Elements
An element is a chemical substance that can't be divided or changed into other chemical substances by any ordinary chemical means. The smallest unit of an element is the atom.
Element
An element is a substance that cannot be broken down into other substances through chemical means.
There are 112 officially named elements and about 118 known elements. Most of these are natural, but some are man-made. The elements we know are represented in the Periodic Table of the Elements, where each element is abbreviated to a chemical symbol. Examples of elements are magnesium (Mg), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O) and carbon (C). On the Periodic Table you will notice that some of the abbreviations do not seem to match the elements they represent. The element iron, for example, has the chemical formula Fe. This is because the elements were originally given Latin names. Iron has the abbreviation Fe because its Latin name is 'ferrum'. In the same way, sodium's Latin name is 'natrium' (Na) and gold's is 'aurum' (Au).
INTERESTING FACT
Recently it was agreed that two more elements would be added to the list of officially named elements. These are elements number 114 and 116. The proposed name for element 114 is flerovium and for element 116 it is moscovium. This brings the total number of officially named elements to 114.
Compounds
A compound is a chemical substance that forms when two or more elements combine in a fixed ratio. Water (H2O), for example, is a compound that is made up of two hydrogen atoms for every one oxygen atom. Sodium chloride (NaCl) is a compound made up of one sodium atom for every chlorine atom. An important characteristic of a compound is that it has a chemical formula, which describes the ratio in which the atoms of each element in the compound occur.
Compound
A substance made up of two or more elements that are joined together in a fixed ratio.