What represents the products and reactants in a chemical reaction?

In a chemical reaction, a chemical equation serves as a symbolic representation of the reactants and products involved. Reactants are the substances that undergo the chemical change, and products are the substances formed as a result of that change. The chemical equation communicates this relationship using chemical formulas and symbols that depict the elements and compounds, as well as their proportions.

For example, in the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, the equation (2H_2 + O_2 \rightarrow 2H_2O) shows that two molecules of hydrogen react with one molecule of oxygen to produce two molecules of water. This notation is concise and universally understood in the scientific community, allowing chemists to convey complex chemical processes effectively.

A hypothesis represents a testable prediction about the relationship between variables, while a mixture refers to a physical combination of substances that retain their individual properties. An isotope refers to variants of a particular chemical element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons, which is unrelated to the concept of reactants and products in a chemical reaction.