I'm not a chemist so maybe this is a stupid question but
What fucking basis is used for naming chemical compounds? Why is methane is one carbon, ethane two, propane three, butane 4, pentane five, hextane 6, etc?
Pent is obviously from penta, latin for five, same with hextane from hex, but what the fuck is methane butan protane etc?
This extends to the rest of chemistry. Why the fuck do you need to distinguish between a 3,4-nitrohexane and a dintrohexane?
Who the fuck came up with this? Why is the naming scheme all fucked and unnecessarily complicated?