Useful Special Characters

HTML has a number of special characters that are useful for discussing chemistry. They can be inserted into a Science Madness post simply by typing the relevant ampersand (& code.

→ inserts an arrow: →
(e.g. 2H₂ + O₂ → 2H₂O)

° inserts a degree symbol: °
(e.g. 1500 °C)

µ inserts a micro symbol: µ
(e.g. 300 µg)

± inserts a plus/minus sign: ±
(e.g. 66 ± 9)

½ inserts a one half sign: ½
(e.g. H₂ + ½O₂ → H₂O)
(Similarly ¼ and ¾ insert the symbols ¼ and ¾ respectively.)

Finally, & inserts the ampersand sign, regardless of the characters that follow it. (This was used in this post to display the codes without the HTML interpreter replacing them with the corresponding characters.)

And what is the benefit of such strange and difficut writings vs the direct writing via keyboard (pressing one, or two - three keys together)? As examples:


1/2 O3
-->
<-->
<==>
C°
µ
±
*
Æ
Å
Ê
€
™
Ÿ
ª
Œ
*
Ô
¥
#
‰
Ó
|
Ë
Í
Î
þ
*
*
*
¢
*
*
i
¿
/
*
¶
Ç
ø
æ
Â
®
Ý
Ú
º
œ
*
ý
Ò
*
ƒ
Þ
Ì
Ï
È
¬
Ù
=
©
*
ß
~
*
…
÷
*
@
•