Talk:Periodic table/Archive 3

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New periodic table?

Should we say something about this?

• I think it would be useful to say something about this alternative form of the periodic table. It seems to be gaining popularity, particularly in schools, although I think most of the popularity seems to be related to the fact that it is simply a more attractive design. Personally, as a chemist myself, I find the old style a bit more useful. I would add an image of it, though I think before adding it we need to make sure that we have copyright approval to add this to the page.

Dr. Cash 04:02, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

If you are speaking of the chemical galaxy, I already acquired it. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 06:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

You might also want to check this page of alternate periodic tables out (especially Benfey's).

Faulty display of dotted borders

I can't see any difference between dashed and dotted borders of the natural radioactives and the synthetic ones – that is, both look dashed – when using internet exploder on windows. The borders display all right in firefox though, and in all browsers I tried on linux (opera, mozilla, konqueror, firefox, epiphany). Does anybody else have the same problem with windows or IE, and do you have any solutions? --Eddi (Talk) 08:14, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

He is right. The dashed and dotted borders are identical in Internet Exploder. Considering that IE is still [unfortunately] the most widely used browser, perhaps something should be done to address this. Dr. Cash 16:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

The Dotted and Dashed lines on the periodic table look the same, at least on IE. Are there any alternative border-styles available? smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 14:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

According to CSS 2.1 there are lots of styles:

none/

hidden

dotted

dashed

solid

double

groove

ridge

inset

outset

Limiting the border width to 1 pixel as in the current periodic table:

none/

hidden

dotted

dashed

solid

double

groove

ridge

inset

outset

Among the 1px-borders, those beyond solid are basically indistinguishable from solid, and only dashed and dotted are intermediate between solid and none. If we need another style to accommodate internet exploder, it seems that we must increase the border width or modify other styles. --Eddi (Talk) 02:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

What about varied tones? Would that work? Perhaps

solid

semi-solid

dashed

none

- smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 19:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Or use pale backgrounds for the synthetic elements as well as the undiscovered ones:

Primordial	(background:#c0ffff; border:solid 1px black)
From decay	(background:#c0ffff; border:dashed 1px black)
Synthetic	(background:#ecfefc; border:dashed 1px black)
Undiscovered	(background:#ecfefc; border:none)

Here strong background means natural, whereas pale means "un-natural" (synthetic or undiscovered). Dotted borders mean radioactive (natural or synthetic). --Eddi (Talk) 22:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Lanthanum/Actinium and Lutetium/Lawrencium

Why is it that Lanthanum and Actinium, or alternately Lutetium and Lawrencium, are sometimes shown as rare earth metals but sometimes shown as transition metals, depending on which periodic table you're looking at?

First of all, we must sign talk pages. Second, we don't need to duplicate anything. Third, in the case of starting with lanthanum, it makes sense because:

• Elements 55-56: s-block
• Elements 57-70: f-block
• Elements 71-80: d-block
• Elements 81-86: p-block

I'm not sure where the version starting with cerium began. 66.245.101.113 20:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

This topic was discussed at length previously but maybe a summary of the history and (very pedantic) reasoning is needed.

My understanding is that the version showing La and Ac above and Lu and Lr below is based on the idea that what's below is lanthanum-like and actinium-like, so La and Ac themselves belong up above as a sort of "placeholder" for their "-ides."

Versions showing La and Ac below and Lu and Lr above emphasize the blocks, so all 14 f-block elements are together. La and Ac are f-block elements and Lu and Lr are d-block elements. It's also true that while all of the elements from La to Lu are chemically similar to Sc and Y and all are considered to be in period 3, Lu is more chemically similar to Sc and Y than La is.

The standard version here at wikipedia correlates with chemical series. All 15 of the elements are lanthanides/actinides, so they are all placed together below because those rows have those label. Any other arrangement would be misleading because an element having the lanthanide/actinide color would appear separated from the lanthanide/actinide row. Lu/Lr just happen to be the exception of a d-block lanthanide/actinide in a similar way to He being an s-block noble gas. Periodic table (block) makes this clear. Or at least as clear as it will get. Flying Jazz 05:36, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

why there is only 8 groups in periodic table and not more???

why there is only at most 8 electrons in the outermost shell?but the previous shell can have 18,32... electrons??

There are at most 8 electrons in the outermost shell because electrons like being at the lowest energy state possible, and energy states are determined by the shell and the subshell according to the Aufbau principle. After the p subshell of shell n fills up with 6 electrons, there are 8 electrons in the shell because the s subshell already holds 2 and 2+6=8. The next highest energy state for an electron to occupy after subshell np is filled is in the (n+1)s subshell. Why? Because the Aufbau principle says so. Where does the Aufbau principle come from? It's a really complicated result of the size and the shape of atomic orbitals. And where do the solutions for the sizes and shapes of these orbitals come from? From solutions to the Schrödinger Equation. And the Aufbau principle isn't always so simple either. The outermost shell of the ground state of gaseous atomic palladium has 10 electrons in the 4d subshell and none in 5s. There's an exception to the rule of 8 right there. Flying Jazz 06:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There are already long-awaited interesting discoveries among the last alternative periodical tables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Alternative_periodic_tables Many complexities and errors in Periodic system of elements are already corrected --83.237.230.80 20:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate articles?

There is, on this page, a link to List of elements by atomic number and Table of chemical elements. These both appear to contain roughly the same information. Should the two articles be merged, and one redirected to the other? --RobertG ♬ talk 10:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The table article is a recent addit. (copy from German wiki) addded by an anon. Needs more cleaning.) There is considerable redundancy and a merge would be a good idea. But, the table width is going to be a bit much. Vsmith 12:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There are lists by name, symbol, number, atomic mass, boiling point, melting point, density, I don't think there's need for yet another version comparing them all. It definitely wasn't necessary to put two versions of similar tables into articles that already contained one (list of elements by symbol, list of elements by name) or one into an article that is not the proper place (chemical element. any others?) However my main concern is that the data is unsourced and is contrary to the already established chemical elements data references (and plain wrong in some cases). Femto 16:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Feedback from Non-Scientist

I know very little about physics and chemistry... in other words, I'm the sort of person who needs this article.

It generally assumes too much expertise for general readers.

Some things that are not well explained:

1. More clearly and in greater detail, what is the significance of the "Groups" (what common characteristic do the elements in a particular column share)?
2. What information does the system of plain Arabic numerals for the Groups convey (does the progression from 1-18 have any meaning, that is, does "Group 18" have 18 of something?)
3. Does the older system of mixed Roman numerals + letters convey any meaning (for example there are columns labeled "IIa" and "IIb", do they have 2 of something, are they related?), and isn't it then bad if that information is lost in the plain Arabic numeral system?
4. Does the Atomic Number have significance (is it the number of protons?)
5. What exactly is atomic weight?
6. What are the Latin or Greek names of the elements that have English names that don't match the symbol (gold, etc.)
7. The discusssion of electron shells is not enlightening for someone who has no idea what "s", "f", "d", and "p" shells mean, or how many electrons they can hold, etc.
8. Also, I'm curious whether the Periodical Table contains all possible elements, up as far as it goes -- or could there be some other combination of electrons or whatever that would fit in somewhere in the lower elements?
9. And an indication of which elements are radioactive would also be interesting.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.81.220.35 (talk • contribs) 8 December 2005

Hi, thanks for the feedback. In the next days I will try to write a clearer article from the layman's POV. Short answers:

1. Same outer shell, ergo similar behaviour in reactions;
2. It's just the number of the columns, I'm afraid. Columns 1 and 2 do have exactly one and two electrons in the outer shell, but it's almost a coincidence (almost!).
3. Yes, it was the number of electrons in the outer shell (but still not always precise, eg. Helium was in VIII with only two electrons)
4. Yes, exactly.
5. Mass of protons + electrons (weight is not the correct word, even if it is very common). This is not an integer since some mass is "lost" as energy (as in E=mc²) to bind the protons together (proton and neutron mass is also slightly different).
6. That would be better placed in their own articles (and probably already is).
7. I suppose some links to atomic orbital are needed (maybe some pretty figures from there too).
8. Yes, we are fairly confident that the table contains all the elements of interest and can be extended if needed. In general, you can rule out weird science-fiction elements "that do not exist on Earth".

--Orzetto 01:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Some additional comments:

3. Most discrepancies between group number and the number of outer electrons occur in the transition metals, i.e. group 3-12.
5. The atomic masses are also not integers because atomic masses are averages of masses of naturally occurring isotopes, and because the masses of protons, neutrons and electrons are not integers to begin with.
6. See the list of elements by symbol.
9. Most radioactive elements have dashed or dotted borders. For more details see the isotope table.

--Eddi (Talk) 15:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Group VII?

Is there an alternate system where the groups are given roman numerals and the halogens are Group VII? That's how my reprint of Linus Pauling's General Chemistry shows it. RJFJR 20:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I found the notes about this; but which column has which roman numeral isn't shown. RJFJR 15:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I think I see what you are looking for in this article. The roman-numeral system was discontinued by IUPAC because it was different in Europe and America. --Orzetto 01:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tarantola table

I have reverted the edits by User:Tarantola in accordance with Wikipedia:No original research. Femto 12:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• This content should be in a separate article and linked from Alternative periodic tables. A lot of the alternative tables have never been published on paper but are referenced from a great number of websites. For instance the http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/ website is the authoritive website listing Tarantola. From the Tarantola website I get the impression that Janet published an article or letter in 1921, the article or letter in French is published on his website but no information what the actual name of the journal is. Tarantola published his work in an e-publication but is not very clear on the actual name, publication date of the publication see http://www.ipgp.jussieu.fr/~tarantola/Files/Professional/Mendeleev/ V8rik 17:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello?

This is one of my first posts, so I want to know where all the code for the Periodic Table is held. 'Cause I wanna start my own elements. On my userpage, of course. Reply and get a crossiant(sic?). Thank you. -- Homfrog 01:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

At great personal risk and in exchange for a croissant (vanilla, please), I give you the location of the secret code: Template:Periodic table. Give a word if you need assistance with the decipherment. --Eddi (Talk) 02:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Table layout test

selenium 34 Se  78.96(3)	bromine 35 Br  79.904(1)	krypton 36 Kr  83.80(1)
tellurium 52 Te  127.60(3)	iodine 53 I   126.90447(3)	xenon 54 Xe  131.29(2)
polonium 84 Po  [208.9824]	astatine 85 At  [209.9871]	radon 86 Rn  [222.0176]
ununhexium 116 Uuh  [292]	ununseptium 117 Uus  [291]‡	ununoctium 118 Uuo  [293]‡

I have made a test version of the periodic table with links to [[Isotopes of X]] as well as the article [[X]] for each element X, plus popup titles with chemical series, occurrence, and physical state (e.g. Halogens; Primordial; Gas), at User:Eddideigel/Periodic test. The data behind the table includes atomic number, element name, chemical symbol, atomic mass, physical state, chemical series, and occurrence — all data copied from Periodic table (large version). The layout of the table can be changed easily by exchanging all occurrences of {{Element cell-large}} with another template, but leave the data intact. Any comments regarding layout and usefulness are welcome here, or at WikiProject Elements, or the talk page of the test table. --Eddi (Talk) 14:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Primordial plutonium?

Begin thread copied from Talk:Group number of lanthanides and actinides#Plutonium

The graphic shows plutonium as a primordial element, but its longest lived isotope has a half-life of only 8×10⁷ years. Its should really be in the same class as neptunium and americium. Physchim62 (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion about this here: Talk:Periodic_table/archive_2#Naturally_occuring_elements. Of course, if that is true then Neptunium also would be naturally occuring, so I'm still confused about it, but changes should be made to the entire table template before the diagrams on these little side-aricles are altered.. Flying Jazz 17:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll copy this thread to Talk:Periodic table and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements to revive the discussion, which didn't seem to reach a conclusion. --Eddi (Talk) 19:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

End thread copied from Talk:Group number of lanthanides and actinides#Plutonium

Dotted lines

Comment moved to Faulty display of dotted borders further up.

Electron shells table

I found the electron shells table insufficiently explained. The table should list right next to it what the heck it all means. Tempshill 17:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Mendeleev question

Mendeleev was later vindicated by the discovery of the electronic structure of the elements in the late 19th and early 20th century.

I'd like the article to mention whether Mendeleev lived to see this, in the interest of adding the human angle to the history section of the article. If he did, there must be a nice quote from him about it. Like "Told y'all", or its equivalent in Russian. Tempshill 17:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Solid Borders

I suggest the Solid Bordered elements are those with half-lives longer than the age of the earth. I know Uranium Thorium and Plutonium have no stable isotopes at all, older than the earth or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.41.204.3 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Periodic table

Template:Periodic table has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Thank you. --Eddi (Talk) 02:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was DELETE. The template's talk page was preserved in Talk:Periodic table (standard). --Eddi (Talk) 10:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Layout

See also discussion on changes proposed at Talk:Periodic table (standard)#Layout. Femto 13:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

There has been a lot of anonymous vandalism to this article. Out of the last 50 edits I see only 5 or 6 that are any good, including interwiki linking, while the rest is vandalism and reverting, and most of the vandalism is done by IPs. Is it worth requesting semi-protection of the article to prevent anonymous edits? --Eddi (Talk) 14:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

50 edits in just about a month doesn't seem so bad to me for an exposed page like this. As an educational topic it's prone to school IP vandals, but there are just as many people to revert them. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." A better statistic would be about what part of the time the article is in a vandalized state. Femto 16:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I vote for semi-protection. I don't think it is asking too much for someone who wants to make legitimate contributions to sign-up for a user account. Openness is certainly a virtue, but the price of free speech is accepting responsibility for what you say and standing behind your words. There is no accountability if people simply hide behind the anonymity of an IP address. IMHO. -- Metacomet 19:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree; I've got this page watched, and I can almost guarantee that every day there'll be at least one vandal edit or reversion of this page. Semi-protection is a small price to play for getting this article less vandalised. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 10:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection is a temporary, not a pre-emptive measure, and "not intended to prohibit anonymous editing in general". Discussion on protection policy in general should be continued at the appropriate pages. — While the perceived amount of vandalism may be high, it has been on a relatively stable and by no means unusual level for at least half a year. There is no immediate serious vandalism problem that would warrant this action. Femto 12:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It is true that semi-protection isn't a pre-emptive measure according to current policy. What if we try it as a temporary measure then, and continue the discussion at the policy page if necessary? By the way, the reversion counter doesn't recognise all reverts, and it also doesn't compare the amount of vandalism to the number of benign, non-revert edits – in this case about 25:6. --Eddi (Talk) 22:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Eddi. Please re-read Femto's comments and recognize that blocking edits on the Periodic Table article would not be in the spirit of Wikipedia, even if it prevented the occasional vandalism. Dbchip 08:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Some anti-vandalism measures may not be in the wiki spirit. But it seems like this discussion belongs at the policy page, not here. However, I would call the vandalism consistent rather than occasional as long as the vandalism : reversion : non-vandalism rate is 25:19:6 – even if there are only 50 edits in 3 weeks. --Eddi (Talk) 14:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Eddi. The vandalism is silly and annoying. I do not see what harm there is in preventing unregistered, anonymous users from revising this article (or any article for that matter). Again, if people are serious about making valuable contributions, it is not asking too much for them to set up a user name. They can still remain anonymous by choosing a pseudonym (as many people do), but at least it would enable us to hold people accountable for their actions. As I said before, the priviledge of free speech necessarily includes the obligation to speak responsibly. Even in places where free speech is "guaranteed", you are not allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, to spread malicious lies about others, or to spray paint grafitti on public property. -- Metacomet 17:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Even" in the United States?? ROTFLMAO all the way to Guantanamo... I vote for semiprotection. I couldn't give a hoot about any nebulous "spirit of wiki", which surely isn't set in stone anyway but can be changed by consensus of wikipedians. Failing that, I would happily vote for no protection on the condition that Femto promises to clean up the daily vandalism himself :) --feline1 18:58, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know you, I have never worked with you. But you do not need to slam people for no reason whatsoever. Chill out. -- Metacomet 19:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

He is chill, believe me, that growling means he likes you. — If my calculations are correct, at any random time in the last month, the probability of loading a vandalized version of this page was 1 out of 96. Keeping up with the vandals is apparently not a problem. Remains the annoyance from the number of useless edits. Well, if you want a static page, buy a book.

Anyway, I don't think that putting arbitrary nametags on our vandals would result in a change to the better. The determined jerk would simply come back after the 24 h (I think) IP-auto-block period, under a different name, with a clean slate. I'd rather keep seeing their IP. On the other hand, the random idiot edits from public IPs would surely decrease—but so would the good ones. Rather than to block them all, it seems better to specifically remove just those sources that produce nothing but noise (say, bad Internet cafés, unsupervised juvenile school library computers, that moron next door with a static IP or such). If there's a change in policy, it should be one to facilitate quicker and rigorous responses, not pre-emptive measures. Femto 20:58, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Unsepthexium

Some new elements have been added. I think they will never be discovered and have no use at all so they should be deleted! Unsepthexium is one of them.--Stone 08:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Unbihexium 126
2. Unbiunium 121
3. Unbitrium 123
4. Untriseptium 137 Which is the least questionable.
5. Untrioctium 138
6. Untriennium 139
7. Untrihexium 136

List I found. If they are important than they should go into the periodic table, or be eliminated!--Stone 08:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

One point I want to make is a redirect from all the Un-s which are there above 120 or so to a page which deals with all of them. 126 and 137 might be also have a page of their own, but the rest can make a paragraph in one article.--Stone 08:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Folks, this is stoopid. These are not "new elements", they are just systematic IUPAC names which *would* be used in the inertim if these elements were discovered, before the scientific community agreed proper names for them. All that needs to be said is an explanation of the systematic naming scheme (which as you can see, is just using Greek and Latin to make a fancy way of saying "One-hundred-and-thirty-six-ium" etc etc--feline1 09:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

See also related Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements#Elements beyond Rg and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unsepthexium Femto 12:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)