User talk:Dirac66/Archive 1 (2006-2010)

Welcome to Wikipedia
Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style
 * Avoiding common mistakes
 * Changing your user preferences

By the way, you don't need to put article titles in quotes (I've moved the one you did to Claude Brochu if you wish to add more to it). BryanG(talk) 22:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Nanochondria
Thanks for pointing that out! I was so caught up in the novelty of the idea that I didn't notice I forgot to point that out ^^; Hope you don't mind me changing that to be a little more precise! --L ucid 02:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, "theoretical" is fine. Dirac66 00:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobel prize controversies - posthumous
See reply on my talk page. –panda 22:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Allotropy article
Copy from cs:Wikipedista diskuser:JAn Dudík

Hello. In the English article on Allotropy, your bot removed the link to the Italian article Allotropia. I thought it unlikely that the Italian article does not exist, so I looked and realized that the Italian Allotropia is a disambiguation page leading to Allotropia (Chimica) and Allotropia (Linguistica). I then restored the link and specified Allotropia (Chimica).

However I think the bot should not have removed the link and I am worried that it will delete other links incorrectly. Ideally when it finds a link to a disambiguation page, it should redirect the link to the right article, but I doubt that it would be possible for a bot to know whether, in my example, the English article is about chemistry or linguistics. So I think that in such case the bot should either 1) do nothing, or 2) alert its owner or another human who can figure out which Italian (or other language) article is closest to the English.

Signed: User Dirac66. Date 6 oct 2007. Please post any reply to my talk page either in English ou en français; I don't know Czech - or Italian.


 * You are right, it would be better. Interwiki bot normally does not remove these links, only, if running with -force parameter. When finding disambig page and run autonomously without -force, it only remember it, and when find through interwiki links another article in the same language (however correct or incorrect) without another (colliding) interwiki, bot will replace link to disambiguation with link to the other article.
 * But sometimes bot runs without autonomous mode when operator must says, if follow link to disambiguation or not.
 * You must know, that there are often incorrect links to deleted articles, so is necessary sometimes to clear it. That was this case, i tried to solve some duplicity links and clear it in the begining of alphabet.
 * second thing is, that thios interwiki is not lost. When some interwiki bot runs from it:, it will find article with interwiki links, but with no backlink, so it will add this link minimally to one other language, usually en.

JAn Dudík 09:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message
Hey, thanks for you message, It was not apparent to me that it would change how it looked! I think I might go and raise this with someone.... Tiddly - Tom 19:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, I raised it with the AWB guys here and it sounds like it will be fixed for the next update :). Thanks for raising it to my attention and I completely agree that it did not look good. Tiddly - Tom  19:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply
I was asked to do it. See Bot_requests/Archive_14.  Ρх₥α 02:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Pimentel Chemical Laser Inventor
Thanks, Dirac66 for bringing Pimentel to my attention. I'll be glad to work Pimentel into the chemical laser article if you can get me the references you mentioned. I am not familiar with his work. I was in high school at the time the articles you mentioned were published, and neither Hinchen nor Spencer mention Pimentel in their respective publications.

The original chemical laser article was obviously written by an Aerospace Corporation related party, since it gave exclusive credit to Spencer for the invention, as well as other Aerospace personnel for the developments related to chemical lasers.

I was aware of significant developments elsewhere and tried to add them to the article. I was for a short time (~1 year) the system engineering lead for the space based laser, which is centered around an HF chemical laser with an annular ring resonator. Rocket Laser Man (talk) 22:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC) -

I think from the articles that I figured out this:

Pimentel forced lasing using HCl and HF reactions which he induced in a pulsed fashion using optical pumping. In a technical sense, this was a chemical laser because the energy was obtained by the recombination of hydrogen and chlorine after the photo-induced dissociation.

However, this had no practical value other than to prove that chemical reactions can pump the molecular species into a population inversion. Also, this was not scalable. That means that it could never be used on a large scale. In a sense, it was like showing that filaments glow when electricity flows through them. But that would not be inventing the light bulb. You still need the right filament, a vacuum or inert gas, etc.

What was needed was to produce a chemical laser that actually was driven by the chemical reactions themselves, rather than by being induced by optical pumping. Optically pumping all sorts of species had already been done.

It was Spencer and Hinchen who turned this into a continuous system, although they really generated the fluorine by electrical dissociation, so it was only another step along the way. It was the military that succeeded in producing a purely chemically pumped laser, by chemically combining fluorine and hydrogen reactants directly.

So in a sense it took a lot of different groups to add all the pieces to make a real chemical laser in the sense of a chemical reaction driving the laser, not just being an intermediary in delivering the energy from an optical source.

I hope this helps. Feel free to disagree and add more information if you believe I got it wrong. Rocket Laser Man (talk) 03:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

On Gibbs
Dirac66 Thank you for your very interesting commentary on the Willard Gibbs article. I think you summed up things very very well. I appreciate the help in putting the citations in. I encourage you sir to continue to look into information involving Technocracy related subjects. This information needs to be put forth in a direct and objective manner, and I have had much difficulty with other users in that regard. Thanks so much. Sincerely. skip sievert (talk) 04:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Glad to be of help. It is tricky to insert citations - I had to preview it 3 times before I got it right. I am thinking also of moving all the posthumous material on Gibbs out of the introduction into a later section, as mentioned in my third point. Dirac66 (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If you develop an interest in Technate design you might look here http://technatedesign-tnat.blogspot.com/ The North American Technate TNAT As mentioned it has been terribly difficult to get the information out because of some very limited interpretations. Commercial interests are unfortunately dominate in this time period. However the over arching creative group known as the Technical Alliance made an impression on American history that is still reverberating. I value very much your way of putting things in their place on the Gibbs article. skip sievert (talk) 07:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Fritz London
"London was born in Breslau (now Wrocław), then in Germany but now in Poland." That needs no further explanation of why I marked this segment.Slicky (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC) It didn`t make sense to me, as if London was born in three places due to the awkward bracket setting, and use of "then". Hence I wasn`t sure if some words were missing. e.g. moved. Regardless, it is clarified and I went with your version. Slicky (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

List of important publications in chemistry
The new entry you added to this list is a good one, but we always hold a discussion on the talk page to determine whether there is consensus to keep or delete every new entry. Please go to Talk:List of important publications in chemistry and add your views. Note that to follow our guidelines it needs both an importance section, which you added, and a description section. I suggest some of the content of the first could be moved into the latter, but both would need a slight expansion. A source that supports the importance of this book would also be most welcome. --Bduke (talk) 23:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I see you have proposed a new entry on the talk page. The normal process is to add it to the article and then I tag it for discussion on the talk page. I will copy it to the list later and start a discussion. Regards. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood the procedure. I have now added the entry to the article. I have also left the copy on the talk page since it seems pointless to remove it now; feel free to add a tag before or after and rearrange it for discussion as you think fit. Dirac66 (talk) 23:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

No worries, I have set up the discussion. I support this entry. It does set a precedence for other recent journal articles, but if they are as important as this one, I welcome them. We might have to delete a few that are no way near as important as this one. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  00:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Wecome!
Your editing work caught my eye. You are contibuting valuable information so "stick around!" Cheers! --Stormbay (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Feedback on Werner Heisenberg
Many thanks for your feedback on my update to the page on Werner Heisenberg. I have addressed your three questions by revising the appropriate text. I have added text and citations on Heisenberg's thinkig on Dirac's theory of the positron, corrected the years between 1939 and 1945, and added material on Heisenberg's parents, as well as his children, including a Wikilink. Many thanks. Your feedback was appreciated. Bfiene (talk) 16:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Eliel's Stereochemistry
I have added your suggestion on the talk page of List of important publications in chemistry to the article, so it can be debated in the usual way to determine whether it is important enough to stay. I support this entry. Please take a look at the discussion on the talk page. --Bduke (talk) 10:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Relaxation (NMR)
Thanks for cleaning up the references. As you can see Bloch's equation are on their way. TomyDuby (talk) 08:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, glad to help. I have now also 1. changed your title to plural (since there are 3 equations), 2. added a link from Felix Bloch to your new section, with one explanatory sentence, and 3. created a redirect page so that a user who looks for Bloch equations will be redirected to Relaxation (NMR) Dirac66 (talk) 23:34, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for improving my English. TomyDuby (talk) 20:10, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Von Weizsäcker discussion
Thanks for alerting me to the discussion about the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker page. I have provided some commentary: Talk:Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Bfiene (talk) 21:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Eutectic mixtures and azeotropes
I think you are laboring under a misconception. Check the page on azeotrope. The ethanol water system is not different from any other mixture of two miscible liquids, except you reach a point during distillation where the vapor has the same composition as the liquid. The consequence is that you cannot get above 95% alcohol by distillation. Its a two phase system at, near, and around the azeotropic mixture boiling point. Gibbs' phase rule is not relevant to azeotrope formation.Paul V. Keller (talk) 01:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have added nothing about azeotropes. A revision history search (linked from the top of the history page) for the word "azeotrope" shows that that text was added by PeterGans at 11:20 Nov 22. Dirac66 (talk) 02:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. You may have misread my edit of 23:26 Dec 7. Note that the paragraph including azeotropes appears both before and after. My addition was the image of the graph showing a eutectic.Dirac66 (talk) 02:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My apologies.Paul V. Keller (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Image tagging for File:Biliverdin.png
Thanks for uploading File:Biliverdin.png. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:
 * Image use policy
 * Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. 05:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Fluorine 18 stability
Thanks for handling and explaining my question about the possibility of existence of stable 9F18. I appreciate your interest. Now maybe you can help me with an explanation of my question about the alpha emission properties of EE62Sm146 as I have discussed in Talk:Isotopes of samarium. It is a pleasure to at least have someone at least respond to inquiries re this subject matter. Also please look at my models in Talk:Nuclear model to see why I'm asking these questions.WFPM (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)WFPM (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Glad to help when I can, though my knowledge of nuclear physics is limited as I am a physical chemist. For samarium and nuclear models I will comment (briefly) on the pages with the questions, so that the questions and my comments will appear together.

Also note: the reason your title ==Fluorine 18 stability== did not appear as a new section is that you placed more words on the same line (as I have here). Dirac66 (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note that with my nuclear models I have no trouble making 1 of OO9F18 (with 2 alpha particles and 5 embracing deuterons) or of EE8O18 with 2 alpha particles plus 4 deuterons plus 2 extra neutrons. Where I have trouble is seeing why one of the protons of 9F18 should come apart from its paired proton and then rotate 180 degrees to the position of the 2nd extra neutron. Besides I thought that neutrons were supposed to spontaneously change into protons rather than vise versa.WFPM (talk) 03:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you are taking your classical model too seriously in saying that the proton rotates into the position of the neutron. What is observed is that a positron is emitted.
 * In the Berkeley spin data, the spin of both the neutron and the proton is given as + 1/2 and for A = 18, the spin of 9F18 is given as + 1 and that of 8O18 is zero. I therefore interpreted that to mean a rotation of a nucleon. Was I wrong?WFPM (talk) 19:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)As far as I can figure it out, the present day concept of the structure of the atom doesn't allow the nucleons to have a position, just a spin orientation.
 * That is correct according to quantum mechanics. A microscopic particle (electron, nucleon, etc) has no definite position; instead there is a distribution in space of the probability of finding the particle, called an orbital or a wave or (for a charged particle) a charge cloud. Spin however is a "good quantum number", meaning there is a fixed value of spin for each state of the system. Dirac66 (talk) 01:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * As for the direction of spontaneous change here, it is true that a free (isolated) neutron is more massive than a proton and beta-decays to a proton with a half-life of 15 minutes. However the energy of a neutron (or a proton) bound in a nucleus depends on its interactions with the other nucleons, which is why the half-lives of beta-decay nuclei varies vary widely. In some nuclei such as 9F18, the energy of one proton is higher than that of an extra neutron, so the bound proton can decay into a neutron by beta-plus decay (or sometimes electron capture).
 * I appreciate your directing my attention to the Lewis models which I hadn't seen before. However the Lewis models are mostly concerned with the positioning and activity of the hypothesized 8 valence electrons and how they would be positioned to make single and/or multiple chemical bonds. This subject was similarly covered somewhat by Pauling in his "General Chemistry", which then went on to much more sophisticated concepts. But the location of the so called "orbital electrons" is still controversial and I notice your use of the electron shell model to try to convince me that the filling of the electron shell is sufficiently important to explain why EEO18 should be more stable than OOF18. However, I'm afraid that I will never understand the logic of orbitals, which evidently involve curved motion in the vicinity of the nucleus without involving the existence of orbital angular momentum. That's maybe because I think that the main function of electrons within the atom is to manage its kinetic energy and angular momentum properties and to interact with other atoms in the process of so doing. But thanks for the interest and additional information.WFPM (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I mentioned the Lewis model as an example of a purely classical picture with the limitations of classical physics. Yes, Pauling was able to go much further and explain much more than Lewis, BECAUSE he used the concepts of quantum mechanics and orbitals. The location of the orbital electrons is not controversial any more, but quantum mechanics says that they do not have fixed locations. They are in a state of constant movement as described by the orbitals.
 * I don't want to discourage you, but I believe that if you want to go further, you will have to learn at least some quantum theory. You could start with the quantum chapters of a general chemistry book, and then perhaps an introduction to modern physics. And remember that this complicated theory is accepted because it succeeds in explaining the experimental properties of atoms and nuclei. Dirac66 (talk) 15:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have a copy of "Understanding Chemistry From atoms to attitudes" by T. R. Dickson (John Wiley) that does a good job of describing and illustrating orbitals, as well as showing a periodic table that is highly related to the Janet periodic table. But my problem with the location of the orbitals is that they are inconsistent in that they overlap spaces in some of the cubic volume locations and yet leave out the existence of orbitals in some of the other volumes of the trisected cubic space volume that even I could see was a haphazard space arrangement. And I don't believe in figure 8 orbits with zero angular momentum [Mvr] in some parts. And the premise of the orbitals is to give up on the Angular momentum principles of the Bohr orbits and to concentrate on the proposed "activation energy" levels of the so called orbitals by mathematically relating them to a mathematical series that coincides with the spectral energy emissions of the excited atom. This changes the phenomenon explanation from a physical principal one to a mathematical one and as they say. "You can prove anything with mathematics". But we have the proven existence of the electron and of the proton, which theoretically originated independently of each other, and no explanation of why the electronic charge of the one is identical and opposite to the charge of the other, and I'm merely trying to understand their interacting relationships related to the physical and chemical functions of the atom.WFPM (talk) 16:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC).
 * The geometric forms of atomic orbitals, as well as their angular momentum properties, are based on the solutions of the Schroedinger equation for the hydrogen atom. The theory does not try to divide up a cubic volume in any particular way. Yes, the theory is VERY mathematical when one works outall the details, but that seems to be a necessary part of this theory which agrees very well with experiment. It reproduces both the energy levels (not "activation energy" which is a term from chemical kinetics) of atomic spectra and the angular momentum properties from the Zeeman effect on spectra. It is true that the equality of proton and electron charges is unexplained by atomic theory. Dirac66 (talk) 18:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * PS I also got out my copy of Irving Kaplans "Nuclear Physics" (1962 edition) and looked up the Schroedinger equation and I agree with you that it is VERY mathematical and reminds me of my 60 years ago studies of engineering thermodynamics and hardly tells me anything intuitively. But I still think that the models have merit in representing certain properties of the 3 dimensional properties of the atomic structure and will continue to try to find them out.WFPM (talk) 21:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC).WFPM (talk) 18:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)PS I also want to commend you on being the first person to note and comment on this proton/electron equivalence. I wondered about this while I was making the models and then thought that I might suggest an associative property between them by imagining each atomic electron to be associated with the exposed surface of the atomic protons. This would explain the atomic coherence properties of the electrons as well as how the motion properties of the underlying proton could be extended into space, and I illustrated that in my model of 92U Uranium by extending a fiber string from the end of each exposed proton. But I don't talk about it much because I don't like to be ridiculed.WFPM (talk) 11:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC). However, it occurs to me that the existence of a "tethered electron" condition might be used to explain the electron motion as less than orbital and more like in kite flying and thus capable of figure 8 and other types of motion.WFPM (talk) 14:55, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Before replying further, I have re-formatted the discussion so we can tell who wrote what. Single indent is yours, double indent is mine. Plus I have restored one paragraph of mine which I think you accidentally deleted on your third-last edit. Dirac66 (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I find it hard to intelligently communicate with someone about a supposedly real physical entity that exists in a 3 dimensional space continuim without having a mental picture of the spacial constituents in my mind. Particularly when the number of constituents is as low as 4 as in the alpha particle. In the May 1985 National Geographic there is an artist's conceptional drawing of the nucleus of a 6C12 (carbon) atom showing what looked like a placenta and containing 3 groups of 4 loosely associated spheres that bothered me and so I called up the writer of the article and asked him where he got his information and he said he had talked to several people that was the best consensus that he could arrive at, which was in effect none. It was this lack of development of a physical concept about a set of real physical entities that led me to start building simulating models in the first place. I mean that you can do a lot with mathematics, even work in multiple dimensions, but when it comes to a real physical entity in 3 dimensional space it sounds like some real physical model building sounds like a good idea. I notice that Dr. Pauling kept a large variety of chemistry models around his laboratory and his General Chemistry has lots of sterioscopic drawings which I appreciate. And when I created the models I had never heard of a Janet Periodic table and only lined up the models in increasing order of size like they looked like they ought to go. Note that each period begins with an addition to the side of the atom and then ends up with with a 2 step addition of an [alpha particle?] nucleus to the top. And it's a 4 sided figure so each time you expand it you have to add 8 more constituents (4 deuterons) to the series So if you don't believe in it where are you going to go? Back to mathematics? I'm unable to do that. WFPM (talk) 06:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want to think about the alpha particle in 3 dimensions, you might buy 4 of those Neodymium cylindrical magnets (3/8"dia x3/8"l) and see how they go together. There's about 3 fundamental ways, but 1 involves rotation connection at right angles so there are two spin compatible ways and I think Science picked the wrong one. Would appreciate a comment.WFPM (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The usual model of an alpha particle is two protons with opposite spins (1 up, 1 down) and two neutrons also with opposite spins. Why is this the wrong one? Does it disagree with any experimental facts?
 * You might also be interested in the article halo nucleus. It seems some nuclei do have either an excess of neutrons far from the centre, or else an excess of protons similarly far from the centre. Dirac66 (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It sounds Okay but after you make 2 of those alpha particles they wont stick together as 4B8 (And evidently involve a side by side bonding of the 2 alpha particles). But per the Magnet protocol, you can't bond side by side alpha particles because the magnets will only bond 2 end to end nucleons regardless of which way you use it. So the inference is that the alpha particles are bonded top to bottom, and the deuterons are side to side bonded nucleons. Also, if you build end to end bonded deuterons and side bond them to a second end to end deuteron, you wind up with side bonds between protons( and between neutrons), which is a spin nono, because all the protons spin counterclockwise (looking down at the top) and all the neutrons clockwise. However, if you turn the model over, the spin directions are all reversed. The halo nucleus article looks interesting but mostly involves small number excess neutron isotopes, which is consistent with my premise that the atom is the result of a process of accumulation of deuterons involving the existence of a surplus of neutrons. I'll think about it some more and thanks for the reply and reference.WFPM (talk) 19:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)PS maybe the 4Be8 halo is just 2 close together alpha particles that haven't yet come into contact and 15P26 is ridiculously deficient in neutrons and sounds like a figment of someone's bad dream.


 * Be careful to distinguish 4Be8 and 5B8. 4Be8 has a half-life of less than 10-16 sec, so the two alphas really do not stick together (see Isotopes of beryllium). But the halo nucleus article refers to 5B8, which is much more stable with a half-life of 3/4 sec, see Isotopes of boron. Dirac66 (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry! OK 5B8 with 2 deficient neutrons. I wish I knew how they know it's 5B. And why not 12Mg26 instead of 15P26? My theory is that The normal increase is an increase in 1 deuteron and 1 Z number. But if a neutron gets on (first), it unbalances the nucleus for anything except a counterbalancing additional neutron. And there aren't normally additional single protons around to correct the proton deficiency condition. I think Gamow had ideas along these lines concerning the deuterons but he didn't say much about the nuclear structure. And I dont understand the necessity for the neutron to be unstable in stressless free space. It's only when things are contracting and speeding up that a method of getting rid of excess angular momentum is needed. And on an individual nucleon mass accumulation basis I cant see the need for an electron to permit the accumulation of a nucleon mass. But in the nucleon accumulation process the existence and function of the radiation emitting properties of the electron (small mass particle)are evidently necessary to get rid of excess angular momentum and permit a binding of the nucleon constituents together. So maybe the neutron came first, despite the big bang theory, and then the protons and electrons came later; and that's what we're watching being accumulated in the Whirlpool Galaxy, as it was happening about 25,000,000 years ago.WFPM (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * PS In the atomic accumulation process, the most stable accumulation process for maintaining nuclear stability, in the larger atoms, is that of accumulating a deuteron plus an additional extra neutron, and resulting in a stability trend line for the 68Er+ elements of A= 3Z - 38 (+or-2), and with the even Z elements doing much better at maintaining stability than the odd Z elements. But 79Au broke that trend in favor of an additional of 2 additional extra neutrons. But 82 Pb 208 still agrees with the formula, as does 92U238 and 94Pu244. You might guess that I have a modified nuclide chart that shows these trend lines. It's the top chart on the wall behind the models in the picture. WFPM (talk) 00:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The used to be last stable isotope is OE93Bi209 which is on the 3Z-40 trend line. After that the whole area is alpha particle unstable for no particular reason until you get to the heavier elements and which are on the 3Z-38, 40, and 42 trend lines. So I still think we ought to be looking for stable EE elements in that area.WFPM (talk) 19:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The heavier elements are alpha-unstable because with enough protons, the long-range repulsive coulombic force becomes comparable to the short-range attractive nuclear force which holds the nucleus together. Dirac66 (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * But the log half lifetime value goes down with increasing Z number in this area, which indicates that adding deuterons helps the problem, but more extra neutrons do not. It takes about 4 or 5 more extra neutrons before you get back into a reasonable half lifetime period near the 3Z-40 stability trend line. So your point is well taken. And you're arguing that it is repulsive forces that causes alpha particle emission? I'd have to think about that. Oh yes EE96Cm250 is also on the 3Z-38 trend line with 58 extra neutrons.WFPM (talk) 01:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * How about my pet peeve, the alpha particle emission instability of EE62Sm146. Do you think the same explanation applies here? It's unique in not being stable on the low extra neutron side with 2 more extra neutrons than EE62Sm144, which is stable with only with 20 extra neutrons? (as compared with the rest of the lanthanides).WFPM (talk) 10:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC) see[]WFPM (talk) 11:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC) Notice that in the lanl map they keep moving the position of the mass values left and right as they go along, and therefore there is no particular relationship between adjacent elements. My chart doesn't do that and all the same extra neutron values are at the same level in the chart and there is a relationship. The lanl map could be improved a lot if they would reorganize the data to show the correct relationships. Then you (and everybody) would be able to see the stability trend lines. WFPM (talk) 12:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC).WFPM (talk) 14:41, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If they do that, then the (unlabeled) ordinate of the chart becomes the "extra neutron" or A-2Z number (which is a factor in the "Emperical mass value calculation), and the indication is that it is a more important factor related to the occurrence of stability than is the N number. Which is consistent with the idea that the extra neutrons are added in a manner that can improve the stability of the atom apart from just increasing the mass value.WFPM (talk) 01:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Final comment on nuclear physics

 * I will have to point out (again?) that I am a physical chemist and not a nuclear physicist, so I am not really the best person to assess all your ideas on nuclear stability. My general impression is that your ideas are not well received on Wikipedia because they are "original research", whereas Wikipedia articles (on science) are supposed to be confined to summaries of standard science as found in textbooks or review articles - see WP:NOR. Perhaps such articles are less interesting than original research, but that is the nature of an encyclopedia. Good luck. Dirac66 (talk) 01:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Well thanks for the reply and for the information you have given me. And good luck in Physical chemistry. And as to my profession, it doesn't seem that Wikipedia is very much interested in the science, or should I say art of Engineering. But I did read some science books. And some Isaac Asimov.WFPM (talk) 02:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello! Don't see you here anymore but notice you in other talk areas. Have been thinking about your comment on the stability relationship balance between the neutron attractive and the accumulative proton supposedly accumulative repulsive force values and finally realized that when I was building the models I of course noted that 20Ca40 was the dominate stable calcium isotope, and so I came to t6he conclusion that the additional extra neutrons weren't needed for stability, and were getting on because they were the dominent available nucleon. And I guess I carried this concept on up to the 62Sm146 situation. But it still seems odd that EE62Sm146 doesn't have any stable EE62Sm146 isotopes when all the rest of the rare earths do have in a similar situation. Cheers, WFPMWFPM (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I also don't know enough nuclear physics to understand why Sm-146 isn't absolutely stable, but I did check the Sm isotopes and I note that it has a half-life of 1.03 x 108 years so it does hang around for a respectable time. There are many areas of science where simplified theories explain/predict much data but not all, so we conclude that they contain some aspects of the truth but are not exact. Perhaps that is the case with your nuclear models. Dirac66 (talk) 15:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Well thanks for your reply and we wont get into a discussion about what constitutes "truth". I would add with respect to my concept to note that as I continued up the scale of construction, I noted that the number of extra neutrons increased, but not consistently. For example, 28Ni is stable with only 2 extra neutrons and 30Zn with 4; and even 50Sn was stable at the low end with only 12 and 14 extra neutrons. And then even 54Xe, with a maximum extra neutron stability of 28 extra neutrons was stable at the low end with 16 and 18 extra neutrons. So I got the impression that the bottleneck in extra neutron permissibility was in both permissible locations, and in the general condition of stability of the nucleus. And then it went down after 54Xe I attributed that to the general stability factor, and which ended after 4 elements of the lanthinide series. So I'll go with Newton and continue to look the explanation that best explains the result, and without introducing additional suppositions which also have to be explained. And I'm still waiting to see how IUPAC and the Chemical society is going to explain their positional location of element No. 119 in terms of it's position in an electrochemical series, and whether it comes at the beginning or as the next to the last of the series, as per the Janet table indication.WFPMWFPM (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)PS: In Engineering parlance, we have an expression such as "There's no such thing as perfection in the sewer business!" and I'm beginning to think thank that there is probably an equally apt expression concerning the nuclear physics business.WFPM (talk) 19:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * With your inquiring mind concerning the halflives of the 62Sm isotopes, you might be interested to know that if you convert all the reported Sm halflife values to log-second (to the base 10) values, and then plot them on what I call a halflife profile chart; which is a coordinate chart with the abscissa being the increasing extra neutron values from right to left and from +8 to +36, and the ordinate being the log-second halflife values rangeing up  from zero to 18, you'll get what I call a profile view of the data with a much better perspective of the data. In this chart, the width of the range of stability of the eveneven (EE) isotopes is noted to be from +20 to +30 and that of the evenodd (EO) isotopes is only from +23 to +25 within that range. The unusual thing about the 62Sm profile is to note that the isotope EE62Sm146 is noted to be not stable due to the reported discovery of an incidence of alpha particle emission by the Sm146 isotope so it is concluded that none of it can be stable. Since none of the other rare earth isotopes have this instability incidence within the stability range occurrence, this makes the reported data look like an interesting irregularity, and one among several irregularities of data that I found by this method of analysis, And you don't have to be a nuclear physicist to do that, just have time and an inquiring mind.WFPMWFPM (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Book on Dirac
PS On Christmas, I got a book present from my grandson entitled "The strangest Man" about the life of Paul Dirac and of course was reminded of you. It's about Science and politics during his lifetime as seen from England by the author Graham Farmelo. As such it Complements the same cast of characters as does Richard Rhodes in his book on the making of the atomic bomb, but from a different viewpoint, and is thus very interesting. WFPMWFPM (talk) 14:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have read two reviews of this book and intend to find and read the book one day. One review is now posted as a link from the bibliography for the article on Paul Dirac. And note that I have answered your comment even though it is "not a question" as the real Dirac once said :-) Bonne et heureuse année (Happy new year). Dirac66 (talk) 15:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes but I don't think I would have appreciated the Dirac book if I hadn't read and pondered the substance of Rhodes' book about the bomb development. I hope you've looked at that. Anyway they're about the development of scientific concepts by sundry and usually untidy methods, which offers hope of achievement to more simple and less educated people like myself. And Dirac said it didn't hurt him to have an engineering background; so there!WFPM75.42.238.223 (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)PS, Sorry but my wife is the only french speaker in our family. I can think and talk about generalities in Spanish, but only have a vocabulary in oil technology and not in atoms or chemistry So felice 2010 Y buena suerte.WFPMWFPM (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC) Ahora aprendo un poco español tambien. Dirac66 (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Janet Periodic Table
Thank you for getting the image presented in the article on Charles Janet. I've already used it to defend my position in Talk:Extension of the periodic table beyond the seventh period. I guess it hasn't got to Australia yet. So Cheers! WFPM (talk) 18:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC) Gee! When I hit this link I get routed to Extended periodic table. Maybe you can do something about that.WFPM (talk) 18:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I had never really taken the trouble to understand the verbal description of the Janet table. But when I saw the image in the French article, I understood the point instantly so I decided it should be in the English article too. Un image vaut mille mots (One picture is worth a thousand words). At least in this case.


 * As for the rerouting, that is because someone today inserted a redirect to the shorter title. I think this was a good idea as titles which are too long are hard to type into the search box. The qualification "beyond the seventh period" is clear from the introductory paragraph. Dirac66 (talk) 19:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It sure does!! I also included a reference to it in my Talk:Nuclear model section. And I hope they will give me a break and consider that as kind of a reference. Have you noticed that the article Nuclear model is filling up with nominations, mostly without info. I asked Wwheaton about the Pauling model because he had mentioned it to me.WFPM (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a couple of books that I have in my library that I wondered that you had heard of. One is a 1907 translation of "The Translation of Matter" by Dr. Gustave Le Bon, and the other is a 1956 translation of "Exploring the structure of matter" by Jean-Jacques Trillat. Both are interesting and about matter. The "evolution" book says Pittsburg {Kan}Public Library. So you can see we have good taste around here.WFPM (talk) 21:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)70.244.238.120 (talk) 01:57, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Good catch on Robert Andrews Millikan
Thanks for fixing my failure to revert properly on Robert Andrews Millikan. Nice work! —EncMstr (talk) 06:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed that you had already reverted 69.151.etc several times and I thought you might have lost patience with doing that, so I decided to help out.  Dirac66 (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy
Hi: Thanks for your comment. I'm not exactly sure how to append to the article. Regards: Dave —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlneiman (talk • contribs) 17:12, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I have inserted it. Basically I opened the article with "edit this page" and pasted your text in with 2 minor changes: I put   around "work function" to provide a link to that article, and I put around the article reference so it appears as a footnote. Then I checked what I had done by clicking "Show preview" (important to prevent gaffes) and finally I saved with "Save page".


 * Do you have more complete bibliographic info - initials of principal author (Park), page numbers and title of article? (My on-line access to Appl Phys Letts is not working today and I'll have to call our library some time to find out why.) Dirac66 (talk) 19:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, found and inserted missing info. Dirac66 (talk) 03:19, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Ruby Lasers
In Discussing Speed of light subject matters I keep visualizing a Ruby laser beam as a model and I notice your interest in the Ruby laser. My argument is that the only thing in the beam is the carrier beam wave/matter, which is travelling at almost c velocity, and that nothing that we can do to "modulate" it can result in anything moving faster. Do you have any information that disagrees with this argument.WFPM (talk) 19:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * My interest in the Ruby laser was more concerned with the history and noting the contribution of W.Boyle. This has now been resolved.
 * I haven't thought too much about the problem of moving faster than light in a medium, but in seminars I have heard that one has to carefully distinguish phase velocity, group velocity, signal velocity, and maybe front velocity. Einstein showed that signal velocity cannot exceed c, but group velocity is a different matter. You might also check out Cerenkov radiation. Sorry I cannot be more detailed, but this is not really my field. Dirac66 (talk) 21:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I appreciate your answering, even if you threw me the same arguments they did and without answering my question, but if the ingredients of the contents of the materials behind a front get stirred up I don't see how any of them can get ahead of the front, which I guess is too logical. And I think that the Cerenkov radiation has to do with competitive path distances, but I'm glad for the link reference. I also threw in the "last atom speedup" problem in the speed of light discussion, which is separate from the above. I'm currently reading Feynman's QED and bogging down at his refraction explanation, so I'll start over some more times and see if I can get past that. But what could be simpler than the one dimensional path of a Ruby laser beam? Do you see any more dimensions than that?WFPM (talk) 04:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC) I remember checking the about penny size diameter beam versus a target at 400 feet through a sewer line, and that looks pretty much one dimensional to me. Per Pauling's General Chemistry you get Ruby by putting 24Cr Chromium into a Corundum (Al2O3) crystal (and Sapphire by using 22Ti Titanium). So the excited Chromium is the ruby laser light source. And its hard to see anything else in the beam than that, or that the beam velocity can vary.WFPM (talk) 01:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually on searching the "speed of light" discussion and article, I do not find the word "ruby". Why did you bring up ruby here - has anyone claimed that ruby lasers involve speeds faster than c?? In the faster than light article, the section on group velocities greater than c refers to "some mechanism [which] allows the full transmission of the leading part of a pulse while strongly attenuating the pulse maximum". I think this requires custom-grown crystals with complicated periodic structures; a simple ruby will NOT in fact suffice, so your argument is correct. Dirac66 (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes but they're talking about the details of modulating a presumably monochromatic (constant frequency) carrier wave. And I studied that in the navy. And their images describe the processes of modulating the carrier wave such that some of the features of the modulation wave show an advancing feature of the modulation envelope with relation to the velocity of the carrier wave, and then claim that that means that the so called "phase velocity" and or "group velocity" of the feature can resulting in something that is moving faster than c. But all modulation that I know about involve a manipulation of the amount of the carrier wave itself, and whose velocity is whatever it is, or else a kind of Fourier association of various waves such as to change the theoretical shape of the composite signal (which is the composite sum of a number of various frequency waves), but all of which are individually moving at an equal velocity, shouldn't result in anything actually advancing in the propagation path at an increased velocity. And I thought that if you want to discuss the modulation of a constant frequency light source as they are doing, you might as well deal with a simple one like the Ruby laser. Sorry to tax your mind with this but I don't think their argument is valid. And I respect your opinion. I'm pretty sure that you understand that I don't actually believe in medium waves but rather in propagated particle densities, but I have to deal with the logic of this discussion with the terminology that they are using. So thanks for the interest and the discussion.WFPM (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Radiometric dating
Thanks - can't believe we all missed that error on the page4 for so long... Babakathy (talk) 04:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Oxidation state
Sorry about that! I try to be extra careful when editing articles outside my (limited) areas of expertise, but it looks like that one slipped through. Thanks for catching it. 28bytes (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Trifluorooxonium
Hi there. What about this one. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At least this one has more information than a name and serial number in a database. But I agree with your idea of moving nonexistent molecules to appropriate redirects, except perhaps for special molecules which many people are trying to make. (Like taxol for a few years before it was synthesized in 1993.) For this one the information needs a source, but I think I have found it with Google although my library does not have access to it. I'll put the URL on the molecule's talk page for you. Dirac66 (talk) 15:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoops. A natural product was not a good choice for an exception - taxol was isolated from a natural source long before it was synthesized. So I'll forget taxol, and just say that in general a nonexistent molecule should not have its own Wiki article, but can have a redirect to an appropriate related molecule. And this is true even if the molecule "exists" in silico, until someone actually observes it. Dirac66 (talk) 18:12, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

More on Janet Table
Do you think it's possible that the Janet Periodic table is telling the world at large that the result of the Tri-alpha accumulation process only results in the creation of a composite nucleus of 2 Alpha particles plus 2 side bonding deuterons, and then the 3rd alpha particle is created by the 11Na22 and 12Mg24 accumulation processes and so on for the last 2 element additions in each row? I'd appreciate your interest and comment.WFPM (talk) 03:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This seems dubious to me. The Janet table is intended to describe chemical properties and atomic spectra, both of which depend on electron configurations and ultimately electronic quantum numbers. The alpha process on the other hand is basically nuclear fusion and its pathway depends on nuclear stability, nuclear magic numbers, etc. Electron and nucleon configurations do differ in detail, since for example the magic numbers for electrons and nucleons are not equivalent. Dirac66 (talk) 03:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes but I have a problem same as Pauling in that I can't make up a nucleus of 6C12 Carbon that it looks like it was made up of 3 alpha particles. I can use 2 planar alpha particles OK. But a 3rd planar alpha just doesn't look reasonable. So maybe the 3rd alpha particle of Hans Bethe's proposed triple-Alpha accumulated composite could get "revised" such as to be assimilated as 2 bonding deuterons between the first 2 alpha particles. Then when we get to 10Ne20 we have the 2 alpha particles bonded by 6 alpha particles, and ready to accumulate either extra neutrons or an additional alpha particle. And since that's what the Janet table sort of hints at, I thought you might be interested. And don't worry about magic numbers, just about the structure. Regards.WFPM (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If your model predicts that 6C12 is unstable, then I would have to say that your model seems to be invalid. Someone (Freeman Dyson?) once said "It is well known that it takes carbon to make physicists." Dirac66 (talk) 16:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If you'll look at the graphic art picture of the state of the art? image of a 6C12 nucleus in the May 1985 National Geographic article (which the author's expressed opinion of the consensus at that time) you'll see that evidently nobody has a concept of what a stable nucleus of 6C12 really looks like. They just know that it is stable and Bethe explained how it was theoretically created by the "triple-alpha" accumulation process. Of course, Wikipedia doesn't have an image of the 6C12 nucleus that would show it to be stable, it's just got the right number of protons plus neutrons. So the question is "do we consider the Janet table hint that the 3rd alpha particle is accumulated into the nucleus at 12Mg24, and what do we have against the idea? Of course, my models keep me from being objective in the matter, but even Pauling was working with models.WFPM (talk) 17:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC) PS: Wwheaton said he once attended a lecture by Dr. Pauling about his "Spheron" models.WFPM (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The real question here is - why are classical (non-quantum) nuclear models so much less successful at predicting reality than classical molecular models? (Certainly Pauling for example accomplished far more with molecular models than with nuclear models.) The fundamental problem is quantum uncertainty in position, which varies inversely with particle mass.
 * Consider in turn nuclei, atoms and molecules. For nuclei the system size (10-14 m) is basically defined by this uncertainty and each nucleon is delocalized over the whole nucleus, so geometrical models (such as yours) are not very realistic. For atoms the system size is 10-10 m due to the position uncertainty of the much lighter electrons, which again occupy the whole volume so that Lewis-type cubical atom models were unrealistic. The atomic nucleus however is heavier and localized in a much smaller volume, as Rutherford showed.
 * For molecules the electrons are spread over the whole volume, but each nucleus is heavy and relatively localized, so that ball-and-stick models of the nuclei (only) are realistic.
 * As for Bethe's triple-alpha process, this describes the process of nucleosynthesis of 6C12, but the three alphas lose their identity once the nucleus is made. Dirac66 (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

But Pauling evidently believed a priori in a spherically configured atom, which I didn't do, because my magnetized cylindrical models in small number configurations doesn't like spherical configurations due to magnetic compatibility problems. With the "buckeyball" small spherical magnets you can mold a spherical group okay, but not one that you can rationalize or even understand. So let's just stick to small number atoms, like the 2He4 atom, which I am trying to claim has a planar configuration because the models like that, and okay so the double planar 4Be8 also looks stable on a magnetic basis, so we must have a spin compatibility problem, which can be correctable by an additional neutron or deuteron, and of course they're not spherical concepts, so what? And so why cant the triple-alpha accumulation composite then be the 2 alpha particles side bonded by 2 deuteron configuration nuclei? which would be consistent with what I see as indicated in the Janet table. I'm not a chemist, And Pauling snows me under in chemistry detail and I have his "General Chemistry" book for reference and note that on page 45 he says that certain things are still not understandable. So we do what we can. And can use all the help we can get. Regards.WFPM (talk) 23:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC) And so given what you just said, what would you say is the configuration of the 6 proton plus 6 neutron configuration of the EE6C12 nucleus? Given that the protons are supposed to "repel" each other, you would think that some organization of "pairing" or other means of maintaining a degree of separation between the protons would be in order, rather than the indiscriminate locations shown in the wikipedia's graphic images. not So?WFPM (talk) 00:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, your model predicts 4Be8 is stable! Sorry, but this is another flaw as the real 4Be8 has a half-life of 6.7x10-17s. (see Isotopes of beryllium) As for the configuration of 6C12, the nuclear shell model has the 6 protons as 1s21p3/24 and the 6 neutrons also as 1s21p3/24. This notation is based on quantum mechanics with spin-orbit coupling; I have no idea how to describe 6C12 in your model. Dirac66 (talk) 00:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That's why I have trouble with communicating with you and Sbharris because you can see in more directions than I can. I can only see in 3 orthogonal space directions and I assume that the configuration of the nucleus of EE6C12 will fit into that field of view. And I don't think that any 2 nucleons are in the identical same place in agreement with Maxwell so they must then be very close together, so a planar configuration looks about right for the (first 2) alpha particles. And then the 3rd alpha particle could serve to bond the first 2 together in accordance with the Janet table indication. And 4 more deuteron bonds would take us to EE10Ne20, where we would be in a position to add an additional (third) alpha particle or some extra neutrons. And it's just structural analysis, and not shell filling or magic numbers. But my magnetic cylindrical magnets don't repel each other (end to end) like you would like to believe, but only side by side parallel, so I can't help with the proton repulsion theory. And there is a 3 dimensional checkerboard configuration that doesn't allow contact between protons, but it doesn't allow the 4 unit increase and the half-unit offset in the wrap-around level required with the magnetized cylindrical unit construction. And if you cant draw it with a 3 dimensional image, I don't see how you can understand it. Wish you would check the May 1985 National Geographic image and let me know what you think of that. So Cheers!WFPM (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC) And so my cylindrical magnet models indicate the structure of EE4Be8 to be stable. But they're not spinning and I can blame it on that dynamic, so you can see how I can weasel my way around in these situations.WFPM (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)Incidentally, you cant really say that the accumulated alpha particles lose their identity if you add them to the second composite atom at their alpha particle mass value, because that value involves a loss in mass due to the alpha particle configuration, which you would have to add if they were to change to some less efficient accumulation configuration. Not so?WFPM (talk) 23:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)