Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements

Elements Project‑class

	Chemistry portal This page is supported by WikiProject Elements, which gives a central approach to the chemical elements and their isotopes on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing this page, or visit the project page for more details.ElementsWikipedia:WikiProject ElementsTemplate:WikiProject Elementschemical elements articles
Project	This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Archives: Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62

This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Article alerts

"Range of variation" column

Sometimes it is filled with something, sometimes it is merged with the "Normal proportion" column. But most of the time, it just leaved blank. Why this column exist when it is completely empty in that isotopes page?

Completely deleting this column to all pages might be too disruptive, but IMHO this column can be removed for mononuclidic elements. There is only one isotope with abundance 100% for them, so they don't need this column. --Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 06:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree for mononuclidic elements. As for the others, maybe at some point they'll stop being empty as IUPAC turns more atomic weights into intervals, but that'll take a while and might not affect all elements. Double sharp (talk) 15:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted that column for those 21 mononuclidic elements. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 06:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding some images to the superheavy elements

There are a number of superheavy elements with no macroscopic quantities, whose preview images come up as confusing diagrams of their crystal structure. So, I've decided to add some electron diagrams. I don't know if there have been discussions on this before (I couldn't find any), but I figured it was a big enough topic I'd put a notice on some talk pages. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:33, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A link to the page(s) you are discussing would be helpful. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:05, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at Nihonium when I thought of adding them, but essentially all the elements articles above Einsteinium (not including that one). There are a lot of them, but Copernicium, Oganesson, Flerovium, etc. Mrfoogles (talk) 00:06, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mrfoogles: This has been discussed before, but not recently: the latest thread I can find is this one from 2013.

I oppose adding these diagrams because they're oversimplified and misleading – good to introduce the concept to someone unfamiliar with chemistry or atomic physics, but inappropriate to illustrate a higher-level article. Namely, electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus in a classical sense, but are governed by quantum mechanics wherein wave–particle duality is significant. We never know exactly where an electron is – only where it is most likely to be, as described by its wavefunction and observed in interactions with other particles – and atomic orbitals are not orderly, concentric rings as depicted in the diagrams.

While it also is not necessary to explain basic quantum mechanics in every element article, it's better to have no image than a misleading image, especially since quantum mechanical effects become more significant for superheavy elements. I ask that you revert your additions on these grounds. ^Complex/_Rational 23:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that the electrons are not physically in the positions shown on the Bohr diagram, and that they aren't actually in circular shells around the atom. But what Bohr diagrams show technically are energy levels, and that is a valid way to view an atom. I think that if there were photos of the electron density around superheavy atoms, those would be great images to use, but given that those photos don't exist (I assume, given most superheavy atoms evaporate long before they could be taken), I think this might be the best picture that can be there.

I don't think the image is misleading. If you look at this diagram, it's interesting to notice that not all of the electrons are in the lowest shell they could be in: 2 are in the outside shell when the second-to-outside shell is not already filled. So it actually does illustrate some complicated effects around which orbitals are the lowest energy, and it has some useful information. I think that the image isn't really misleading to people who do know about orbital shapes, because they know to treat it as an energy level diagram, and even if you did think electrons when in spherical shells around the atom, it isn't a drawing of spherical shells.

What I mean is it's an energy level diagram, not an orbital shape diagram. It doesn't dispel misconceptions, but I don't think it perpetuates them. I think it should be included because it has a decent amount of useful information, and it's the best image that exists currently, and it's nice to have a visual complement to an article. Also, it means the article previews aren't the confusing crystal structure diagrams anymore (which was the original motivation) Mrfoogles (talk) 00:22, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But it does perpetuate a misconception. In darmstadtium, the 7s energy level is actually lower in energy than the 6d, yet it is drawn as higher. Meanwhile, for oganesson, the eight outer electrons are actually at three very different energy levels (two in 7s, two in 7p_1/2, four in 7p_3/2), so much so that only the four 7p_3/2 electrons should be available for chemistry. The model just doesn't work that well for superheavy elements when relativity is too important to ignore.

I removed the diagram for Nh as well. Yes, to some extent the crystal structure images are confusing, but the issue with such elements is that no image is actually possible. I wonder if it's possible to suppress images altogether for the preview: that would be preferable, IMHO. Double sharp (talk) 06:18, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that it would perpetuate a misconception, particularly for superheavy elements and still-undiscovered elements beyond (when the Aufbau principle breaks down altogether).

Also, @Double sharp: it looks like is possible to suppress some images from page previews (see mw:Extension:PageImages#Can_I_exclude_certain_page_images?), though because the image is called to the infobox in a nontrivial manner and the infobox is then transcluded to the article, |class=notpageimage won't work here. I'll ask around if there's a better way than using MediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist. ^Complex/_Rational 02:32, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the ones other than Nihonium for now (thanks to a SVG bug, could only add a few anyway). Mrfoogles (talk) 00:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more context given people replied to this (surprisingly quickly): was going to add the images made by User:GregRobson, which all got turned into SVGs a while ago. Ran into the problem that a lot of the SVGs have some sort of bug where they display correctly on most software but not while minimized on Wikipedia, so I only added a few. (Think it can get fixed by running them through a minifier or formatter, but could not figure out how to reupload images to Commons). Leaving Nihonium up for an example to look at. Mrfoogles (talk) 00:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Can't really disagree with what @Double sharp said, and mostly the people here seem to not like this idea, so I'm giving this one up. No idea if there's any way to disable previews on Wikipedia, but I think probably not. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:10, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp and Mrfoogles: I removed the crystal structure images from the page previews. Thanks Izno for technical assistance. ^Complex/_Rational 12:57, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isotopes of argon

Upon updating Isotopes of argon, I noticed that a reference used for the lightest isotope, ²⁹Ar, does not quote a half-life or decay-width measurement for this nucleus — I do not see how the value of 40 zs (decay width 11 keV) was obtained. However, the lower bound reported in NUBASE2020 is implausibly large compared to the upper bound reported for ³⁰Ar. This also affects ²⁸Cl, which was discovered in the same paper.

Mukha, I.; et al. (2018). "Deep excursion beyond the proton dripline. I. Argon and chlorine isotope chains". Physical Review C. 98 (6): 064308–1–064308–13. arXiv:1803.10951. Bibcode:2018PhRvC..98f4308M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.98.064308. S2CID 119384311.

–LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 05:54, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. Looks like I added it in 2019, probably making a calculation mistake when invoking WP:CALC. It's probably better to not write anything in the table, though, since such an unbound state would have a lifetime many orders of magnitude shorter than the NUBASE2020 lower bound. Thanks for taking note of this. ^Complex/_Rational 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5.5 MeV is a decay energy, not a decay width. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 15:07, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IT notes regarding:

The full width at half maximum of the probability distribution provides the evaluation of the [proton-emission decay energy] uncertainty.

For the lowest observed state of ²⁹Ar, this is reported as 0.18 MeV, or 2.5 zs — the ground state is postulated to lie at a lower level. For ²⁸Cl, this is 0.08 MeV (6 zs). –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 18:29, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, this is something different. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 18:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like to update the elements Fm–Og to NUBASE2020 where applicable? This is complicated by the heavy reliance on other sources. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 19:05, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think a good rule of thumb for those is to use NUBASE2020 if the most recent data predates 2020, and cite individual articles for nuclides investigated in subsequent studies. I can start reviewing the lists from Og and work my way down. ^Complex/_Rational 11:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Conflicting images of noble gases

I added an image to Deuterium a while ago when I found one, and I recently noticed there was already an image for it on the Hydrogen page. The problem is that while image one, by @Alchemist-hp, glows pink, image two, by this website, glows purplish-white. Does anyone know which of these are correct? I think image two is preferable because it highlights the color of the gas more, but I'm starting to wonder if the images on that website are wrong. They also disagree on helium: see the website version and the alchemist-hp version. Helium has a particularly stark difference: maybe it's that different energy transitions are active or something related to that? The sites and the alchemist-hp images agree on Argon, Xenon, and Krypton fairly well, too. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:09, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mrfoogles: I would go with Alchemist-hp's images. Per this 2011 discussion, the other set may have purity concerns. Double sharp (talk) 04:35, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's pretty much what I was looking for. Disappointing, though: the other set was pretty nice for highlighting the color (the alchemist-hp ones had different colors in different parts of the displayed tube, which I think subtracted from the effect a bit). I'll remove the deuterium one.

The Argon, Xenon, and Krypton ones possibly are uncontaminated, but it might be better not to use them. Maybe it would be better to crop the alchemist-hp images? Mrfoogles (talk) 04:57, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: did that Mrfoogles (talk) 05:32, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! Double sharp (talk) 06:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:NUBASE2020

The article on Erbium the section on Isotopes uses NUBASE2020 as its sole reference. Then it makes statements like:

Naturally occurring erbium is composed of 6 stable isotopes...

However, the NUBASE reference contains nothing but tables of isotope properties. It seems to me that we could cite the table for facts about specific isotopes, but nothing about the collection of them. That is, the entire isotopes section is original research based on analyzing the tables. Since this is a template reference it seem like the use may be widespread. What do you think? Johnjbarton (talk) 16:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NUBASE includes detailed decay data, and for primordial isotopes, gives their fraction of natural abundance. Indeed it is widely used as a reference, though in exactly the same context (citing isotope data), and pages that contain data more recent than 2020 or describe applications or properties in detail have additional reference. I wouldn't say that identifying precisely six primordial (and stable, as it happens) erbium isotopes from the table, given that they have abundance fractions, is WP:OR; arguably it's simple counting as permitted under WP:CALC. However, if you feel that adding additional sources would be helpful, feel free to do so. ^Complex/_Rational 17:40, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cropping gas discharge tube images

I cropped a few of the gas discharge tube images to make it more clear which part was the noble gas (specifically krypton, argon, and xenon are currently cropped) but this has been contested by @Zzzs (pinging here), so I'm putting up a talk page section.

Why I cropped the images: With the strong colors from both parts of the tube it's hard to tell which part is the gas; cropping it makes it obvious and makes it easier to compare them. It also makes the images less overly wide, which is good generally. Mostly it makes the image dominated by the important color. I reverted hydrogen because that one doesn't have very strong colors not coming from the gas, so it doesn't really need it, but I think the other ones do.

They are featured pictures, but it's still a featured picture if you crop to the important bit for ease of understanding & comparison. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Zirconium

Zirconium has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 00:14, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: On discovery of the 23 nonmetals

Should this content on the discovery of the 23 nonmetals be removed from the nonmetal article?

RfC is here. --- Sandbh (talk) 13:37, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FA	A	GA	B	C	Start	Stub	FL	List	Category	Disambig	Draft	File	Portal	Project	Redirect	Template	NA	???	Total
29	0	97	103	120	95	34	0	172	305	3	3	116	1	22	3,893	227	9	1	5,230