User talk:ComplexRational/Archive 8

Table of nuclides
Are you done with the new lanthanide isotopes? Because I'd like to update this table according to the main "isotopes of X" lists. Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Some heavy isotopes of 3d metals have been missing since 2010 apparently. Or are they unconfirmed? For now I'm just following our "isotopes of X" articles.
 * Also, how long should a nuclear isomer live before it gets included in our table of nuclides? Double sharp (talk) 13:09, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, finally made it to the halfway point (Z = 59, Pr). It really is badly out of date. :( Maybe I'll get to the other half soon, or you might beat me to it. Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I overlooked this thread. That last round of partial updates was solely to include information from that one journal article.
 * A lot of the "Isotopes of X" articles need to be updated both to NUBASE2020 and additional publications; I haven't had time lately to do this manually and I haven't been able to find a way to semi-automate it. What frustrates me is the fact that NUBASE sorts isotopes by mass number whereas we sort isotopes by element, which makes manual updates incredibly tedious and time-consuming, and conversion to CSV or otherwise extracting the raw data from the NUBASE files is not at all trivial. Admittedly, I probably lack the technical expertise to implement a better method; might you have any suggestions?
 * And regarding isomers, I feel inclined to use the threshold of $$ seconds described in Nuclear isomer (As a result, the characterization "nuclear isomer" is usually applied only to configurations with half-lives of 10−9 seconds or longer.)), though would be more comfortable doing so if this is the threshold used by reliable sources. Exceptions can be made for noteworthy excited states provided their properties are well-documented. Complex / Rational  16:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware that there is any standardisation. To quote Dommelen: But some­times a nu­cleus gets stuck in a metastable state that takes far longer to de­cay. Such a state is called an iso­meric state. Krane [31, p. 174] ball­parks the min­i­mum life­time to be con­sid­ered a true iso­meric state at roughly 10−9 s, Bertu­lani [5, p. 244] gives 10−15 s, and NuDat 2 12 uses 10−1 s with qual­i­fi­ca­tion in their poli­cies and 10−9 s in their glos­sary. Don’t you love stan­dard­iza­tion? In any case, this book will not take iso­mers se­ri­ous un­less they have a life­time com­pa­ra­ble to 10−9 sec­ond. Why would an ex­cited state that can­not sur­vive for a mil­lisec­ond be given the same re­spect as tan­ta­lum-180m, which shows no sign of kick­ing the bucket af­ter 1015 years?
 * Sorry, no technical expertise on this either, though maybe WP:HD could help us. Double sharp (talk) 05:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Vitalii Goldanski
If you have time, you might want to consider writing an article on him (ru:Гольданский, Виталий Иосифович); Ghiorso and Seaborg suggested him as a possible Russian scientist to name an element after instead of Kurchatov (Gamow and Landau were the other floated possibilities; see The Transuranium People, p. 385), and I feel like that's already evidence of notability since only very eminent scientists were considered.

(And yes, I really would love goldanskium, gamowium, landauvium. Especially Gamow's element: his books really inspired me as a child. :D) Double sharp (talk) 02:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. That entry for his birthplace in the infobox is not a typo: in 1923 Vitebsk was in the RSFSR. It was transferred to the BSSR the next year. Double sharp (talk) 02:13, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Started working on it, User:Double sharp/Vitalii Goldanski. But probably will be slow. Double sharp (talk) 09:59, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Production rates of SHEs
Fig. 1 here has a nice chart. :) Double sharp (talk) 23:17, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I didn't think E117 could be produced at a rate of ~1 atom/day! And it looks like indirect synthesis is considered fair game in that plot (the half-lives match those of 281Rg and 285Cn, for instance), while many sources suggest that indirect synthesis methods are unfavorable for chemical investigations.
 * Also, IMO, the chart would be even nicer if the half-life plot also were logarithmic on the y-axis. But I admit I've developed some bias towards log plots as of late. :D Complex / Rational  05:02, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * IIRC, both Cn and Nh were investigated by producing them as daughters of Fl and Mc respectively. (And as Yakushev notes, Mc itself should soon be accessible for investigation.)
 * Yes, Ts surprised me very much! (Perhaps it reflects what the SHE factory can do?) Og appears to be 1 atom/month or thereabouts. Maybe 119 will be quite within reach if an Es target becomes feasible. Double sharp (talk) 11:41, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should upload the figure? Double sharp (talk) 15:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * And I guess we should update articles like Darmstadtium that still say that indirect synthesis isn't as favourable. Double sharp (talk) 11:12, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I might also like to see sources specifically mentioning Ds, for which the main hurdle would then be short-lived isotopes. Maybe another reason against indirect synthesis (again, need a source for this) is branching ratios, i.e.. only a minor alpha decay branch leading to the desired nuclide, which effectively reduces its production by a considerable amount. Complex / Rational  14:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd like to see a full updated review. By periodicity there are probably volatile enough hexafluorides of Mt and Ds, but I doubt anyone would want to use a fluorine gas atmosphere to get at them! Double sharp (talk) 08:47, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Hema Negi Karasi
This article is written by me. Please help me to fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheManishPanwar (talk • contribs) 17:28, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The language of your page needs some work, seemingly due to a rough translation; one thing that stands out is the varying pronouns used (his, she, they) – the subject is a woman, and unless uses different pronouns by choice, the correct pronouns (grammatically) are she/her. Additionally, the language used is very informal (e.g., formidable force to be reckoned with) and has a strong positive tone (e.g., artist par excellence who has selflessly taken, which makes it read more like a fanpage or promotional piece than an encyclopedia article. In general, formal, neutral language with no loaded terms should be used. Similarly, her achievements and influence should be presented in a matter-of-fact way with citations to reliable sources, especially as verifiability is of utmost importance in articles about living people. At present, there is only one inline citation – that's nowhere near enough – and social media sites usually are not reliable sources. I'm not familiar with the subject, so can't say much in terms of content; I advise trimming/rephrasing the text to address the concerns I mentioned and adding citations. Complex / Rational  19:39, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Making einsteinium targets
I don't think I found it in the 1985 paper, but I want to know how the LBNL attempt to make 119 produced enough Es for a target. Because right now our article on ununennium first says you can't make enough Es for a target, and then that it was done in 1985, which requires an explanation.

I'd really rather know this well in advance of the inevitable surge in views the 119 article will get when somebody discovers it. Who knows, maybe it can be the first element on WP to be an FA (it's already GA!) before it's discovered! Double sharp (talk) 12:52, 4 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I remember reading that when 254Es was used as a target, only a few micrograms were available at a time, which is quite a bit less than the tens of milligrams of Bk and Cf. While the cross section does not directly depend on the amount of target material, the reaction rate does (and is directly proportional). This distinction is why micrograms are considered "not enough" to produce SHEs with low cross sections: the reaction rate would imply the time to produce one atom (on average) exceeds the duration of the experiment. I'll see if I can find a source that clearly explains this for the E119 article to cite. Complex / Rational  15:41, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, they must've used less than a microgram, rereading the 1985 paper carefully: The LEAP proposal for the production of 40 μg of Es would make possible a target 100 times larger than that used in our experiments. Double sharp (talk) 09:37, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Also you've probably seen this (from last year), but in case you haven't, I'm posting it on your talk page. :) Double sharp (talk) 09:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, I have not (at least, not that I remember). I've been looking for something like this to read for a while, thanks!
 * On a first pass reading, it seems like 254Es is still only available in tens of micrograms, which as I alluded to above, might not be enough to have a real chance of observing E119 or E121 :( Complex / Rational  15:03, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Cross-sections go down so quickly in just a few elements that we'll probably not have anything like the 1999–2004 harvest at Dubna. :( Double sharp (talk) 15:13, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Promethium-145
Is this a natural trace radioisotope? and claim it is, but not the main table at Isotopes of promethium. Double sharp (talk) 21:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Huh. Apparently I added that back in 2018, mentioning spallation as the probable source. I can't remember what source I was using for this; we should probably both go look. :) Double sharp (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll research this within the next few days; the answer depends on whether any RS describes 145Pm occurring in nature in noticeable quantities. Spallation and neutron capture reactions could theoretically generate a lot of radionuclides in trace quantities that are otherwise entirely synthetic, and we can't realistically keep track of every nuclide that would be produced by such means. And let's not even get started on fission products :) Complex / Rational  23:07, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Could be proton capture by Nd, listed by this article (but in stellar atmospheres). Double sharp (talk) 17:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Did you find anything on this for Earth? (The source I found for stars isn't enough, or we'd have to mark natural elements to Es thanks to Przybylski's star.) Double sharp (talk) 15:52, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Nope, not even anything suggesting that it's a significant fission product. Proton capture on 144Nd (or, for that matter, neutron capture on 144Sm) is nowhere near significant enough, also considering the vastly different conditions in stellar atmospheres. Also, by that logic, we ought to include any isotopes producible following p, β+ or n, β−, for which I doubt consensus exists, just as Emsley's claim about natural 249Bk is unsubstantiated. I also don't think stellar atmospheres or otherwise off-Earth abundance is enough – and what if somehow SHEs are found somewhere in the cosmos? Complex / Rational  00:17, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * All right, took it out.
 * (I find Przybylski's star somewhat tantalising evidence of SHEs in the cosmos, honestly! If they exist, they probably cannot be made by a "normal" r-process because neutron capture should cause fission before you get there. If they can be made by some process, it should be rare, and you'd only see them in a few stars that passed through one of the events that made them, or formed from a nebula arising from the right type of supernova, pretty much as suggested here.) Double sharp (talk) 02:04, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting long-lived radioisotopes to write about
It strikes me that 60Fe, 182Hf, and 230Th probably deserve full articles. Maybe also 107Pd? (I'd suggest also 231Pa, except that since that's basically 100% of natural Pa, the protactinium article already effectively discusses it.)

Not sure if they deserve ones (maybe just sections in their articles), but the long-lived neutron-poor 148Gd, 150Gd, and 154Dy are intriguing. Double sharp (talk) 22:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This could indeed be an interesting project when I have a bit more free time. I'm pretty sure significant coverage exists for these particular isotopes – for instance, the former two are noteworthy for being extinct radionuclides (I've definitely read full papers in the literature about 60Fe and 182Hf) and 230Th has a more unique history of discovery as well as use in uranium–thorium dating – and depending on what sources come up, articles could definitely be written. There are definitely some other isotopes as well for which enough coverage exists to justify standalone articles, such as those with important roles in stellar nucleosynthesis. I remember that I wrote a section long ago about 44Ti, though I was unsure whether it was enough to split into a standalone article. Complex / Rational  15:05, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * BTW, do you know of an actual scientific reason why Pa has an atomic weight from CIAAW and Ra doesn't? The situations strike me as similar, both with one isotope dominant, and long-lived enough to be usefully gotten from nature. I know that in 1969 Tc, Ra, Pa, and Np were given as the radioactives were getting more common in the lab and they all only have one important isotope, but at some point they were taken out. In 1983 they are all gone, but in 1981 Tc is gone but Ac is added, so I'm not sure what was changing. Double sharp (talk) 22:41, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not entirely sure about this. I discovered this BNL document that agrees with the 1983 report, but doesn't treat Ra or Pa specifically. My best guess is based on the line the Commission decided that radioactive elements were considered to lack a characteristic terrestrial isotopic composition, from which an atomic weight value could be calculated to five or more figure accuracy, without prior knowledge of the sample involved in the BNL report. Namely, I suspect that since 231Pa and 234Pa/234mPa all occur predominantly in uranium ore (there's no Pa isotope in the thorium series) and the half-life of 231Pa is more than seven orders of magnitude longer than that of 234Pa, we don't need "prior knowledge of the sample involved" to work out the isotopic composition of Pa. Conversely, for radium, the half-life of 228Ra is not negligible (about 1/300) with respect to 226Ra, and the former is the dominant isotope in thorium-rich deposits while the latter is the dominant isotope in uranium-rich deposits, so we need knowledge of the sample to determine whether 226Ra or 228Ra is more abundant. In the case of actinium, indeed 227Ac is much more abundant than 228Ac in general, but one could argue that the former only occurs in uranium ore and the latter only in thorium ore (again, prior knowledge of the sample is important, though the half-life difference is greater than for Ra isotopes). I also suspect that Tc and Np are too rare in nature to make extraction feasible.
 * I have one related question. Might you know why so many PTs classify Tc and Pm as "synthetic" (or even worse, in lieu of solid/liquid/gas) but not At and Fr? I believe none of these occur in appreciable quantities in nature, so are synthesized for almost all purposes, and consensus in the literature is that At is the rarest naturally occurring element. (Also, 1 ng 99Tc in a kilogram of uranium ore suggests a much greater abundance on Earth than 0.1 ng 215At in the entirety of the North and South American crust, and I doubt 218At and 219At are abundant enough to compete with Tc.) IMO it would make much more sense to only label elements with Z > 94 as synthetic. Complex / Rational  15:05, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have a suspicion, but not a sourced answer. I think it's because Tc and Pm only occur as spontaneous fission products, whereas At and Fr occur in the alpha/beta decay chains of Th and U. So if you just look at the decay chains in handbooks, you'll find At and Fr and call them natural, but you won't find Tc and Pm. That would also explain why natural Np and Pu are also generally forgotten. I agree with you (though I suspect some interstellar 247Cm may be found someday, which would bring it up to Z > 96). I could see calling Tc, Pm, At, Np, and Pu synthetic because they were discovered that way, but calling At synthetic but Fr not is a bit silly IMO. Both of them occur in quantities too small to be useful.
 * Personally, based on discussions with DA, I suspect that all the synthetic elements up to 120 are solids at STP, except liquid metals Cn and Fl. (119 should go above Fr, since ns should be held tighter.) Above 120, obviously calculations are not complete, but the usual thing in the 8th period is heavily blurred blocks, so there wouldn't be much chance for a liquid metal. Maybe at most 172 as a xenon analogue, but I suspect it's rather an "inert solid". Though this is obviously complete speculation. :)
 * Tc and Np are so rare that I suspect that they were based on what you'd get from artificial synthesis. For Np, 237Np is the most stable and most common isotope, and it's the only one that can be created by neutron capture. And you can't make the more stable Tc isotopes lighter than 99Tc from fission because the beta decay stops at stable Mo isotopes. Double sharp (talk) 15:16, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. 147Pm would also appear from the decay of natural 151Eu, but that was only discovered in 2007. Double sharp (talk) 04:20, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

RfA
Good luck on your RfA! :) Sarrail  (talk) 15:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Complex / Rational  15:30, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Likewise! Double sharp (talk) 02:12, 16 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Complex / Rational  02:27, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

RfA questions
Hiya, I hope you are doing well. Just a gentle ping that there're questions at your RfA waiting to be answered, including mine. Best, — kashmīrī  TALK  22:11, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've been working on them and am aiming to post them by tonight. Thanks for the ping, though. Complex / Rational  22:14, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Fingers crossed for your RfA. — kashmīrī  TALK  22:26, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Seasons greetings

 * Thanks for your kind words,, and happy holidays to you as well! Complex / Rational  02:15, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

A baton for you!

 * Thanks! It would be my pleasure to continue this tradition. Complex / Rational  18:35, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Early congrats...
...on a very successful run - have fun with the tools. I'm sure you have a list of people you can turn to if you have any questions, but feel free to put me on it. name on your list of people you can turn to if you have any questions. Girth Summit  (blether) 15:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your words and your offer, ! Some questions and curiosities are inevitable as I figure things out... Complex / Rational  16:31, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Urgh - wish I'd read the above again before hitting 'Publish'. Looks like I reworded a sentence and forgot to delete the original bit. Tip number one - don't do that! Girth Summit  (blether)  20:53, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

 * Thanks, and happy holidays to you as well! Complex / Rational  21:47, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy holidays!
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, ComplexRational!

The other day, I was having a conversation with someone about holiday cards and social media. It occurred to me that, in the years since I left Facebook, the site I use most to communicate with people I like isn't actually a social media site at all. If you're receiving this, it's pretty likely I've talked with you more recently than I have my distant relatives and college friends on FB, at very least, and we may have even collaborated on something useful. So here's a holiday "card", Wikipedia friend. :) Hope the next couple weeks bring some fun and/or rest. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 19:40, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Curious to think about... though as far as websites go, I could say the same about Wikipedia. Happy holidays to you as well! Complex / Rational  21:49, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Dec 28: WikiWed Salon (+ Wikipedia Day on Jan 15)
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

--Wikimedia New York City Team via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:27, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

 * Thanks,, and happy holidays to you too! Complex / Rational  00:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)



CAPTAIN RAJU (T) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding to their talk page with a friendly message. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:03, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Happy holidays to you too! Complex / Rational  17:16, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

 * Happy holidays to you as well! Complex / Rational  19:37, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of redirect
Greetings, you have recently revoked my edit on Komic. Do you mind if you check Talk:Komic as I have left a comment there with my reasoning. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Signed, Pichemist ( Contribs &#124; Talk ) 16:11, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. The correct procedure for this is to tag the redirect for WP:CSD as a page with trivial history blocking an uncontroversial move – the criterion you used (R2) is for inappropriate cross-namespace redirects. I read your message on the talk page and deleted the redirect; you should have no technical issue accepting the draft now. Cheers, Complex / Rational  16:16, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'll keep in mind the proper procedure. Signed, Pichemist ( Contribs &#124; Talk ) 16:17, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

help for create article that deleted 5 years ago
hi there, i'd like to create elnaz golrokh page which apparently was deleted a few years ago due to incompelete sources , but i want to create a new and reliable article with reliable sources , please guide me how can i do it?could i put the article in draft that you can review i? Romina.nabi (talk) 17:59, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, it looks like this article was deleted in 2017 and again in 2020 because the subject was not notable. This means that she has not been extensively discussed by multiple independent reliable sources, such as mainstream newspapers or websites with a reputation for fact-checking that are not affiliated with the subject. Keep in mind that tabolids and celebrity gossip are not sufficient, and an article must make a substantiated claim of notability and not read like a blog post or advertisement (which was also mentioned at the previous deletion discussion).
 * If you believe there's enough to write an article – which would probably have to be based on such sources that did not exist yet in 2020 – feel free to create a draft at Draft:Elnaz Golrokh. There are no restrictions there (see also Help:Your first article for more technical details), and for a review via WP:Articles for creation, a user more familiar with the subject matter (this is far outside where I can give specific advice) and/or who can find and read Persian-language sources (which may substantiate claims that aren't published in English-language sources) would probably be a better reviewer than me. However, keep in mind that if the concerns mentioned at the deletion discussion aren't addressed, your draft will be declined. I hope these pointers are helpful. Complex / Rational  19:09, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Congratulations!
I've closed your RfA as successful. Good luck with your new tools.  Maxim (talk)   17:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * +1. Congratulations! Sarrail  (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Complex / Rational  18:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Adding my congratulations and best wishes. 100% support! Good show. Donner60 (talk) 04:56, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Congratulations! Double sharp (talk) 07:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)


 * +1 Scorpions13256 (talk) 13:09, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks all for your support and messages! Complex / Rational  21:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

CONGRATULATIONS to you, ComplexRational! I wasn't keeping track of RFAs lately but I saw you closed an AFD discussion and realized that you had passed your RFA! A little late but, oh well, holidays, work and all. I hope you find the work rewarding, start off slow, find which areas you like to work in. We have some admins who do a little bit of everything but most find an area to specialize in that interests them. Don't hestitate to ask any veteran admin for a second opinion...I still do and I've been an admin for 7 years now! Have a pleasant end-of-the-year holiday season! Liz Read! Talk! 22:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ! There is absolutely a learning curve to this – time will tell. Happy holidays to you as well! Complex / Rational  00:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Congratulations :-) -DePiep (talk) 08:36, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding your revert re the group 3 header
I understand your point, but just to discuss:
 * The sources provided – Landafshitz and Matthias – outright characterise it this way. Landafshitz considers it "incorrect" to call Lu a rare earth, and it is a very renowned physics textbook series. Matthias outright calls it a "mistake" that everyone copied from Sargent-Welch. The vast majority of sources on the topic, as I tabulated at User:Double sharp/Group 3 sources, also echo similar sentiments: they call it a "necessary...modification", say the PT "should be modified", say "lutetium is really the first member" of the 5d series, that Lu is the "proper element below Y", etc. So, if we look at the preponderance of sources talking about this, it appears to be well justified to call it a "mistake". (Incidentally, Scerri in the latest editions of The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance and A Tale of Seven Elements treats it as a done deal: he writes "more recent experimental evidence and analysis have put lutetium (71) and lawrencium (103) in their places", and the argumentation is relegated to a much later chapter of the first book.)
 * Recommendations in IUPAC reports become formal when they are published in Pure Appl. Chem. This was already done in 1988, where the elements of the scandium group were explicitly listed as "Sc, Y, Lu, Lr", citing Landafshitz and some later authors. This appears to give Landafshitz a significant imprimatur in addition to it being one of the few physics textbooks so important that it had its own article. The 2021 provisional report reaffirms this composition of group 3, of course. It seems to me not inaccurate to call something in contravention of such an official report a "mistake", like it would be to call proline an imino acid today. (While the "IUPAC periodic table" is indeed confusing, it is not a recommendation, it leaves the out of just not being explicit about how 15 elements fit under 1, and when expanded into 32 columns in some IUPAC publications it does show -Lu-Lr just as the 1988 report said.)
 * Lavelle was on the 2015–2021 IUPAC project as well, and has apparently not objected to the report it ended with. Since that report concludes in favour of Lu-Lr (based on an argument Scerri used to rebut him in J. Chem. Ed., no less), whereas his own conclusion had been La-Ac, it seems to be a reasonable inference that he changed his mind and now no longer agrees with his 2008 argument. (Whereas Restrepo, the other La-Ac supporter on the project, did leave once the report came out.) Not to mention that the argument about thorium invalidating Lavelle's logic is mentioned in the IUPAC 2021 report and is not even only present in sources favouring Lu-Lr: it's in 10.1515/ract-2018-3082 even though that article favours *-**.

On these bases I reverted it back to the "mistakes" wording, but I would not mind to discuss it further. If you decide it's better to attribute, I won't revert again. :) Double sharp (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Hmm. In general, I've tried to steer clear of this dispute on-wiki and read through sources myself (thanks for the list – this will nicely supplement some I downloaded a couple of years ago). And we did get some resolution with the 2021 IUPAC report.
 * I felt that the original heading, "Mistakes in group 3" runs afoul of NPOV because although the arguments in favor of Lu-Lr are more sound (and I agree with them), many present-day PTs don't reflect this, and the subject has been debated extensively even in the last few years. I wouldn't go so far as to say that La-Ac is as obviously wrong as a flat Earth or geocentric model of the Solar System, and even in those cases, their articles' headings are kept neutral even though the main article text reflects the overwhelming consensus that these conceptions are incorrect. And for this subject specifically, we have alternate periodic tables that have their own pros and cons, as well as debates about the positions of H and He (period 1), though we don't explicitly say that alternate viewpoints are wrong or invalid – IMO the preceding section dealing with a group 1 does a better job of describing discrepancies and not taking sides (e.g., conflicting views of how the evidence should be used, Therefore, while the electronic placement of hydrogen in group 1 predominates, some rarer arrangements show...). As such, I still believe a more appropriate heading is "Group 3" in accordance with WP:NDESC (which extends to headings), since considerable variation still exists despite all the evidence.
 * Regarding the main body text, I think it can mostly be left as-is and the details discussed at Group 3 element, but the wording should still reflect attribution – even vaguely amid all the sources you present above. The first sentence of Group 3 element already does this very nicely and probably could be seamlessly copied to periodic table. While it is certainly a valid conclusion to consider La-Ac a mistake, if most sources don't explicitly call it such or only say "necessary modification" or "obsolete" or similar, the WP article should not declare it a mistake (WP:SYNTH). Perhaps something such as "many authors challenge these (La-Ac) arguments as being logically inconsistent" followed by a summary of the above sources would strike the best balance. As written now, the text seems to take its own point of view, which is probably not intentional but could give a wrong impression.
 * Thoughts? Complex / Rational  02:07, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I must say, flat Earth is a convincing precedent. So, I'll remove "mistakes" from the header.
 * One of the reasons why I wrote the period 1 and group 3 sections differently is that IUPAC has written a report explicitly on the latter; as you said, we did get some kind of resolution. Regarding IUPAC on hydrogen, its publications do treat it as a group 1 element while mostly ignoring the controversy. All I'm aware of is a letter by Kaesz and Atkins (already cited) in Chemistry International suggesting that H belongs outside all the groups because of its unique chemistry, and a reply from Scerri whose thrust was that that cannot be accepted because it suggests that H is above the law. Just an exchange of letters, no formally expressed IUPAC opinion. As for helium, it's pretty universally treated as group 18; that IUPAC 1988 report mentions that a proposal to treat it as group 2 then was rejected in IUPAC discussions because it splits the noble gases and makes group 2 have chemically very different elements. (Actually, that's an important statement that deserves to go in IMHO, since it's from an official report!) The other reason is the nature of the disagreement in sources: I confess I haven't studied the period 1 problem and collected sources the way I did for the group 3 one, but my impression is that the debate is less conclusively lopsided among sources. It does appear that the purely electronic placement of H in group 1 and He in group 2 is gaining more attention than it used to, but it still isn't anywhere near as lopsided as the group 3 thing for helium, and so far I only know of one textbook that actually adopts He in group 2 (Shattered Symmetry, by Thyssen and Ceulemans). Also pretty recent though. I suspect that if one looked through most textbooks, one would find more floating H. Some of this new support for helium in group 2 comes from light noble-gas chemistry, which is a field that hardly existed in 1988 when IUPAC last mentioned the helium thing. So my impression is that this is a lot more up in the air still.
 * That said, I do not find textbooks particularly convincing (unless they explicitly address the question), mostly because they also tend to copy each other and believe things like 3d-hybridisation in SF6. I think my line of "let's look at the peer-reviewed journal articles" is consistent with WP:SOURCETYPES, since peer-review for textbooks is generally less diligently done (they're not supposed to be saying anything too new these days, after all).
 * Regarding obviousness, forgive me if I go a little off-topic here and write down an argument that I still have not found in one place in the literature. Yeah, that is SYNTH at its finest and I don't intend to put it in, but just write it in the hope that you might eventually find it, as I finally recently found the argument that most convinced me personally: the one noting that La and Ac can use f-electrons for chemistry, but not Lu and Lr. (Yes, it felt good seeing it in Jensen, though Hamilton almost said it in 1965.) But here goes: my impression is that the entire thing is a historical accident. Had the situation been reversed, and Lu been put over Y from configuration measurements (which the real configurations suggest), then arguments to move Sc-Y over La would likely never have been taken seriously at all. The evidence being that almost no one cries for B-Al-Sc or Be-Mg-Zn, which are also from about the same time, and bear significant analogy (Kulsha has mentioned the analogy to B-Al-Sc). Indeed B fits even more uncomfortably over Al than Sc-Y over Lu (and let's not even mention H-Li as it's controversial), suggesting that there is nothing even scientifically consistent about the situation we have in which group 3 gets some tortured rationalisations for block-splitting but group 13 mostly doesn't. But this is apparently not in the literature...yet anyway. (But let me know if you ever find this line of thought!) :D
 * I'll add your suggested vague attribution: it reads well and doesn't attribute the suspicions many have of the La arguments to just Lu supporters (since even * supporters find the treatment of thorium by La supporters sketchy). I think it's okay to just add the attribution and leave the rest as it was, like you did, since it's the thorium thing that really seems to get criticism from both of the other sides. Double sharp (talk) 04:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've made some changes to a bunch of related articles, attributing the statements (e.g. saying that Landau and Lifshitz considered it incorrect, rather than calling it as such in WP-voice). I think it looks better now; what do you think? (Well, I still have to add Scerri 2009 and that * article I posted here to make it clear that it is not only Jensen considering La arguments as inconsistent, but that doesn't affect the wording.)
 * Sadly, I could not put the 1988 vs present situation in full context for the He thing, since it is not explicitly stated; but I think I got the point across by referring to recent developments in noble gas chemistry, which allows the (correct) inference that this is a post-1988 blossoming, while not explicitly making the link. (Though amusingly, neutral neon and argon compounds were already found in 1975. They were just not widely recognised for what they were until significantly later. :D) Double sharp (talk) 04:35, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The article text definitely reads much better now. Thanks again for taking this into consideration.
 * I will say, when I first was interested in the periodic table and read books aimed at those with no technical knowledge, I saw one periodic table with floating H, and many with a 15-element-wide f-block. But I don't recall seeing alternate arrangements in any textbook I've read, and indeed this is a different kind of disagreement: one rooted in alternate proposals arising from analysis of specific properties, rather than one based on incorrect analysis predating, for instance, rudimentary quantum mechanics – as you put it eloquently, a "historical accident".
 * The same could be said about B-Al-Sc, which exists but is even less popular AFAICT, although Mendeleev did call Sc "eka-boron" prior to its discovery. Yet the 18-column PT followed shortly thereafter and I'm not aware of any heated arguments for splitting the p-block.
 * It would be most interesting if we discover your argument in the literature – it's a reasonable assumption, another instance of "what if the correct conception were discovered and accepted first?", but of course needs RS before going in any WP articles. :D Complex / Rational  14:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I came across all three forms of group 3 within a short timespan of first learning about the PT. This was understandably extremely confusing. That said, I didn't come across floating H till probably a year or so later. I suppose this anecdata from the two of us suggests indeed that group 3 is a more variable thing than period 1.
 * The very first 18-column PT of all (Pfeiffer's in 1920) thought that Ce was a transition metal and that the f-block occurred between Ce and Ta. (And it also has Be-Mg-Zn.) The first 32-column table OTOH is basically Werner's (though it has 33 columns), and it is Sc-Y-Lu (but still Be-Mg-Zn). In general, the precise location of the rare earth series seems to have been quite variable in the early XX century: sometimes they were spread over pretty much any contiguous combination of groups 2, 3, and 4. I suppose we should be grateful, looking at Pfeiffer's table, that we only ended up with two dyads in the wrong block rather than four. And it really seems like a minor miracle that we don't still have Be-Mg-Zn today. Corroborative evidence for it being a historical accident, I guess (but seriously, how can no one have said this? Maybe I have to do it myself then in a journal article. :D)
 * One thing's for sure: counting anomalies in the irrelevant single atoms could never have been done accurately until very recently (though it could have been done accurately enough to see which configuration is more common in the f-block, sure). Ce, Pt, Pa, Bk had their ground-state configurations disputed till quite recently. Even recently Tc is sometimes still wrongly marked as an anomaly. Really puts the Lr thing in perspective, I suppose. And based on Nefedov et al.'s calculations, in a few elements when 5g begins, it will inescapably become nonsensical as elements are no longer even approximately well-described by single configurations. So far, I haven't seen anything that really disagrees with Jensen's and Matthias' historical analyses, that pinpoints it on the wrong configurations being assumed just when Sargent-Welch started making the charts, and then everybody copying them even as exact configurations continued to be in flux till very recently. Well, wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose! So I think it's okay to continue saying that La-Ac came from wrongly assumed electron configurations, as Jensen did, since the IUPAC 1988 report refers to him for the history. Double sharp (talk) 15:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * so this is where you are hanging out, making each other smarter, and preparing sound edits! Is there a way to make these talks persistent for general learning & article basing (eg, in or via WT:ELEM, Talk:Periodic table)? Or ping me, for reading in with/out contributions desired. -DePiep (talk) 08:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, we'll ping you if you're interested. :) And feel free to copy a link to this at WT:ELEM and Talk:Periodic table. Preceding discussion there settled how we treat group 3 by default, but the precise wording (as for any article) can always be improved. I went to CR's talk page because he's the one who first edited what I wrote, that's all. :) Double sharp (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes that's how minor talks grow. I'm interested in backgrounds of major edits (since not specialiszed), instead of them looking Bold only. -DePiep (talk) 09:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, ComplexRational!


Happy New Year! ComplexRational, Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.

Abishe (talk) 21:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Abishe (talk) 21:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Happy new year to you too! Complex / Rational  01:38, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year to you too! Double sharp (talk) 04:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * And to you as well! Complex / Rational  14:42, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Happy New Year elves}} to send this message

CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 22:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Happy new year to you too! Complex / Rational  13:49, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Happy New Year with lots of Happy Edits, -DePiep (talk) 08:35, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Happy new year to you too! Complex / Rational  13:49, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

NPP Award for 2022

 * Thank you! Complex / Rational  13:49, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:36, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Complex / Rational  13:49, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

10-year-old Ohio rape victim required to cross state lines to obtain abortion
Why did you delete "10-year-old Ohio rape victim required to cross state lines to obtain abortion"? --Jax 0677 (talk) 15:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agreed with the nominator's R3 tagging that this was an implausible misnomer (extremely verbose and unlikely to be searched), and would also say it falls within the scope of points 1 and 8 of WP:RFD. If you believe this is ineligible for R3, I'm willing to undelete and send to RfD instead. Complex / Rational  15:56, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Love You Mahri Jaan
I created this article but there are not mentioned of my user name in edit history. Mannuseemu (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The text is still attributed to you . Because you replaced a redirect to draftspace with article text, and the move was performed by another user, the earliest revision is attributed to them; however, you are still the primary author of the page. Complex / Rational  16:12, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

A completely off-topic question that I wondered about from your userboxes
Since you have absolute pitch, how does it feel to listen to stuff at historical pitch? (Like A = 432 Hz or even 415 Hz.) Personally, I can adapt to both of these, but a semitone in either direction seems to be the maximum for me: I can't really accept A = 392 Hz for longer than a couple of seconds. (A = 460 Hz or thereabouts is adaptable for me though.)

And how does it feel to read scores written for transposing instruments? (I tend to mentally change the clef, but for diatonic brass in Classical scores, I tend to think in terms of abstract scale degrees.) Double sharp (talk) 05:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Historical pitch works just fine for me as long as I don't consciously think about transposition or how it should sound in A440. Sometimes, I feel slightly flat or slightly sharp with respect to A440 leads to a more distinct sound or "flavor"; the cutoff for me is about half a semitone because thereafter I "round" to the nearest standard pitch, not what the score may read. Along those lines, a piece (say, in A major) with A415 might as well be written in A-flat major, since I "round" 415 Hz to A-flat.
 * However, when I was playing with my jazz ensemble, things got confusing at times, since guitar is non-transposing, but many woodwind and brass instruments are. Reading scores for transposing instruments feels like defining colors as, , , and so I wouldn't want to sightread one. Conversely, though, guitar is one of the easiest instruments to transpose: learn a song (well) in one key, move up or down N frets and play it in any key, and try to forget the confusion associated with transposing scores. And if I want to change the flavor, tuning all the strings slightly sharp or slightly flat does the job and doesn't create confusion so long as I don't go too far from A440 – at times, I get the impression that some of the jazz I listen to isn't perfectly in A440, and beat frequencies (in non-resonant cases) are notoriously unpleasant. But now I digress from music theory into physics...
 * Do you also perceive such variation, and how might changing the clef work in these cases? Complex / Rational  14:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It depends. To some extent I snap to the nearest semitone, but if I've been listening to a lot of stuff in another tuning, my "centre" seems to shift with it, and I can begin to hear something as far out as 466 Hz or 415 Hz as "A". But like I said, it seems to have a limit of about one semitone. If I "shift" to 415 Hz, I can't seem to shift to 392 Hz for very long after that. It works for maybe about a second, but then my perfect pitch starts telling me "OK, this cannot be real". A pity: I'd like to be able to hear 392 Hz as A if I want to! :D (It would make B-flat parts all look right!)
 * The trick with clef transposition is essentially: a clarinet in B-flat part looks like it has the right note names if you pretend that it starts with a tenor clef instead of a treble clef. Since whatever line you pick, there's some (maybe obsolete) clef that defines it as C, you can avoid thinking about transposition for the most part this way (if in some kind of D, pretend you're reading alto; if in E, bass; if in F, mezzo-soprano, if in G, baritone; if in A, soprano; and if in B, tenor). You do need to correct accidentals along the way, but it seems easier to me (unless the music is very diatonic). See Derek Remeš' guide here. But I suppose I tend to use a mix of both methods (when I sing for fun, I often need to transpose songs anyway, so thinking about intervals isn't too unfamiliar either).
 * By the way, for the reason of accidentals, my opinion of courtesy accidentals when it comes to needing to transpose goes sharply from positive to negative. :) Double sharp (talk) 03:40, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I must also admit that by virtue of perfect pitch, I tend to supplement reading sheet music with learning by ear. And when dealing with keys with lots of accidentals, the path of least resistance would probably be to learn from sheet music in an easy key and then play at a different fret – this is kind of subconsciously thinking about intervals. Substituting clefs as Remeš describes is a most interesting approach, though personally I find it less intuitive since almost all my music reading experience is treble clef. Complex / Rational  02:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

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 * Responded by email. Complex / Rational  02:45, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The discovery of element 113
Nihonium is the only one at Timeline of chemical element discoveries that needs a range of years for discovery (otherwise it raises questions re JINR vs Riken): what do you think of the way we're treating it? My impression is that most authors (so we're not talking about IUPAC approval here) accepted the Am+Ca experiment at Dubna 2003 as the discovery of Mc even now (no one seriously doubts it, it's been confirmed many times over), but then you get the problem that separating the parent and the daughter doesn't make much sense. My impression pre-2015 was that people generally accepted both 113 and 115 as being JINR discoveries, but then that changed once 113 got awarded to Riken.

(I've been doing some work on this, mostly for the XVIII century discoveries.) Double sharp (talk) 04:00, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I forget exactly whether discovery years varied during the Transfermium Wars, though I think it's reasonable to treat 113 in a similar manner to those: include all discovery claims, but only the "recognized" year, and if necessary explain the discrepancy in an endnote. Complex / Rational  04:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, my worry about that is that that's not what anyone seems to be doing for 115 (for which IIRC people still give 2003 rather than 2010). Having said that, a good review just came out for the XVIII century and prior, and future parts for later elements are planned: so perhaps I should just wait a bit. :) Double sharp (talk) 10:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)