Re: [math-fun] Balancing chemical equations by hand

Can anyone come up with a nice way to balance chemical equations manually?

All the web seems to offer is either vague "fiddle around until it works" or the nuclear option "translate into a simultaneous linear system and solve".

As an undergraduate, I discovered how to balance chemical reactions using determinants. Teacher response: This is MY course and we will do it MY way! Actually I had added conservation of charge to conservation of mass because redox equations were otherwise ambiguous. I wonder of thete is really any alternatice to conservation equations and linear algebra, even if most textbook equations can be solved by inspection. Of course the algebra part is rely mentioned in a chemistry course. -hvm