Solved cryptogram
Hydrogen has one proton and one electron, which makes it the simplest atom that can exist.
Chemistry Facts, sourced to Royal Society of Chemistry.
What it means
There is nothing below it. An atom needs at least one proton to be an element at all, and hydrogen has exactly one, with a single electron to balance it. Everything heavier was built out of hydrogen inside stars. It is also the great majority of ordinary matter in the universe by count of atoms, which makes the simplest thing in chemistry also the commonplace one.
The claim comes from Royal Society of Chemistry, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 73 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
- SourceRoyal Society of Chemistry
- CollectionChemistry Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length73 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 70 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 75 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistryeasy, 74 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 73 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 71 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 77 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 74 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistryhard, 77 letters