ChemBalancer App

[yulmart]

Hey all, I've recently made an Android app that can balance chemical equations (useful if you are struggling). If you can check it out, it would be of great help!

App Name: ChemBalancer

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sagar2398gmail.patel.chembalancer3&hl=en

[kw0573]

Hi! I think this a good app that you have made. I propose the 2 following areas of improvements. 

1) At least in IB, there will be need to balance charged species, it would be great if you can incorporate this feature.

2) In a reaction where there are much more species than types of atoms, there is not one solution. If you have taken a course on linear algebra (which I assume is the method such an app would implement), then it is a underspecified system where many of the equations are duplicates. I tested an equation from my textbook: 7/3 C6H12O6 + 15/2 O2 --> C6H6O2 + 8CO2 + 11H2O, to which the app returned the coefficients (5,4 --> 4, 6, 18): two valid solutions but are not multiple of each other. I think you should identify such conditions and have the user enter known coefficients to narrow down to one set of coefficients. 

In the Math HL curriculum there is discussion of intersection of 3 planes, which I highly recommend looking over for an intro to solving these type of problems. I do recommend, if not already, in taking a course/read a book on linear algebra. 

Edited February 11, 2017 by kw0573

[yulmart]

7 minutes ago, kw0573 said:

Hi! I think this a good app that you have made. I propose the 2 following areas of improvements. 

1) At least in IB, there will be need to balance charged species, it would be great if you can incorporate this feature.

2) In a reaction where there are much more species than types of atoms, there is not one solution. If you have taken a course on linear algebra (which I assume is the method such an app would implement), then it is a underspecified system where many of the equations are duplicates. I tested an equation from my textbook: 7/3 C6H12O6 + 15/2 O2 --> C6H6O2 + 8CO2 + 11H2O, to which the app returned the coefficients (5,4 --> 4, 6, 18): two valid solutions but are not multiple of each other. I think you should identify such conditions and have the user enter known coefficients to narrow down to one set of coefficients. 

In the Math HL curriculum there is discussion of intersection of 3 planes, which I highly recommend looking over for an intro to solving these type of problems. I do recommend, if not already, in taking a course/read a book on linear algebra. 

1) I'm currently implementing this feature.

2) Yes, this app does implement many concepts from linear algebra (simplex algorithm, rank-nullity, etc.). You bring up a good point about unique solutions where they are not necessarily multiples of each other. I will try to implement this feature too!

Thanks for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated!