Talk:Radium/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Protonk (talk · contribs) 14:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

By and large this article is pretty good. I recognize that Radium is a bigger challenge to tackle than some of the other elements you've done because of the unique and unfortunate (for our purposes) coincidence of its historical significance and lack of modern research. That said, the article does a good job laying out the physical/chemical/nuclear properties of radium and giving context to those properties--i.e. by the time we get to the discovery section we're equipped to understand how the Curies extracted radium and why it might be found in uranium. That's good and not something you see all the time in articles which mix science and science history.

Thank you! I consciously aimed for that. Yes, it is really unfortunate – it means we have to be somewhat equivocal about the precise properties of Ra, because there haven't been modern experiments to accurately pin them down, and there are multiple conflicting values from the early 20th century. Double sharp (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I will say that I think the historical uses and sections on the development and production of radium could be expanded. Some of my suggestions I've left below as specific notes but there is a surfeit of sourcing (lol) on the production and applications of radium from ~1900-1960. It would be a shame to promote this article without a more comprehensive (or at least better sourced) look at those areas, given that they're one of the reasons radium is as important as it is. I'm happy to do some gophering for sources (especially those on JSTOR, as I have access to that but no access to a university library) if need be and I'm also open to being convinced that this demand is unreasonable for a GA, but I don't think it will be too hard to overcome.

style/layout

• This is up to your discretion (as I'm sure there's a MOS note on where to link that I haven't read), but we link Primordial nuclide in "primordial thorium". It might be better to forego that link for a sentence and link to it when we spell out "primordial radionuclides"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 13:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• "...them is radium-205m, with a half-life of between 130 and 230 milliseconds. All ground states of isotopes from..." I'd say remove the milliseconds wikilink and link ground state
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 13:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• "It is 2.7 million times more radioactive than the same molar amount of natural uranium..." Probably don't need to link "uranium" here as we linked to 235 and 238 (the latter twice) in the section.
  • Well, natural uranium is a mix of ²³⁸U, ²³⁵U, and traces of ²³⁴U, so that while the main point is certainly ²³⁸U, the faster decay rate of the other two natural U isotopes should be significant enough that it might misrepresent the source a little to not accentuate that it means natural U. Also, thanks for noting the doubly linked ²³⁸U: cut the second one. Double sharp (talk) 13:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Got it,  Done Protonk (talk) 15:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• this should be converted from a bare link to a citation template

content

• "Today, the latter usage is no longer in vogue..." While technically correct (I think), we've got three uses here: nuclear medicine, radioluminescent devices and quakery, so "latter usage" could refer to the last two or just the middle one (or the last, I guess, but that's not the indication I get from the text).
  • Changed to "Today, these former applications are no longer in vogue..."; better? Yes, I meant the last two. Double sharp (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
    • It's still kinda unclear. This may make the text a bit more bloodless, but would it make sense to say "it's now only used for nuclear medicine" or something like that? I dunno, this is a small issue. Let's call it good for now and worry about the other stuff. Protonk (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• "At standard temperature and pressure, radium crystallizes in the body-centered cubic structure, like barium..." How about "Like Barium, At standard temperature and pressure, radium crystallizes in the body-centered cubic structure"? That's maybe a bit fiddly but it avoids my having to wonder whether the crystalization is like barium or the bond distance is like barium
  • Changed to "Like barium, radium crystallizes in the body-centered cubic structure at standard temperature and pressure: the radium–radium bond distance is 514.8 picometers."; better? Double sharp (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
    • yup. Protonk (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• When talking about the chemical properties we link to Relativistic quantum chemistry, where for the other (substantially heavier) elements I've reviewed we've linked to Spin–orbit interaction, these seem to be discussing a similar phenomenon. Am I missing a distinction?
  • Nope: the spin-orbit interaction is basically the root cause for relativistic effects in chemistry. It's just that in this article, we don't explain everything from the bottom, because there is still a lot to talk about for Ra's chemistry without going into it. For those substantially heavier elements, we know absolutely nothing about their chemistry, so I went very technical to cover all the predictions that had ever been made about them which I could find. Double sharp (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Makes perfect sense. Protonk (talk) 15:21, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• "and "radium" came to refer to all isotopes, not just 226Th." Do we mean 226Ra?
  • LOL! Yes, I meant ²²⁶Ra. Double sharp (talk) 14:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• "They found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble: this enabled them to separate them out and discover a new element in them, radium." Sort of awkwardly worded. e.g. "them" points to different things as the sentence goes on. We're trying to say a few things: 1. the radioactive compounds were very similar to barium, but 2. they were more insoluble, therefore 3. the compounds could be extracted. 4. That extracted compound was a new element, radium. I'd say split the sentence in two and see if it works better.
  • Changed to "The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble. This made it possible for the Curies to separate out the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them, radium."; better? Double sharp (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
• "Tritium emits beta radiation which cannot penetrate the skin, rather than the penetrating gamma radiation of radium and is regarded as safer. It has a half-life of 12 years." Coming on the heels of "safer radioactive promethium" I'm not sure about this sentence. First, alpha decay can't really penetrate the skin, both alpha and beta decay are problematic mainly due to ingestion, with alpha decay being more dangerous because the particles do more damage than beta decay. Second, radium emits gamma radiation, not promethium, so the comparison to gamma radiation might explain why tritium replaced radium but not why it replaced promethium (also AFAIK promethium also decays via beta decay).
  • This is actually a more interesting story than I expected it to be at first! Firstly, tritium being safer makes some sense, because the energy released by the beta decay of ¹⁴⁷Pm is an order of magnitude higher than that released by ³H. However, tritium is a gas, so containment is an issue: so Pm is actually still used today for specialist purposes. Ra is also an alpha emitter, and Pm and H's beta emission won't age the phosphors so much. I still haven't found for sure why tritium has completely eclipsed Pm except when the latter is really necessary, but if I had to guess I would say that it's because tritium is easily made in nuclear reactors and can be collected as a byproduct, whereas promethium can't be made as a byproduct – you've got to actively go out and make it. Double sharp (talk) 06:33, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
    • OK, I've tried to make it read that both Pm and T have replaced Ra. This is true, although T is more common than Pm and Pm only gets brought out when it is absolutely needed. I think it's better now. Double sharp (talk) 06:30, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

sources

• do we have a better source for the naming of radium than this?
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 06:27, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
• Not required for the GA review but JSTOR 986549 is a fun read and has some color on the early popular history of Radium. Interestingly enough, the article notes that an early popularizer of radium, William Hammer, gave an estimate of ~5 thousand tons of uranium ore to 1 kg of radium. For an estimate offered in 1904, that's not too far off the 1 ton -> 1/7 of a gram.
• The historical applications section runs a while without sources and where it is sourced we reference encyclopedia britannica and vintagewatchstraps.com. I actually like the latter source better than britannica, but I think there's more than enough sourcing available on the historical uses of radium to support or supplant both.
• JSTOR 41821475 might be useful for the early history of the radium industry
• There are a large number of sources on the early medical use of radium. Apparently both the british and the US set up "national radium institutes" and I think there were more applications than cancer treatement (at least to start)

Thanks, Protonk (talk) 14:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@Protonk: I'm doing some further referencing – so far I've got rid of the citation needed tags, but there are still some places that need refs. I'll post again when it's done. In the meantime, I'll have a look through this and see what I can use from here. Double sharp (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok. Ping me when you want me to take another look. If you want I can gopher around for some more sources. Protonk (talk) 18:37, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

@Protonk: Can you help me gopher around for more sources? Most of the things I usually can find talk more about the chemistry of the element than its history, which is fine in most cases, but for an element like Ra it is really irritating for writing the "history" section. Double sharp (talk) 13:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

@Protonk: OK – now it looks like everything might be sourced – but I will try to look for more sources and make it more watertight. In the meantime, if you find any sources, please add them to the article. Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Double sharp: Sorry about not getting back to this. I'll take a look this weekend and add sources and complete the review. Thanks for being patient! Protonk (talk) 15:24, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

followup gophering

• As I mentioned above, there's the Maria Rentetzi article here. She also wrote a book on the cultural history of radium, full text is available here. I think the book is a pretty solid reference (it's reviewed here so it's not some wildcat ebook.
  • I dunno about most of this. It's a very solid reference, no doubt, but most of it is about the general story of radioactivity, which of course touches on Ra, but Ra is not the focus. I think this would fit much better in an article like history of radioactivity (?! I expected that to be blue). Double sharp (talk) 14:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
    • There very much needs to be something like the history of radioactivity. Protonk (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Indeed there does. (Very much hoping that the redlink is not because we really don't have an article, but because nobody thought of this plausible redirect.) Double sharp (talk) 04:40, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• there's a fairly recent article on the history of radium quackery here (that's not full text but you can find a pdf easily by googling).
  • This is such a huge topic! Maybe we should just leave a summary here and put the meat at the article on radioactive quackery. Double sharp (talk) 14:28, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Is this the pdf in question? Double sharp (talk) 14:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Yeah. Upon re-reading it's mostly about quackery in general. I think I'll look through the sources I've suggested above and make sure that they're focused on radium and try to add some content for those that are. Protonk (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
• ISBN 0549635211 (searchable on google books) has several notes about the early history of radium (including the formation of various radium trusts). I can find specific pages (or screencap them if for whatever reason gbooks changes their mind about viewability)
• this is an older review article, but it has some information on how health information regarding radium propagated within the medical community.

I'll add a bit more later. I think we could probably (eventually) break out a history of radium article and I don't want to recommend that you overload it, but it's so central I figure the above is a good balance. Protonk (talk) 17:38, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, I'll add these.

P.S. I'm going on an internetless holiday from 13–24 Dec, so if we're (OMG!) still not done by then, I'll try to get everything resolved once I'm back. (And hopefully we will not break the record for the longest GA review.) Double sharp (talk) 14:18, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we're in the running for top 10, at least. :)

@Protonk: You know, while improving and creating all those history-of-radium subarticles is a good idea, maybe we can sabotage our aim at the longest GAN record by leaving that to after the review. :-P Double sharp (talk) 05:58, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

@Protonk: All right, I'm back – gonna do some work tomorrow (and hopefully wrap this up in time for 2015!). :-) Double sharp (talk) 15:52, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

[1] (you might have posted this already?) Double sharp (talk) 14:51, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Drive-by comment

@Double sharp and Protonk: I don't intend to be rude, but isn't it time to finish up this review? --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 23:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree. This review has been going on for 3 months. If no progress is made within 48 hours I will unfortunately close the review.--Dom497 (talk) 00:51, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I am now closing the review.--Dom497 (talk) 03:25, 14 January 2015 (UTC)