Talk:Law of multiple proportions

[Untitled]
This page needs editing. Some of the phrasing doesn't seem appropriate.--130.245.197.131 18:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The fisrt line as far as I can tell needs to be edited and it's unappropriate text removed.

It could look like the text have been copied from somewhere, it is pointing to a table the article not contains. Grrahnbahr 12:19, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe Wikipedia should 'lock' articles such as this which contain basic information. What I mean by 'lock' is that new revisions may be required to be proof-checked by someone else before approval. As these basic articles will not change very much, they must be locked so as to prevent vandalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.102.78.164 (talk) 23:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Does any one know why there's such a big space at the top? I almost thought this page was blank when I first opened it. And isn't this page supposed to be talking about the law of multipule proportions rather than about all those other laws? Diqiuren 01:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This article is frequently vandalized, and then repaired. Hopefully the bad stuff does not stay too long. Semiprotection would be a good idea to reduce unhelpful editing. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Attribution
I added:
 * This article incorporates text from the Connexions article "About: The Atomic Molecular Theory" by author John S. Hutchinson, which was released under the Creative Commons - Attribution (CC-by) 1.0 license. This statement is included in accordance with the license attribution requirements

as the license requires attribution. The content was added here over a year ago with many intervening edits so it is not simple to remove and will result in a lot of lost, so this seems the best solution to me. I considered e-mailing the author asking him to release it under the GFDL but this seems unnecessary Nil Einne (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there a tag that we can add to the top of the article detailing this? I read through this article as prep work for a section of my thesis. It was clear and sounded intelligent, but the style was suspicious and more or less inexplicable until I got to the warning label you mention. Such a tag would help guide both the reader and the editor. I remember seeing one somewhere on Wikipedia but couldn't find it after some searching just now.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmm nevermind after over a year I only just found WP's list of templates. Task completed.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:42, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Reversion
I replaced this page with its content from 21 September 2006. After the addition of the Connexions content it seems to have gone wildly off topic and got hopelessly confused. xnn (talk) 13:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Awkward and confusing
I am removing the entire paragraph:"It is not always true that the compound formulas have only one atom of the element chosen to have a fixed mass for the comparison, as is the case for CO and CO2. For example, copper also forms two oxides in which the ratio of the masses of oxygen that combine with 100 grams of copper is 2:1. However with the help of the correct atomic weights for copper and oxygen (which Dalton did not know), it is determined that the formulas of these two oxides are Cu2O and CuO." As this paragraph discusses, two small whole numbers does not mean "1 and another integer". It is not clear to me why this needs to be done is such an awkward and confusing way. A simple counter-example would be far more elegant and simple. Ethane and Propane are an obvious example, I'll attempt to add it, please improve my English, I'm no wordsmith. It should also be noted that the Law only holds for stoichiometric compounds.216.96.76.235 (talk) 23:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * We can use ethane and propane as an example, but your numbers are wrong. Ethane is C2H6 = 24.02 g C and 6.048 g H, so 1 g C combines with 6.048 / 24.02 = 0.252 g H (not 0.336 g) in ethane. For propane 1 g C combines with 0.224 g H (not 0.252 g), so the ratio is 0.252 / 0.224 = 9:8. As a check, note that C2H6 has the same element ratio as C3H9, compared to propane C3H8. Dirac66 (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Error in Figure
The figure demonstrating the law of multiple proportions contains a significant error: there is no such compound as NO4. N2O5 is as high as it goes in terms of oxides of nitrogen (N in +5 oxidation state) ... NO4 would have nitrogen in the +8 oxidation state, or else it would be a peroxide. NO4 does exist as a negative ion .. it is called peroxynitrate. Kenji Agari is the author of the figure, and it says it is his "own work". I recommend removal of the figure until it is corrected. Dtmoore1971 (talk) 14:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree with you, NO4 does not exist. There is a compound often called nitrogen tetroxide but its formula is N2O4. This figure was added by Uopchem25001 on 17 Dec 2011 and later enlarged. Both Kenji Agari and Uopchem25001 are unregistered users who have not edited since, so it is impossible to contact them and give them time to correct their edit. And since it is a figure, it is uploaded as a unit and cannot be corrected easily. So I will follow your recommendation and remove the figure now. If anyone wants to restore a similar table, please remove all five mentions of NO4 and use only formulas of real compounds. Dirac66 (talk) 23:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Invalid link removed
I have removed the invalid link which SmallReader pointed out today. In some cases it is possible to repair an invalid link by searching Google or archive.org, but in this case my attempted searches did not find anything useful. Perhaps someone else can manage to find a working URL for this source which leads to the cited information about the Law of multiple proportions. Dirac66 (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 21:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)