not MG or MA

The symbol for magnesium, is Mg .

Why not Ma - because you want to use the first and second letters ?

Then what do you do for manganese - applying the same rule manganese would also be Ma.

Therefore for both elements we use the first and third letters:

Magnesium Mg

Manganese Mn

But we do not use MG , MA or MN

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Aqeel Mahesri  Follow

Atomic number of N is 7, So it has 5 electrons in its outermost shell , So it needs 3 electrons to complete its octet.
On other hand Mg has atomic number 12 and it has 2 extra electrons which it looses to become stable.
So in Mg3N2, 3 atoms of Mg will provide 6 electrons to 2 atoms of N.
So both of them will get their octet completed .

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Annmarie Wilson  Follow

Generally, if a compound can only exist in one combination, it doesn't require modifiers. Since Mg only has a charge of 2+, the only way it can combine with acetate (which is 1-) is as Mg(C2H3O2)2.
Ionic compounds are named with the metal first and then the anion. if the cation has multiple oxidation states, you need to show that using roman numerals .Technically, this can be called magnesium diacetate but it is an ionic bond and the preferred name is that of magnesium acetate.

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