Two students were working with 3 beakers that look the same. Unfortunately the labels got mixed up and so now they are trying to decide which beaker is which. One is an ionic compound dissolved in water. One is a polar covalent compound dissolved in water. One is a nonpolar substance.

the atomic number will stay the same no matter how many electrons it has, so it doesn’t decrease nor increase. it’ll only change with a different number of protons

every chemical equation adheres to the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. therefore, there must be the same number of atoms of each element on each side of a chemical equation.