Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements

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"the"

@Grendon84 has been systematically changing the first part of elements like:

Selenium is a chemical element; it has the symbol Se and atomic number 34.

to remove "the":

Selenium is a chemical element; it has symbol Se and atomic number 34.

The edits are marked minor and have no edit summary.

If there is an agreed form this it should be cited in the change. If not these changes should not be made, they are just annoying and to me they read like a word is missing. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:57, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To my understanding, the form without "the" was initially approved, though I prefer using "the" as it reads as a bit more natural. 108.160.120.147 (talk) 13:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Paper accepted for publication that updates various nuclei

While cleaning Isotopes of silver (updated to NUBASE2020 in 2022), I uncovered a paper, which has been accepted to Physical Review C and is available as an arXiv preprint, that updates the masses of various nuclei.

Jaries, A.; Stryjczyk, M.; Kankainen, A.; Ayoubi, L. Al; Beliuskina, O.; Canete, L.; de Groote, R. P.; Delafosse, C.; Delahaye, P.; Eronen, T.; Flayol, M.; Ge, Z.; Geldhof, S.; Gins, W.; Hukkanen, M.; Imgram, P.; Kahl, D.; Kostensalo, J.; Kujanpää, S.; Kumar, D.; Moore, I. D.; Mougeot, M.; Nesterenko, D. A.; Nikas, S.; Patel, D.; Penttilä, H.; Pitman-Weymouth, D.; Pohjalainen, I.; Raggio, A.; Ramalho, M.; Reponen, M.; Rinta-Antila, S.; de Roubin, A.; Ruotsalainen, J.; Srivastava, P. C.; Suhonen, J.; Vilen, M.; Virtanen, V.; Zadvornaya, A. "Physical Review C - Accepted Paper: Isomeric states of fission fragments explored via Penning trap mass spectrometry at IGISOL". journals.aps.org. arXiv:2403.04710.

This updates the following nuclei and their isomers: ⁸⁴Br, ¹⁰⁵Mo, ¹¹⁵Pd, ¹¹⁹Pd, ¹²¹Pd, ¹²²Ag, ¹²⁷In, ¹²⁹In, and ¹³²Sb. In particular, I have updated ¹²²Ag in the table — for this nucleus, the 3− state in NUBASE2020 is declared nonexistent. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 07:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Appearances of elements we have no data for?

Of the known elements, we know for certain what ninety-seven look like at STP (the first ninety-nine less astatine and francium).

It's predicted that astatine is silvery metallic, and I assume francium would be the same. But I'm not sure if relativistic effects kick in - caesium is a bit golden - why shouldn't francium be, or is francium likely silvery as well? I'm not sure. Wikipedia does not make any assumptions to what francium's color might be in its article. Silvery like most? Or golden like caesium?

I presume fermium onwards are all likely silvery, I note Wikipedia says roentgenium is likely silvery, so I assume that all past fermium are at least to tennessine, maybe oganesson? I'm not sure what oganesson would probably look like if it's not a gas, as Wikipedia says it's probably a solid.

Is there any data on what these elusive radioactive elements might look like if we were to theoretically get a macroscopic sample of them and have the result not be instant destruction and death? 108.160.120.147 (talk) 18:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Einsteinium is a decent measuring stick. There are a lot of folks who postulate that the post-astatine elements will be silvery gray or metallic white but the sources do not look great. Recon rabbit 19:49, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Francium is probably somewhere between Rb and Cs in colour (I answered why here). But so far no RS; that's just applying the physics behind alkali metal colours on my end. In most cases the electronic structure is less simple (and also the predicted structure is sometimes not cubic, leading to anisotropic optical properties) and it will be a good deal harder to work it out. I suspect that not too much thought went into most of the "silvery" predictions and it's just that this is how most metals look. Though it's not even clear if Cn, Fl, and Og are metals or not. Double sharp (talk) 01:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown

I'm i the process of removing undiscovered decay modes from isotope lists I've edited, unless there is an experimental bound. But I'm not sure how to denote decay modes with unknown branching ratio, such as the β⁺ and β⁺p modes of ¹²⁴Pr:

β⁺
β⁺?
β⁺ (?%)
β⁺ (unknown%)
Add a new column with the branching ratio.

–LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 11:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

β⁺ (?%) is succinct & unambiguous. YBG (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1 Double sharp (talk) 09:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with YBG and Double sharp. Any potential confusion (e.g., unobserved decay modes vs. observed decay modes with unknown branching radio) can be resolved with explanatory footnotes. ^Complex/_Rational 11:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is a "main oxidation state"?

Like main isotopes, main oxidation state is also something that varies in different Wikipedia articles. Some oxidation states like Tl(+3) and Co(+3) are either bolded or not in different languages of Wikipedia. There might be a need for a criteria of main oxidation states. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 10:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it may have started with "does Greenwood and Earnshaw consider it a 'more common oxidation state' in their table on p.28". Double sharp (talk) 13:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That table is a good starting point. However, there are no oxidation states listed for He, Ne, Ar, Rn, and Db and beyond, so other sources are needed for them. No is also a problem, as the article says No(+2) is more stable than No(+3), but it is reversed in Greenwood and Earnshaw. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 14:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, there is a dispute about necessariness of listing every oxidation state. I think it deserves to be discussed here. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 14:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That was my post, and my point was especially pointed at infobars.

In my opinion as a chemist and editor, the thing you describe as "main oxidation state" is a chemically significant characteristic of the element. This information is invaluable in rapid qualitative thinking about likely chemical compounds. When attached to an element, "main oxidation state" means "the element's predominate or common oxidation state".

Exotic oxidation states are quite a different matter. They only apply to, well, exotic compounds and thus have little predictive power. That is why they appear in the "news": when a chemist succeeds in creating an exotic compound that defies prediction they may claim the element is in a new "oxidation state". This state is not a characteristic of the element.

In terms of the element articles I think the exotic oxidation state content would be much more fun and effective if it were moved in sections entitled something like "Exotic compounds". There we would discuss things like XeF₆ which were unexpected, difficult to create, and have unusual properties. Infobars are poor location for this info because they don't allow discussion of interesting aspects of these exotica. The effect of having both "main" and "exotic" oxidation states is to dilute the value of both bits of information. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's fine to put Xe as having 2, 4, 6, and 8, because a line that would bar XeF₆ and friends would bar us from putting down anything at all for that element. I do think some cutting makes sense, but what exactly would it entail? Ir(VI) has basically one exemplar (hexafluoride + maybe some derivatives), but it doesn't need exotic conditions the way VII and higher do. What about negatives in carbonyls, which have little to do with the actual charge on the central atom? And how would you source the particular line drawn in the sand? Double sharp (talk) 02:24, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is my point. Noble gases got that name for a reason! That is why no compound of noble gases was created until 1962. The history of chemistry stretches back a thousand years and chemical synthesis has been going full bore for hundreds of years. As a natural element, the only oxidation state that matters for Xe is zero.

I agree that my proposal requires a source and it may be that the line might be unclear. Oxidation state is not an atomic property. Strictly for "Elements" all oxidation states are zero.

But it seems like this problem already exists. The Elements pages have three kinds of information under oxidation state. Two kinds of numbers, bold and normal, and some text (which links base and acid weirdly) and occasionally a ref. Somehow readers are supposed to decode this? That is what lead me to complain in the first place.

For example Rubidium has −1, +1 (a strongly basic oxide) and Iron has −4, −2, −1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6, +7 (an amphoteric oxide).

What is the meaning of Rubidium's oxidation state being a strongly basic oxide? Why was +1 bold?

(maybe if you agree that there is a problem we need to think of smaller steps of improvement). Johnjbarton (talk) 02:59, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The bold means that Rb +1 is a major state, and the lack of bold means that Rb −1 isn't. The "strongly basic oxide" refers to Rb(I) oxide i.e. Rb₂O being strongly basic. I do agree this is less clear for Fe, where I would say FeO is better called basic than amphoteric, and it's not clear which oxidation state the text is describing. Maybe the parenthesis should be put next to the oxidation state it's relevant to.

Probably it would be good to state explicitly that bold oxidation states mean the main ones. Though understandings may differ: I would call Mn(VII) an important oxidation state, but it's too oxidising to find in minerals. This is likely similar to why we seem to disagree for Xe(VI): to me, talking about Xe chemistry in any way already presupposes that we are narrowing the scope to what happens when you force it into compounds, because saying "it doesn't do anything" (as writing only 0 as a main oxidation state would imply) seems a bit too boring to be the plausible meaning in context. Double sharp (talk) 03:42, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps splitting the acidic/basic properties to another row? After that, every oxide in main oxidation state can be clarified like this:

Cr₂O₃: an amphoteric oxide
CrO₃: an acidic oxide

Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 10:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting into another row would be good, but I don't understand the context/purpose of these phrases. Why would we list these two oxides in the infobar for Cr? Johnjbarton (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp: I want to be clear that my main point is about the infobar. The issues you raise can all be dealt with in the text. The infobar however has nothing to show readers that "bold means Rb +1 is a major state" or that '"strongly basic oxide" refers to Rb(I) oxide'. All we see in the info bar is a series of numbers and a cryptic phrase seemingly singling out some factoid about something that also has "oxi" in the word, but why?

Also note that the infobar link next to the coded message is to Oxidation state which does not explain bold, "Rb", "strongly basic oxide", or "Rb(I) oxide". Sure the editors who wrote the coded message understand it, but is that our purpose? (For a start maybe we should link the infobar line to Rubidium#Oxidation state and have it link Oxidation state). Johnjbarton (talk) 15:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it seemed fairly obvious to me what it meant in 2008, before I'd started editing. (This convention was already around then, but due to changes in how the templates now work, you'll have to view the source to see it.) Sample size n=1, I know, but the idea that bold represents something more important than normal is fairly widespread.

I suppose we could add a note saying "main = bold", remove the characterisations of oxides (a little too much for the infobox perhaps when there are several), and then everything else can stay as it is while already being transparent. Double sharp (talk) 16:41, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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