Nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or nitrous, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula . At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, with a slight metallic scent and taste. At elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizer similar to molecular oxygen. It is soluble in water. Nitrous oxide has significant medical uses, especially in surgery and dentistry, for its anaesthetic and pain reducing effects. Its name "laughing gas", coined by Humphry Davy, is due to the euphoric effects upon inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational
Chemical formula as Cs[BH]. Parentheses ( ) can be nested inside brackets to indicate a repeating unit, as in [Co(NH)]Cl. Here, (NH) indicates that the ion contains six NH groups bonded to cobalt, and [ ] encloses the entire formula of the ion with charge +3. This is strictly optional; a chemical formula is valid with or without ionization information, and Hexamminecobalt(III) chloride may be written as [Co(NH)]Cl or [Co(NH)]Cl. Brackets, like parentheses, behave in chemistry as they do in mathematics, grouping terms together they are not specifically employed only for ionization states. In the latter case here, the parentheses indicate 6