Talk:Nitric acid

Nitric Acid's Concentration and Oxidation Power

At what concentration is nitric acid a strong oxidant? At what concentration would it decompose an alcohol, a ketone, carboxylic acid or similar group? This is just rough estimates of course.

help

essentially i'm writing a piece of coursework involving the production of potassium nitrate, on the potassium nitrate page it said that it could be produced as "a by-product of the making of nitric acid from potassium nitrate and hydrochloric acid." unfortunately i have been unable to find an equation for this reaction on this page or the potassium chloride page, it seems somewhat frustrating that theres a reference to it and yet no follow up info, I would be grateful if someone were to amend this.

many thanks samson992@live.co.uk

An article always cited by a user as Mainstream view.

A user always cite this paper http://www.chemicke-listy.cz/ojs3/index.php/chemicke-listy/article/view/2266 in different articles, calls it mainstream view and straightly reject views of other academicians. There isn't one but numerous other reliable sources that contradict assertions made by the authors of this article of interest. I can list those sources. Also this article doesn't address the primary sources that are cited by other scholars and contradict statements made by author of this article. For example, here, in case of nitric acid, this article hasn't addressed texts like Liber Luminis Luminum Hu741f4 (talk) 16:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Hu741f4: the mainstream view is that mineral acids were not known to Arabic alchemists:

• Multhauf, Robert P. (1966). The Origins of Chemistry. London: Oldbourne. pp. 140-141: The close resemblance between the practise of the Jabirian writers and al-Razi is most marked in their passages on such 'sharp waters'. These waters range from simple mixtures to distillates obtained from complex mixtures. They are not always fluid and some of the processes refer to melting rather than dissolution. But among them we find the rudiments of processes which were finally to lead to the discovery of the mineral acids, sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric. The mineral acids manifest themselves clearly only about three centuries after al-Razi, in the works of Europeans, some of whom were alchemists, but others of whom were concerned with the production of medical elixirs.
• Needham, Joseph; Ping-Yü, Ho; Gwei-Djen, Lu; Sivin, Nathan (1980). Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part IV, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-521-08573-1.: It is generally accepted that mineral acids were quite unknown both to the ancients in the West and to the Arabic alchemists.
• Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. (2001). Science and Technology in Islam: Technology and applied sciences. UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-103831-0. p. 59: The text is given here in full because of the prevailing notion that Islamic chemists did not produce mineral acids.
• Newman, William R. (2006). Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0226576961.: between the time when the Summa perfectionis was written and the seventeenth century, the mineral acids–sulfuric, hydrochloric, nitric, and the mixture of the latter two, called aqua regia, had been discovered.

By affirming that nitric acid is first attested in a Latin work, Karpenko & Norris 2002 p. 1002 confirm the mainstream view as given by other scholars.

Not so with Al-Hassan 2001, who self-consciously (see the quote above) contradicts other scholars at every turn, arguing for every individual mineral acid that some or multiple Arabic sources contain recipes for them (he does the same for alcohol and other chemical substances). This is of course interesting, but al-Hassan's views have as of yet not been accepted by other scholars. Reviewers have also noted that al-Hassan's views are often polemical in nature, e.g., Ferrario 2010 p. 132 the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011 The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments.

From this it should be clear that al-Hassan's work sits somewhere between minority and wp:fringe, and should therefore be accorded less wp:weight than other scholars. If you think that his views are accepted, it would be nice if you could give a citation of other specialist scholars (i.e. scholars specialized in medieval chemistry) citing al-Hassan with approval. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Hu741f4: I have reverted this edit of yours due to the reason given in the edit summary. I strongly suggest you discuss here first before adding more sources contradicting the mainstream view. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:05, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Mentioning the view of a notable author which is contradicted by others doesn't mean the entire content should be removed. This isn't being stated in 'general sense'. There is nothing in Wikipedia guideline that states such content should be straightly removed. You can state views of other authors and leave the judgement to readersHu741f4 (talk) 14:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

There absolutely is a guideline to remove content, in one of our core policies (WP:V) even:

Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion – While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

You want to include this and similar content, I believe it is not in line with wp:due, and now the onus is on you to get consensus.

What that means in the first place is that you should at least consider whether my claim that it is not wp:due may be true. Argue why, according to you, it actually is wp:due, here on the talk. But simply dismissing concerns and edit warring content in is not acceptable. Please do not do that again.

Anyways, I will work a bit on a new version of the paragraph and propose it here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:31, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

"Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article." My edit improves the article in such a way that the readers would know about views of different specialists. The history of nitric acid is unclear. We have several authors who disagree with what you assume as "mainstream view". Their views should be included in this article. A Wikipedia article shouldn't be based solely on views of one group of authors. Hu741f4 (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't assume anything, evidence from major historians of chemistry on what the mainstream view is has been presented above. Evidence has also been given that al-Hassan's work is considered polemical and ideological by other scholars, which means that we should use him with care.

WP:DUE/WEIGHT is a core policy, we represent points of view proportionately according to their prominence, not as though they are equivalent and as though we can simply let the reader decide. Relative prominence or weight is crucial, see WP:BALANCE and WP:FALSEBALANCE. Editors can disagree on how the due weight policy applies (i.e., on how prominent a certain view or source is and how it should be presented), but they are not free to simply refuse discussing relative weight.

I propose we first give what all scholars, including al-Hassan himself, admit to be the mainstream view, i.e., that the discovery of mineral acids such as nitric acid is generally believed to go back to 13th-century European alchemy. The minority claims of Holmyard 1931 and al-Hassan 2001 (the former of which is actually outdated and the second self-consciously polemical) should be presented as what they are, i.e., claims contradicting the mainstream view that have not (yet) been generally accepted. Al-Hassan 2001's confused mention of Michael Scot's Liber Luminis luminum should either be relegated to the footnote or left out entirely. Karpenko & Norris 2002's view should be clearly identified as the one that is in line with the mainstream view. I think calling it "conventional" is a good fit.

My proposal can be read here (the first paragraph of the history section). Let me know what you think. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

There are some minor issues but I have no problem with your proposal as of now Hu741f4 (talk) 17:37, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I've implemented it for now then. As before, if you want to add another source arguing against the current mainstream view, please discuss on the talk page first.

I'm sure that some of al-Hassan's claims will be proven correct by future scholarship (i.e., I strongly suspect that some mineral acids were first described in Arabic 11th-/12th-century sources that have not yet been sufficiently investigated at this time), at which point this article should be updated. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:00, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I have found several scholars who have criticised the works of every scholars that you have mentioned (Malthauf, Needham etc). On the other hand I have also found positive scholarly reviews about Fuat Sezgin, EJ Holmyard and al Hassan. So here no scholar is free from criticism. The conclusion we can make from all this is that "The history of mineral acid is disputed". Also there are many reliable secondary sources supporting the claim of Holmyard, Sezgin and Al-Hassan. Hu741f4 (talk) 20:13, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

No, we have to follow WP:DUE. We have to look at what the experts say. I already clarified above what experts say about Al-Hassan's work, i.e. that it is "often polemical in nature, e.g., Ferrario 2010 p. 132 the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011 The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments." Since this is mainly about Al-Hassan (Holmyard is old and obsolete and so not a good source), I am genuinely curious about any positive reviews of Al-Hassan's work that you may cite? In my experience, his work is not well received by other scholars, who like Ferrario 2010 tend to find it interesting and challenging but marred by its unfounded attacks on other scholars and by its high amount of substantial mistakes and general lack of rigor. Despite Al-Hassan's many attacks on William R. Newman's work (e.g., [1]), Newman hasn't even taken the effort to write a response, which he did do for what are presumable more legitimate criticisms of his work (e.g., [2][3][4]). Among historians of chemistry, Al-Hassan's work is considered WP:FRINGE. Again, if this has recently changed, I would be highly interested in any source which shows the contrary. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Mentioning the Names of EJ Holmyard and Ahmad Y al-Hassan

@Apaugasma You are citing his other work, "Studies in Al-Kimya': Critical Issues in Latin and Arabic Alchemy and Chemistry," which has received a negative review by an author named Gabriele Ferrario. The sources here are "Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History, Cambridge University" and "Makers of Chemistry" by EJ Holmyard. These have received positive reviews and have been cited in numerous academic books by reputed scholars. These aren't fringe sources, so I don't see any problem in mentioning them along with the viewpoints of others. Hu741f4 (talk) 09:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

No, there is no scholar who supports Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan's views. Not one. There are two reviews of his 2009 collection (Brentjes 2011 & Ferraria 2009), both exceptionally negative, which is highly relevant in evaluating his reputation as a scholar. If you want to mention Holmyard's and Al-Hassan's names in the article that's fine by me, but it's high time you stop trying to push the idea that Al-Hassan's ideas (which largely consist of the purely ideologically inspired regurgitating of outdated suggestions such as those of Holmyard 1931 anyway) have any kind of support in the scholarly community.

Nor is the argument that 'we should just mention all views and readers should decide for themselves' valid per Wikipedia policy: see wp:falsebalance. Scholars decide here whose views are accepted and conventional, and whose views are minority or fringe. I would be highly interested in seeing a recent historian of alchemy or chemistry supporting Al-Hassan's views, but as long as you do not provide such a source, Wikipedia will treat him as wp:fringe. The fact that Al-Hassan's views are even mentioned here is already a borderline NPOV violation, so stop pushing. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:51, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Contradiction in history section

The History section of the article says:

The conventional view is that nitric acid was first described in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth", after c. 1300

Later on this same article says:

Nitric acid is also found in works falsely attributed to Albert the Great and Ramon Llull (both 13th century)

These are contradictory statements Hu741f4 (talk) 09:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Is "falsely attributed" not clear? Albert the Great and Ramon Llull both lived in the 13th century, but the works attributed to them date from a later period. There is a very large corpus of alchemical texts attributed to Ramon Llull dating to the 14th and 15th centuries, on which see Pereira 1989 and other sources cited in Ramon Llull#Pseudo-Llull and alchemy. Likewise, there is large number of poorly studied alchemical texts attributed to Albert the Great, most of which are probably pseudepigraphs of unknown date and origin (see the sources cited in Albertus Magnus#Alchemy).

Should we change this to "Nitric acid is also found in post-1300 works falsely attributed falsely attributed to Albert the Great and Ramon Llull (both 13th century)" in order to make it clearer? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

More ways to make nitric acid

Nitric acid can also be made with a nitrate salt and bisulfate 2601:645:A01:BD30:ED90:588A:E812:723E (talk) 05:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)