Re: are unadorned brackets always "concentration"?

For typography, a thick space is inserted around relational operators such
as "=" and arrows. A medium space is inserted around binary operators. So
depending on how you look at it, there either isn't a space after either
form (if you look at the source) or there is in both (if you look at the
display). I thought of a potential method to distinguish between grouping
brackets and concentration brackets: a concentration bracket is never next
to a chemical formula (vs a chemical expression) and it would always
contain a chemical formula. Correct? I suspect it would be highly unusual
to have concentration appear as a multiplicative factor in front of a
chemical formula as in (this totally made up) example [H20]NaCl.

    Neil


On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 3:06 AM E.A.Moore <e.a.moore@open.ac.uk> wrote:

> Further to my previous reply. Concentration brackets can have superscript
> numbers or letters representing variables but not charges or counterions
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> Elaine
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> *From: *Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu>
> *Sent: *27 June 2022 08:07
> *To: *Chemistry CG <public-chem-web-pub@w3.org>
> *Subject: *are unadorned brackets always "concentration"?
>
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> I thought that if there are unadorned square brackets (i.e., no sub or
> superscripts), then that means "concentration of...". However, on this
> wikipedia page
> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSalt_metathesis_reaction%23Counterion_exchange&data=05%7C01%7Ce.a.moore%40open.ac.uk%7C3735dc752d434d9c7f0408da580bc3a9%7C0e2ed45596af4100bed3a8e5fd981685%7C0%7C0%7C637919104795553835%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cdPDX4A6GotcSPwAkThx%2FpCOeLTRmHdJh9fvzkwgDqA%3D&reserved=0>,
> there are lots of examples of unadorned brackets. My knowledge of chemistry
> is limited, but to my eyes, these uses of brackets are not meant to be
> "concentration".
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> Are they just grouping symbols to indicate the counterion? If so, how do I
> distinguish between their use as grouping symbols and their use as
> concentration?
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> Thanks,
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>     Neil
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