Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements/Archive 3

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Density Questions

I cannot edit on this talk w/o expressing my respect and gratitude for what has been done in this project, esp. by Mav if i'm not mistaken. Bravi e grazzi!

And i assume i'm just behind the curve in asking this:

Why in the world is kg/m3 the density unit? The obvious answer, i 'spose, is that at STP the specific gravities of gases are horribly small numbers, but who in their right mind compares densities of gases to those of other elements? (Was any consideration given to treating gases differently, in that one part of the template, from the other two phases?)

In any case, i wanted to be sure before fixing it, that i'm not also behind the curve in objecting to the running-text description in 2nd 'graph of iridium#Notable characteristics of iridium's and osmium's densities by 5-digit, unpunctuated, dimensionless numbers.

Breathlessly awaiting,
--Jerzy 23:02, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)

Well thank you! :) The answer to your question is simple: We standardized on SI units. See Comment Thread #7 at /Archive 1. I added the units to the iridium article. --mav

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Table: semantic refinement

As density, hardness, and crystall structure belong semantically to the physikal properties, thence I've moved them there.

The physical property magnetic ordering of the respective solid state was not yet covered adequately. I've introduced it at the appropriate position, including an assortment of different types of magnetic ordering in solid state. --SteffenB 16:23, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK - one table down 113 to go. When will you be finished with converting all the tables that have already been created for this project? Where is a source for the magnetic ordering information? --mav

Ignoring the implications of your first question I come directly to your your second one. ;-) The information on magnetic the ordering of elements (as well as compounds) is usually part of huge tabulated data collections, that can only be accessed offline (particularly at scientific libraries, e.g. of universieies). The ones that can be retrieved online usually require subscription. The subscriber of these sources are usually (you guessed it?) scientific institutions. However for students it should be possible to get the information. A famous one of these data collections is Landolt-Boernstein

However: For the more common types of magnetic ordering (Diamagnetism, Ferromagnetism, Antiferromagnetism) it's not necessary to consult special sources. This information is contained for example in this overview.

Annotation: The intrinsic magnetic ordering in bulk Cr ist incommensurate antiferromagnetic spin-density-waves.

Annotation2: I'm not sure whether the conventional English term ist "magnetic ordering" or "magnetic order", but this may be discussed elsewhere.

--SteffenB 23:14, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In an ideal world, I think Steffen's suggestion's a good one. But, valuing consistency with what's already been done over ideal versions of the table, I've done plutonium using the old version. However, it strikes me that reordering the rows of a table is exactly the sort of mechanical task a bot could do well, and, best of all, it'd be a limited operation on 118 pages that even at a one-minute interval would all get done in two hours. (I know nothing about how to make bots, mind you, but am quite interested in finding out. I do know that the policy discourages them, but this does seem to me like an ideal application for them.) So how about we wait until all the elements are fully completed under the current system, and then see about changes? (If the bot was fed a list of element names and their magnetic orderings, it could do that at the same time ... -- I'm a bit unclear what you mean, though, Steffen. I have access to a uni library so if you explain in more detail I might be able to get the relevant data.) -- Bth 14:12, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PS plutonium needs a bit more work, but I've run out of time for now so I decided to leave it with the table done and the old text folded into the new headings. I will get back to it in the next few days if no one else beats me to it.

OK - magnetic ordering, i.e. magnetism in the solid state (simplified):

Is the solid state of the respective element paramagnetic (PM), diamagnetic (DM), ferromagnetic (FM), antiferromagnetic (AFM), or something else (like spin-density-wave (SDW)). Sounds like a challenging task? It's not: A good Start ist this overview. There you see, that the solid state an element belongs to one of either PM, DM, FM, or AFM, and the assignment can be retrieved from the same source. Only if you want to be more specific (e.g. to be precise tho AFM of Cr is a SDW) it's necessary to consult more sophisticated sources. But for a start that's not yet necessary. So the information actually is available, just the table doesn't yet allocate the adequate space for this property. Once this space is inserted, I'm sure, sooner or later it will be filled with more specific data by the Wikibadians. So there's no need for a bot for the task of inserting any values. But may be for the table-layout.

I hope, my english is goog enough, to be undersood. --SteffenB 15:37, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it was when you got to the density waves that you lost me ... (BTW, I don't think it's necessary to have a bot add the info, just that if there's a bit busy reorganising the tables anyway it may as well do it at the same time. OTOH, I'm starting to think that the limited nature of the task means that the time to program, debug, etc. a bot would be longer than the time to do it all by hand -- might a table-rearranger bot be useful elsewhere?) Bth 14:34, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dont't bother with the spin density waves. Refer to it as some strange kind of antiferromagnetism, or so. ;-) Regarding bot: it's a pity, but I've no knowledge of this tool. The only one I know operational ist the one for the InterWiki-Links. But concerning the updates of the existing tables: This might doneby hand, successively . We're presently trying to organise this in the German Wikipedia. The main task is to make it public that there's been done some refinement to the template. For this purpose I try to utilise our general de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Physik for some ad - hope it's observed. BTW there ist Wikipedia:WikiProject Fluid dynamics, but there seems not to be any Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics am I mistaken?. OK, of more interest is here Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. Might it be appropriate to set a link there with the annotation that there's a new table-template? --SteffenB 23:09, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've just applied the new scheme to Cr. That now also might clearify the term magnetic ordering. ;-) --SteffenB 23:48, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Most tables still need nested nav tables and other various fixes. We should work on optimizing the table and then when we are all happy, we can start fixing all the tables as part of phase II. Phase I (adding tables and expanding each article) is almost done (4 more articles to go!). --mav

I absolutely agree that we should not hurry to much in applying the refined table(s), before we are satisfied and happy. I can not usefully contribute to the discussion concerning the molar volume. But I know at least one more problem, that has to be solved, and can be fixed easily. I add this to the end of this discussion. --SteffenB 15:18, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Molar volume

The molar volume of gaseous elements seems to refer not to STP, but to the liquid element at its boiling point and unspecified pressure. That makes the explicit claim that SI units & STP are used except where noted not only false, but also misleading.

What can be done to fix this defect? I'm not about to barge in on your project and start 'fixing' 13 articles (if I counted correctly) manually, but if necessary I'm willing to assist and spend time on this. Talk to me.
—Herbee 08:08, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Why not just fix one to serve as an example? Would removing the SI note do it? --mav

I've just had a look over at webelements and I think their numbers we've been using are flat-out wrong, or at best not-much-use-to-anyone. They define the molar volume (here) as "the atomic weight divided by the density". They also state that "Values here are given, where possible, for the solid at 298 K" which of course for things like oxygen etc. isn't possible, and I can't quite see how they've arrived at their values. IIRC (and Google backs up my recollection and fills in numbers), all ideal gases have the same molar volume of 22.4 l/mol (= 22,400 cm³/mol = 0.0224m³/mol), so we could stick that figure in as a first approximation. But dim memories of Chemistry teachers squiggling on whiteboards tell me that strong intermolecular bonds will change that figure slightly, so it'd be nice to find a source for the actual data -- Herbee, do you know one? -- Bth 08:36, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

One web resource is EnvironmentalChemistry.com. It gives both the molar volume of the liquid, and the density of the gas at STP. Using the atomic mass and chemical formula, it's simple to calculate the molar volume of the gas at STP. I have put up an example at chlorine. How do you like it?

• It may be useful to provide the molar volume of both the liquid and the gas.
• I prefer decimal prefixes over power-of-ten notation. That's SI, too.
• Also, I don't like the clutter caused by linking everything that's linkable, down to single characters. It there a Wikipedia guideline on this?

—Herbee 03:41, 2004 Mar 11 (UTC)

Heh, I just stumbled across the same thing while reviewing the helium page. Indeed, the value we want for gasses is more like 22.4 L/mol. It worries me that values apparently are copied from the web without backup from an additional source or knowledge about the order of magnitude. Jan van Male 19:00, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Footnotes

Sulfur - Chlorine - Argon F Cl Br       Full table
Some Properties
Molar volume	22.06 l/mol* 17.39 cm3/mol (liquid, at boiling point)
Heat of vaporization	10.2 kJ/mol	*) at STP

Actually the mentioning of at STP is redundant. But as this claim (at the bottom of the table) up to now could not be trusted we should really consider (not to remove it as proposed by mav) but to replace this general statemnt by a more specific one (see example to the right) i.e. one has to actively add an asterisk to refer to STP. At the moment the sole omission of any annotation leads to the conclusion that it has to be at STP! The annotation regarding SI can be omitted completely, because the units are given together with the data. What do you think? --SteffenB 14:58, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
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Sulfur - Chlorine - Argon F Cl Br       Full table
Some More Properties
Density	3.214 kg/m³ [1] 4077 kg/m³ [4]
Boiling point	239.11 K [3] (-29.27 °F)
Molar volume	22.06 l/mol [1] 17.39 cm³/mol [4]
Heat of vaporization	10.2 kJ/mol [4]
Speed of sound	999 m/s [2]
Notes
[1] at STP; [2] at 273.15 K; [3] at 101325 Pa; [4] liquid at boiling point and 101325 Pa.

Good point, Steffen. But we can take your idea even further. For on closer inspection, many entries in the tables specify the conditions incorrectly or not at all.

• Density: should be (at STP), not (at 273 K).
• Boiling point: should be (at 101325 Pa), not the default (at STP).
• Heat of vaporization should be (at boiling point and 101325 Pa), not (at STP).
• etc.

To right thing to do would be to introduce a general mechanism to add footnotes to the table. Of course, that's a big job to do for some 100 elements. I would like to discuss this with project members.
—Herbee 06:58, 2004 Mar 13 (UTC)
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Since most data are in SI at STP a blanket STP notice at the bottom and a mix of either parenthetical (either by the datum or by its subheading such as density) statements and asterisks will do. [1] etc is just plain ugly, IMO. --mav

I didn't dare to introduce changes, that go that far, but personally I'm in favour of Herbee's suggestion. In short: correctness beats design, while the latter in not the least important, as it's a means for clearity. BTW I wouln't regard to it as ugly, IM(H)O. But as a compromise I could also cope with a less wide solution.

This small solution should at least incorporate one thing:

• When an user forgets to bother about the annotation ("*", "[1]", etc.) not any default should apply (i.e. the presentet data then is incomplete, but not wrong)

This explains why I'm in favour of Herbee's solution: when there is only one annotation/footnote ("*") there is somme probability, that it becomes used by accident. --SteffenB 08:39, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

But there would not just be one since most of the time that meta info will be either next to the datum or the subheading as needed. --mav

I respectfully disagree, mav. The blanket STP notice is just plain wrong in the case of boiling point, for example, and in many other fields. Surely you grant me that?

After some fun in the sandbox I found that parenthetical qualifications, if done accurately and completely, make the table either too wide or very tall. Footnotes are less intrusive and make a more economical use of space.

And while ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, I might point out that this is scientific data, not some Work of Art we're creating here. Accuracy and completeness should have higher priority than esthetics, although they are certainly not mutually exclusive. If it's just the format of my proposed footnotes that worries you, would you care to offer a counterproposal?

Ultimately it all boils down to one question: do we want to create pages with a friendly look and feel, not 'scaring' people off with details or math, or do we want Wikipedia to be actually usable? As long as other websites provide better information, Wikipedia will always remain just a toy.

Please correct me if I seem to misrepresent your opinion, mav. Do you think I'm pushing this too hard?

—Herbee 18:02, 2004 Mar 13 (UTC)

Yes I do think you are pushing this two hard - I've been working on this project (which I started, BTW) for over two years now and am personally responsible for converting and greatly expanding over 70 of the elements. How about this then; replace the SI/STP notice at the bottom of every table with a link to a page that is devoted to explaining what each datum is based on. That will keep the table from becoming messy and hard to read. Readability is a very important thing and an unapproachable table will not be useful because people will not use it. I am adamant on that point. --mav

And a great job you're doing, mav; that deserves to be said every now and then. I thought I detected a little possessiveness in your tone, but that's only too understandable considering the amount of work done. Also, I realize that I may be projecting my own taste onto all Wikipedia users. So I'll just back off and let you work in peace. All right?

—Herbee 20:38, 2004 Mar 13 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment. :) I must admit that I have a lot invested in this project. But I do see your basic point, I just disagree with you on the best way to address it. I think that a more elegant solution can and should be developed so that accuracy and form both win. --mav

I refer to my English as not beeing to poor, but it's surely not good enough to express every nuance correctly (and also not, to participate on your level of discussion). To put it right, none of my suggestions is meant as a means of criticism disregarding the great work that's already been done, but exactly the opposite: to further improve a template, that's already well done! And I know very well: making suggestions on changing/improving an existing thing is always far more easy, than creating anything new. But at least we agree in the basic point: to enforce the correctness and improve the clearity of the actual tables. --SteffenB 09:04, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Magnetic Ordering vs. Magnetic Order

I named the propperty, whether an element ist paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, etc. as Magnetic ordering, because that's the term, that sounds more familiarly to me. But as I'm no native speaker I might be wrong. In scientific papers, as well as the Wikipedia itself (see: User:SteffenB/Magnetic_Ordering), I came across the use of magnetic order as well es magnetic ordering In the template, of coruse, should be used the propper term. This also applies to the name of the appropriate article (that not exists yet). As a temporary solution I created Magnetic ordering and redirected it to Magnetism (unless the page is filled with content) in order not to point to a non-existing page in the template.

So, which one is the propper term? --SteffenB 16:06, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dunno. I agree with you that "magnetic ordering" does sound more natural. Googlefighting doesn't help -- they both get about 20,000, equally valid looking, and there are loads that use both. I vote for "magnetic ordering", pending someone providing a definitive source. --Bth 22:35, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

familiar, property, proper, clarity lysdexia 02:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Binding Energy?

Why is the Binding Energy not listed in the table for each element? I think this is an important atomic property, that should not be left out.

I agree it is an important piece of info, but do you have a link to a website that has this info for each element? --mav

Approximate Price/cost information?

I don't know if this has been considered before, but is it possible to have some indicative price per unit information in the general section of the infobox, perhaps with "updated on" and link to live source -- it would be very helpful for us "back-of-the-envelope" types! (I should also say that I'm very impressed with what's been done here over such a short time.)

Re: Announcement on Wikipedia:Announcements

Congratulations to all contributors on completing Phase I. The pages are looking good. Looking forward to Phase II, whatever that may be! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:00, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! More expansion and clean-up along with finishing the table images is pretty much all that is planned so far. mav

How about full information (what's known, anyway) on all isotopes, meta-states etc. of all elements? -- Schnee 18:11, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

question

Why is Fahrenheit the only alternative temperature scale to the information boxes? Dysprosia 12:51, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Because Celsius can very easily be obtained from Kelvin and the table was too wide with all three. --mav 02:58, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds flaky to me on all three counts. Why do you need degrees Fahrenheit in any case; you haven't added Fred Flintstone Units conversions for anything else in the table. It isn't all that easy to add 273.15 and then round the result properly either. On the third point about width, haven't you ever heard of <br>? Gene Nygaard 00:18, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because hundreds of millions of people use Fahrenheit and nobody uses Fred Flintstone Units. And it is still far easier to convert between Kelvin and Celcius than from Kelvin and Fahrenheit. Br could be used, but that would be ugly and a space hog. --mav

It's a good thing you didn't try to spell out Celsius (or kelvins) on the tables, or I'd be more pissed off than I am already. BTW, why do you avoid using degrees Celsius when that's the primary unit, as in standard conditions for your sound speed of 25 °C which you express sillily as 298.15 K? Gene Nygaard 03:43, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Pissed off? You really need to relax - this isn't worth damaging your health over by needlessly increasing your blood pressure. Mentioning my spelling on a talk page is irrelevant and a very cheap argumentative device. The SI unit of temperature is kelvin - so I used that. Sue me. Many people reviewed the table before it when live (see archives above) and I received a great deal of feedback that I acted on. I'm also very willing to improve upon that work and see others do the same. What else do you want? Why the attitude? --mav 06:58, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What more? That deserves a whole new section. See below. Gene Nygaard 02:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

One country in the world (or maybe two? Jamaica, perhaps?) uses degrees Fahrenheit in weather reports. In chemistry, even in those country(countries), nobody uses degrees Fahrenheit. There are as many people who use degrees Rankine in this context as there are who use degrees Fahrenheit, so if you insist on an absolute scale for the SI measurements, why not for the Fred Flintstone Units as well? Gene Nygaard 03:50, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This one country you are talking about contains a plurality of all native English speakers in the world. Again nobody uses Fred Flintstone Units - the Fahrenheit is just there for reference for those who are can't grep what x kelvin is. I'm not perfect - neither are you. Assuming good faith would be nice. --mav 06:58, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It may be close to half if you limit yourself to those whose first language is English (which excludes a large number of people in the United States, of course), but that is irrelevant. The use of English Wikipedia is not limited to people whose first language is English, and there are many more people whose second language is English than there are whose first language is English.

I don't, in general, have any objection to the inclusion of English units. I'm just curious as to why you are so insistent on including this particular one, yet seemingly ready to do battle to keep others out (at least by your discussions of "standardizing on SI" and the like) from other entries such as density. The other strange thing is your insistence that degrees Celsius not be included, yet the same argument applies for people who are familiar with degrees Celsius yet not familiar with kelvins, of which there are more worldwide than there are people familiar with degrees Fahrenheit but not with kelvins. Gene Nygaard 02:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What else do I want?

Above, mav asks, "What more do you want?" (Note that I added a couple of comments there as well as this new section.) Let me go into that in more detail, while also explaining that part of my attitude deals with various other problems in articles on chemical compounds and the like, which though they have similarities with the articles on elements, weren't worked on by exactly the same group of people in the same project.

1. In that #question section, I asked for things like 25 °C rather than 298.15 K in the speed of sound figures.
2. I am also the one who started the #Unit symbols section dealing with the use of the middot rather than asterisks in symbols for units.
3. I am also the one who started the #More ugly, incorrect entries: Electrical conductivity section dealing with the nonuse of siemens per meter.
4. In conjuntion with them, and more explicitly here now, I strongly support the use of SI prefixes rather than scientific notation in the tables.
5. In #Density Questions, Jerzy raised a good point about the invariant use of kg/m³ for density, a point which whizzed right over your head—or else it merely exposed a woefully inadequate understanding of what the SI is on your part. The point is that using SI does not mean you are stuck with using only the base units. Kilograms per cubic meter work fine for gases, as Jerzy pointed out. However, there are many ways in which you could better express the densities of liquids and solids in units equal to 1000 kg/m², viz.: Mg/m³ and kg/dm³ and g/cm³ are fully within SI. If you also include units in the table of units acceptable for use with SI, other possibilities are t/m³, kg/L, and g/mL. Doing so will avoid the current plethora of figures with final zeros of indeterminate significance.
6. You have, in your reply to me above and elsewhere, exhibited a mistaken belief that degrees Celsius are not SI units of temperature.
7. On the other hand, exhibited exactly the opposite problem with respect to several other units. There are numerous problems with the statement at the bottom of the tables that "SI units ... are used except where noted". Note that to me, the act of "noting" this fact requires more than the use of symbols for units which are not a part of the International System of Units. Readers aren't always going to know whether or not those units are part of SI.
   1. There are no "amu" in SI. Yes, the "unified atomic mass unit" is listed among the units acceptable for use with SI. But it is acceptable with the specified symbol, and only with that specified symbol, "u". Not "amu". As NIST says in its style guide, "The only allowed name is 'unified atomic mass unit' and the only allowed symbol is u." Besides, those atomic weights can easily be expressed in SI units as grams per mole, g/mol, avoiding the need to use non-SI units in this context.
   2. There are no "electronvolts" in SI. They are, at least in some lists, acceptable for use with SI—but in a different category than units such as degrees of arc, liters, and metric tons. These units are accepted for use in specialized fields. When they are used outside those fields, such as WIkipedia, they should be explained and should include SI conversions.
   3. There are no "bars" in SI. Those units not only don't fit in with SI, but they did not fit in with the various cgs predecessors of SI, either. The cgs unit of pressure is the barye. Bars are only on the list of units "temporarily" or "currently" accepted for use with SI, and some style guides say their use should now be limited to meteorology.

Don't take this as the limit of "what more" I'm looking for. I'm just getting tired of it for now. I didn't even get into the STP stuff, for example. Gene Nygaard 02:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Table images

I got this on my personal talk page, but don't have time to take care of it, so... maybe someone else want to give it a go? :) "Schneelocke, there seems to be a mistake in some element's table images in wich the number of neutrons are not those of the most abundant naturally occurring isotope (is one more); see copper, nickel, zinc and maybe other elements. Guillermo 14:52, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)" -- Schnee 18:01, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Isotopes

Now that all pages for the elements are updated and extended to the new standard format, how about starting to provide more detailed information for the various isotopes? We could put up an extra article for each element ("Isotopes of Helium" etc.) which would then be linked under the "Isotopes" heading in the element's article (à la "Main article: Isotopes of Helium"); that article would then contain a complete list of all known isotopes (as opposed to the list on the Element page, which only lists the most important ones), provides basic information and links to the individual pages (we already have Helium-3, for example, and there are probably others, too).

The two steps required to get from the element page to a specific isotope page don't seem optimal to me, but I don't see how it could be done without bloating the main element's article (especially for elements with many isotopes), and for what it's worth, it seems to work well enough for the planets and their moons, too (for example, see Saturn (planet) and Saturn's natural satellites).

I haven't thought about the individual isotopes' pages' layout yet, but something similar to what we have for the elements would surely be nice - a table floating at the right listing all known properties (with the table colour indicating the half-life / short-livedness of the isotope, maybe?), and a number of "standard" headings that each isotope should have (which these should be will have to be determined).

There probably needs to be some more brainstorming and discussion before I'll start working on this, but I'm curious to hear what everyone thinks. ^_^ -- Schnee 18:29, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This has been my un-written plan all along. --mav 21:48, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good to hear. :) What do you think about what I proposed? -- Schnee 00:57, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Templated infobox table

Are there any plans to convert this template to proper wiki-style infobox template? If not, what do you think of this idea? --romanm (talk) 21:08, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but I don't know how to do that. :( --mav 21:47, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are scandium and zinc transition elements?

There appears to be an inconsistency at present, see Talk:Transition metal. Or am I missing something? Andrewa 22:15, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They both are. -- Schnee 22:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not according to the current article, which states: Not all d block elements are transition metals. Scandium and zinc don't qualify, due to the chemical definition given above. Scandium has one electron in its d subshell, and 2 electrons in its outer s orbital. As scandium's only ion (Sc³⁺) has no electrons in its d orbital it is clear that it doesn't have a 'partially filled d orbital'. Similarly, zinc is not applicable because its only ion, Zn²⁺, has a full d orbital. That's what prompted the query. See Talk:Transition metal. Andrewa 11:02, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

disputed

Halogens are greenish more than yellowish. Cyan is not blue, or light blue, and the sky is neither. lysdexia 02:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OKay.. The colors are an arbitrary way to signify periodic series - that's all. Those colors do not represent the color of the elements. --mav 03:39, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

infobox template

The infobox formerly used on helium has been changed in order to accord with the inferior box here, which I think inappropriate. The infobox formerly used, which used two shades of colors to distinguish between main headings (e.g.: "General") and the description for each entry (e.g.: "Atomic weight"), which is helpful as the description and the data are on the same level and are not distinguished, and especially so for the isotope box, which is even less clear. Also, the STP note at the bottom is, in the unnecessary interest of space, far too abbreviated for a general encyclopedia. - Centrx 20:58, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Transfering the table images to commons

I transfered some of the table images to commons already, however I noticed that the unscaled version isn't available for many elements - actually it seems to be only existing till Sodium. I hope those who created the table images originally still have the unscaled version, so they can be added to commons:Periodic table. andy 19:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Unit symbols

Can you correct these table symbols?

J/(kg*K)
W/(m*K)

to the correct, more esthetically pleasing, and easier to read

J/(kg·K)
W/(m·K)

Gene Nygaard 00:07, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The middot was not supported by the software nor for many browsers when these tables were created. Nothing stopping you from fixinig it yourself. :) --mav

It was supported, in the &middot; form, by the current versions of all browsers at the time; Wikipedia is, after all, a 21st century invention. You could also have entered it from a Windows computer with Alt-keypad 0183(·). It's the same decimal 183 or hex B7 in Unicode, U+00B7. Or, in Windows, even with Alt-keypad 250 (·) in the legacy version going back to the DOS days when it was hex FA. Almost all browsers, ever since the internet and browsers were invented, have supported that, I'd think. Gene Nygaard 10:03, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can, of course, fix it myself. Of course, when I need to go to that trouble, I tend to be a little more sweeping in my editing of the other information than you might be, if you beat me to it. Gene Nygaard 00:18, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template conversion for infoboxes

Hi everyone, since we're now running on MediaWiki 1.4, which lifts several annoying restrictions on the use of templates, I created a set of templates that can be used to format the infoboxes in each element's article. Examples can be seen at Template:Lead infobox (live at Lead) and Template:Unquadunium infobox (live at Unquadunium) so far; the advantages are:

1. Streamlines infobox layout/markup
2. Removes duplication of markup
3. Allows editing of infobox layout to take place in a central place and affect all elements at once
4. Focuses on logical rather than physical formatting
5. Allows easier editing of infoboxen for newbies unfamiliar with wikitable syntax (hopefully!)
6. Allows easier editing of elements' articles for newbies by moving confusing table code into a separate template
7. Increased coolness / geekiness factor :)

The templates themselves should be easy and straightforward to use; see Template:Unquadunium infobox for a short and Template:Lead infobox for a longer example. Suggestions etc. welcome, of course. :) -- Schneelocke (cheeks clone) [[]] 03:00, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

Not so fast. I mean, dang, too slow. See below. (Other than that, woohoo!)

Two points: You have to ask though, how many newbies unfamiliar with wikitable syntax would be also unfamiliar with where to edit a separate template. Templates should only be used to stow away repeated markup, the data itself should be kept as close to the article as possible (that is, editable in the article). You might simply include an edit link in the template, but the infobox can be put into some 40-ish lines of nice and clean markup—not too big, confusing, or ugly enough to be outsourced, IMHO.

Secondly, it's not necessary to include repeating table "key=" parameters in full text such as "[[periodic table group|Group]], [[periodic table period|Period]], [[periodic table block|Block]]". You could include this as a {{groupperiodblock}} template—but the whole (key=|data=) parameter system is problematic inasmuch there are varying ways of writing one and the same item (some contain "speed of sound", some still say "velocity of sound" for example).

This degree of flexibility isn't needed, and one of the goals of using standardized infobox templates should be to weed out these little formatting ambiguities. Better create specialized, named table entry templates. For example Template:Elementbox_entry_gpb with parameters (group=|period=|block=) that generates a table row containing

|-
| [[periodic table group|Group]], [[periodic table period|Period]], [[periodic table block|Block]]
| [[group {{{group}}} element|{{{group}}}]], [[period {{{period}}} element|{{{period}}}]], [[{{{block}}}-block|{{{block}}}]]

Similarly, write {{Elementbox_entry_density_kgpm3 | 11340 }} and let the template provide the properly formatted density key and kg/m³ unit link. The reason to use templates should not only be to make the formatting easier, but also better. And they're geeky. :p No more ugly W/(m*K) too. The data is quite consistent regarding which names and units are used—it does allow for using a fixed format. It doesn't mean to give up any flexibility either, since we can always fall back to the generic "entry" entry (for the 'melting point' of carbon for example). Another convenience with named entries is that one can do a text search for "entry_meltingpoint", and have them all listed to compare for anomalies.

In the course of playing around with the data I converted most of it (the 75 elements with non-html tables) to this format:

{{Elementbox_begin}}
{{Elementbox_header | num=82 | sym=Pb | name=lead
 | left=[[thallium]] | right=[[bismuth]] | above=[[tin|Sn]] | below=[[ununquadium|Uuq]]
 | color1={#cccccc} | color2=black }}
{{Elementbox_entry_series_poormetals}}
{{Elementbox_entry_gpb | group=14 | period=6 | block=p }}
{{Elementbox_entry_density_kgpm3 | 11340 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_mohshardness | 1.5 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_appearance_img | Pb,82 | bluish white }}
{{Elementbox_section_atomicprop | color1=#cccccc | color2=black }}
{{Elementbox_entry_atomicmass_amu | [[1 E-25 kg|207.2]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_atomicradius2_pm | [[1 E-10 m|180]] | [[1 E-10 m|154]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_covalentradius_pm | [[1 E-10 m|147]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_vanderwaalsrad_pm | [[1 E-10 m|202]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_econfig | [[[xenon|Xe]]] 4f<sup>14</sup> 5d<sup>10</sup> 6s<sup>2</sup> 6p<sup>2</sup> }}
{{Elementbox_entry_epershell | 2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 4 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_oxistates | 4, '''2''' ([[amphoteric]]) }}
{{Elementbox_entry_crystalstruct | cubic face centered }}
{{Elementbox_section_physicalprop | color1=#cccccc | color2=black }}
{{Elementbox_entry_phase | [[solid]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_magnetic | [[diamagnetism|diamagnetic]] }}
{{Elementbox_entry_meltingpoint | k=600.61 | c=327 | f=621 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_boilingpoint | k=2022 | c=1749 | f=3180 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_molarvol_cm3pmol | 18.26 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_heatvaporiz_kjpmol | 177.7 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_heatfusion_kjpmol | 4.799 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_vaporpressure_paatk | pa=4.21×10<sup>-7</sup> | atk=600 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_speedofsound_msatk | ms=1260 | atk=293 K }}
{{Elementbox_section_miscellaneous | color1=#cccccc | color2=black }}
{{Elementbox_entry_electroneg_pauling | 2.33 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_heatcapacity_jpkgk | 129 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_electriccond_pom | 4.81×10<sup>6</sup> }}
{{Elementbox_entry_thermalcond_wpmk | 35.3 }}
{{Elementbox_entry_ionpots5_kjpmol | 715.6 | 1450.5 | 3081.5 | 4083 | 6640 }}
{{Elementbox_isotopes_begin}}
 (here begins a mess of various formats with colspans, rowspans, line breaks, etc. that isn't
  fully converted yet and has to be checked manually anyway)
{{Elementbox_isotopes_end}}
{{Elementbox_end}

Uploaded it to User:Femto/ElementsData.txt (edit it to get the original formatting which survives in the wikitext I assume), and an overview of what I would put into which templates is at User:Femto/ElementsTemplates.txt

Disclaimer: I've never created a single wikitemplate in my life. The data may contain errors (that's for sure, done my best though). It started only as a first draft for myself, just to see how I would do these templates and their data. (Yeah, I love my text editor. Shuddup. :) But this data might actually have grown to something useful. Take it or leave it.

A few thoughts and remarks, before I go to bed and at least pretend to be busy during the rest of the holidays:

• my entry_header would also generate the "General" section heading and the first "Name,Symbol,Number" entry. No need to repeat the name and symbol parameters a second time. Using separate navigation and image templates is over-specializing without a real benefit. The "TableImage.png" postfix is always the same and can be included in the template as well
• colored section headings should define a font color in addition to their background. there are a few blue and green headings, and it shouldn't be relied on that every user has a black standard font anyway.
• I have not included the Roman numeral periodic group names, they're ambiguous.
• There are several "???" entries I'm afraid, which I would have looked up 'later...' or converted to generic "entry" entries
• no stray spaces left and consistent comma spacing in all lists I believe
• included some 'order of magnitude' number links (a few easy ones)
• I'm quite confident that if a template names a unit, its number parameter uses it correctly.
• proper &times; and superscripts with scientific notation
• added converted °C and °F (assumed Kelvin as the 'source' value)
• standardized a few wordings, such as "face centered cubic" vs. "cubic face centered" (hope that is the same)
• there would be 10 ionization potential templates, one per number of entries. this way all the numbers fit on a single line. let the templates do their own row formatting.
• most certainly you'd want to prettify the appearance of the text (proper tabulation for example)

Femto 02:02, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh my - this is all very complicated. Why can't we have just a few templates with variables? But I do very strongly agree that data needs to be kept in articles but repeated markup should be offloaded to the template system. I also think that Femto's raw table code is much easier to read but I don't seen any examples of it at work. In short, I think we still have some more iterations to go through before we come upon something that can be usable. Another thing to consider is pastability between languages. --mav 02:15, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Any interest in diagrams of the electron shells?

I was looking through your excellent work today, and I think I've spotted an avenue of further of expansion - I really like the info boxes, but I think the image showing the position of the element and it's relation to the table could be extended further. So my question is this: would it be useful to have diagrams of electron shells for each element? As an example here is something I put together Phosphorus Test Diagram (PNG)

So far I've put the following into the diagram:

• The symbol for the element
• The number of positrons (upper number)
• The number of neutrons (lower number) - I hope I'm remembering my GCSE Chemistry correctly!
• Colour to reflect the element type (metal, gas, actinoids etc. in keeping with the colour conventions used for the project)
• Electron colour chosen to blend nicely with any of the core colours

If there is interest, then I would like feedback on the following:

• Spacing, layout and presentation of the element. Should the font be more mathematical/serif or sans-serif (like it is at the moment) for readability.
• How people see it fitting in to the page (I think the top left would be good - but I'd want other people's backing before I starting doing that to all the pages! I know you should be bold but this is a well established section)
• Whatever else springs to mind!

I've yet to see how well my diagram scales up - items like Ununhexium (webelements.com) would tend to get quite large. I would space all the electrons evenly in each shell (some diagrams group them in twos). If there is interest, then I would produce a few more prototypes (some large, some small) to see how well they resize. And if those were accepted then you would have to wait a while as there are a lot of shells/elements to build! GregRobson 23:40, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Damn right there is interest in this! The truth is that I tried this when I created the nav box image at articles like Beryllium. I eventually gave up because I quickly learned that the number of electrons per energy level changes around alot. This means I could not (as I originally thought) create each of the noble gas diagrams and just delete electrons as I moved left in a period from the noble. So I just created empty shells, such as can be seen here:

But it has been some time, so I may have been wrong. Either way, I think it is time to try this again. :) --mav 02:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Right I have some samples! Beta samples of electron shell diagrams I have created what I believe (after some thought) will work best. Some things to bear in mind:

• These will be less than 280px wide with all 7 electron shells in use.
• Central colour enhances the themeing
• Emphasises the symbol (probably the useful info after their atomic number) - I had wanted to put the proton/neutron numbers but getting them to fit as sub/superscript by the name was proving tricky to fit without shrinking the text too far.

All feedback is appreciated. If people are generally happy with them then after a few weeks I can have all the elements ready to go into the articles where it is deemed most appropriate. If I made any mistakes then understand it has just gone 1am here in the UK ;)

Greg Robson 01:06, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I love the filled shells! However the symbols are not needed since the already-existing nav box images have the symbols and the series color is also already indicated. The symbols would also not scale down well with the rest of the nav box. Also, the max pixel size of your 7th period shells should not be much larger than the size of the empty shells at media:Fr-TableImage-BIG.png. This will make it easy to incorporate your images into the existing nav box images. --mav 21:45, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Glad you like them. Seems to be a bit of confusion of their placement though. I didn't intend for them to go in the image - when resized to fit the info-box you'll loose any of the detail that you might of otherwise had. I also like the the idea of any chemistry article being able to add a diagram if needing it for a reaction to show how the electrons bonded. The idea of keeping them modular seems better to me for ease of maintenance.

With all 7 orbits filled an image will fit into the width of the of an info box (between 280 and 320 pixels from the articles I've seen?) I've worked to a width of 280px to be safe.

I'd like to keep this version, but depending on what others think I can make alternatives i could remove the text and shrink the centre to give the shells slightly larger sizing (e.g. make the inner cirlce half the size and add a couple of pixels between orbits).

I realise a lot of work went into those info boxes, so I want something that people believe fits in. Thank's for the feedback, it's much appreciated. Greg Robson 23:49, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In the element articles at least your great images are going to be incorporated into the nav box images since there is already a spot for them there. But it would be easy enough to remove whatever is in the middle of the shells before they are put into the nav box images. So both separate on integrated versions can exist. :) --mav 05:38, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. No complaints about the artwork, but what information would these images convey? The numbers are already there in the "electrons per shell" entries (like 2, 8, 5), and it's easier to read this than to count dots in an image. Then there's the most detailed (though least comprehensible) "electron configuration" (such as [Ne] 3s² 3p³).

So the main purpose of this image would be to serve as an easily comprehensible overview, but it's not that great at this either: it depicts an atomic model that is outdated—for more than half a century?,—it doesn't make a distinction between different orbital shapes and their energy levels, and it even gives an incorrect idea about bond angles. Femto 17:15, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More ugly, incorrect entries: Electrical conductivity

This is worse than the mol*K ugliness. Here's an example from one of the elements:

Electrical conductivity

2.52 10^-4/(m·ohm)

You don't even use the symbol for ohm. It would look marginally better as:

2.52 10^-4/(m·Ω)

and better yet, since resistivity is usually in units of ohm-meters (Ω·m), as

2.52 10^-4/(Ω·m)

Then, of course, there are still the problems of

• ugliness of scientific notation in general and the space it takes up in the tables
• using space to indicate multiplication within the scientific notation here, and &times in other places.
• if scientific notation is used, engineering notation would be a better choice here. No -4 powers.

None of that really matters, however. It is all beside the point. Yes, those might indeed be the units you find listed in some of your sources. However, what you need to keep in mind is that, unlike other systems of units, the International System of Units is still fully supported and updated. In particular,

• When the SI was introduced, the mho was not included as an SI unit. So naturally, those who wanted to follow the rules used Ω^-1 and 1/Ω and ohms and the symbol Ω in the denominator of more complex units.
• However, way back in the 1971, the 14th CGPM added the pascal and the siemens (unit) as derived units with special names, with 1 S = 1/Ω by definition.

Therefore, the proper units today for electrical conductivity are the siemens per meter (S/m). Use appropriate prefixes to avoid scientific or engineering notation. Gene Nygaard 11:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The reason why I didn't use the HTML entities is that at the time I created the first table (in early 2002) the Wikipedia software didn't handle them very well at all and when that was fixed, many browsers still displayed them as question marks or empty boxes - now that is ugly. This is no longer the case, so these can be changed as time permits (establishing a template system would be better - see above). For the 70 articles I converted and expanded I did try to use engineering notation where it made sense to do so. Others used scientific notation and others still changed my use of engineering notation to scientific notation. This isn't a big issue for me, so I let that be. The "ugliness" of scientific notation is nothing compared to unusably long numbers such as 19,000,000,000,000,000,000 years vs 1.9 × 10¹⁹ y (the half life of thallium-205) and use of prefixes for years is non-standard and not user friendly since few people know about anything larger than giga (this is esp. true for such a huge number as the half life of thallium). I also looked for a good online reference that had siemens per meter info for all elements - 3 years ago I could not find one so I used the units you see today. If you know of such a reference, then please link to it so it can be used. Where possible the table uses SI - that was a guiding principle in its construction. But limitations in software and in reliable online references forced us to make some modifications. --mav 03:24, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your reciprocal meter-ohms, even with the proper symbols, is a niche unit. They were the proper units only for an 11 year period. The mho wasn't included in SI when it was introduced in 1960. The siemens was added as an SI unit in 1971. That's over 33 years ago.

The lack of an Ω was no problem when you had the siemens available; you don't use anything with ohms in the numerator.

Google
conductivity S/m    88,600 hits
a few false hits, of course; conductivity "S m" with 226,000 hits may include many not in that list, with more false positives.

It isn't the scientific notion with a large number of years that bothers me. There are many other problem areas in that regard. BTW, 19,000,000,000,000,000,000 years is 600 Ys in SI units—and you do claim that SI units are used where possible, at least on some incarnations of the template. Gene Nygaard 09:28, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But hardly anybody ever uses SI prefixes of that size ; people will not know what that means. --mav 06:29, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)