What does an empirical formula represent in a chemical compound?

An empirical formula represents the simplest whole-number ratio of the atoms of each element in a chemical compound. This means that if a compound consists of more than one type of atom, the empirical formula illustrates the proportion of those atoms relative to each other, simplified to the smallest integers. For example, the empirical formula for hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is HO, indicating that there is a one-to-one ratio of hydrogen to oxygen in the simplest form.

This concept is integral in understanding the relationship between elements in a compound, as the empirical formula does not provide information on the actual number of atoms or the specific arrangement (which would be conveyed by the molecular formula or structural formula), but focuses solely on the ratio of elements.