Talk:Discovery of chemical elements/Archive 1

From Talk:Discoveries of the chemical elements
I've been sporadically adding bits to this for a while; it's way incomplete, but there's enough to show what I have in mind. Ideally, it ends up as a long essay on the discovery of the elements, and gives us another route into the history of chmistry... but it needs a lot more yet. --Malcom Farmer

-- Whether Priestley was the first to isolate oxygen may be debatable. The Danish polyhistor Ole Borch (Olaus Borrichius; 1626-1690) seems to have anticipated him; see http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/8.html

S.

"... Bayen and Borch, but they did not know how to collect it, did not study its properties, and did not recognize it as an elementary substance."


 * Stumbling onto something and not knowing its significance is not the type of thing awards are given for. Credit is given to those that understand the importance of what they have found. --mav 13:07 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

This article is not about the discovery of the fact that there are such things of chemical elements, but rather about the separate discoveries of the separate chemical elements separately. Therefore I have moved it, so that "discoveries" --- the plural --- appears where the singular appeared before. Michael Hardy 21:56 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)
 * An article should be written on the Discovery of Oxygen because it is a rather controversial historical issue that is often used as a way to talk about the difficulties in assigning historical priority in scientific discoveries (Thomas Kuhn uses it as one of his examples for just this problem in SSR). There's no easy answer to it, even among professional historians of science. --Fastfission 03:28, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

- There seem to be two entries for Beryllium, which should be there? -- Bruce Gallop
 * According to Beryllium, "This element was discovered by Louis Vauquelin in 1798 as the oxide in beryl and in emeralds. Friedrich Wöhler and A. A. Bussy independently isolatated the metal in 1828 by reacting potassium on beryllium chloride." I'm not sure whether there is debate as to which of these, if not both, to give precedent to (such as with Oxygen), but maybe there ought to be a note? --Fastfission 16:00, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Layout
I would suggest putting the date as the left-hand most field - given that it is the primary field of the table. Ian Cairns 22:44, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Merged from Talk:Timeline of chemical element discovery
This article confusingly uses several formats: It needs to be merged with discoveries of chemical element to form a single authoritative article Ian Cairns 22:13, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Element discovered by name
 * Name discovered element
 * etc. etc.


 * Why merge? What to merge? The Discoveries article seems to have all of this information and more, unless I'm missing something. --Fastfission 22:46, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The two articles duplicate each other and probably should be combined or merged. I prefer the format of Discoveries of the chemical elements and it provides more information - better than just a list. Need to resolve any discrepancies in the process. A major lack on both is a list of references. We need to know the source of the info. Merge away, but don't lose any data in the process AND create a bibliography of sources. -Vsmith 00:15, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I just don't see any material to merge, unless I'm missing something. What does the Timeline have that Discoveries doesn't have? --Fastfission 03:43, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Don't merge timelines are good and useful of themselves. Rmhermen 04:12, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

WP:FLC?
This has the makings of a featured list. Just needs references and tidying up a bit. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merge
I'm reproposing the merge of this article and Discoveries of the chemical elements as they are (obviously) substantially the same. A list of elements, ordered by date, with details of who discovered them and some additional notes notes. If Discoveries was more a description on how they were discovered or something greatly different there would be reason to keep them seperate but there is very little difference and keeping two seperate articles divides effort. MeltBanana 22:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This page is a bit easier to find the dates than in the other article ... the basic timeline and info here seems better than the overall framework of the discoveries page. Nothing wrong with an abbreaviated page here ... just the facts ... and a indepth analysis @ the other page. Sincerely, JDR 20:31, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Agree with merge. --Mark J 21:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Hydrogen
The list says that is was discovered by Cavendish in 1766 and then discovered by Cavendish in 1776. Did he forget? :) Seriously, the Hydrogen page says 1766, so I'm removing the second reference.  If someone knows this to be in error, it should be corrected here and at the Hydrogen article.  --best, kevin  · · · Kzollman | Talk · · · 21:55, 14 September 2005 (UTC)