Sandbh

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Regarding solving the issue between ourselves[edit]

User:Sandbh, I have been trying to de-escalate the issue at WT:ELEM#Deciding between ourselves. I ask that you read that first before you continue at the ArbCom case, that both of us did not want.

A summary:

I am no longer seeking to RFC the group 3 issue right now. You have given information that something from Scerri is coming, I think it makes sense to wait for that. By the time that comes out, we will know something about the IUPAC project's deliberation and things will almost certainly be less controversial, even though probably we will wait till the actual report if not later (its acceptance) to do something if it makes sense.
I am no longer seeking to remove categories. User:Jehochman has given some statements there that have made me consider that categories can after all be consistent with policy, so I no longer have an objection to them.
Proposed compromise that is basically: split the nonmetals 3-way as you prefer, with "other nonmetals" as temporary placeholder category to stop any arguing while we are in the spotlight and work together.

I think the first two points mean that almost the whole issue has vanished. I am not seeking a change from what you prefer on the two main issues! I do this because I feel that keeping things civil in the project through compromise is more important than my own personal preferences and that working on the rest of the article is more important than these issues. And also because of what EdChem has told us about ArbCom and it not being a good option for our project at this time. Keeping us together is more important to me than "winning" some dispute or another. So far R8R, DePiep, and YBG have responded favourably; if you are OK with this first, the thing is resolved. I hope you will be OK with it because it is in both cases basically your preference! I do not want to see any of the bad outcomes EdChem has mentioned on his talk page, as may be an outcome if it proceeds to ArbCom, and that is why I am prioritising ending the dispute over everything else first even if it is not ending it in a way that I would have preferred initially. That's not as important.

And on the nonmetals breaking up you propose, you have my support for the break. I simply propose "other nonmetals" for now as a temporary thing that everyone agrees is at least technically correct and can probably live with to solve the issue while it is in the spotlight. That is just because I think you will have more luck doing a change to such a boring but accurate name first before seeking to change that to something more descriptive later. Or if you prefer we can simply agree to stick to the status quo first since the two big issues we clashed on are solved. Your choice, I will go with it over ArbCom proceedings. Double sharp (talk) 00:10, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: It's all good. More to follow. Sandbh (talk) 00:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. User:EdChem suggested that we provide a joint statement on his talk page: do you think it'd be good for the two of us to issue a joint statement saying that the two of us have decide jointly to end all disputes between ourselves in this way? Double sharp (talk) 00:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Yes, that's the go. Sandbh (talk) 00:35, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, would you prefer to draft it yourself or have me try? I was thinking of something along the lines of replacing our current posts as "The two of us have discussed between ourselves at User talk:Sandbh and WT:ELEM and agreed to end the dispute by accepting the current status quo for (1) the group 3 issue until further information is received from the relevant IUPAC project, and (2) the existence of a category colouring. On the issue of (3) splitting the nonmetals, Double sharp has agreed to support Sandbh's proposal for splitting, and to postpone discussion on the name of the new category until later. We have decided to end all hostilities and draw a line behind past accusations of the other not following policy in other ways and cooperate instead." You can edit it the way you prefer, it is a statement of cessation of hostilities and reconciliation after all. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 00:39, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Yes, give it a try. I'd prefer to remove all references to content and keep it as simple as possible. How do you see that? I'll look closer at the words now. Sandbh (talk) 00:42, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anything you prefer on it is OK. ^_^ How about "The two of us have discussed between ourselves at User talk:Sandbh and WT:ELEM and agreed to end the dispute, to withdraw all hard feelings about each other from all previous cases, and to return to our pre-2020 collaborative relationship as WP editors." Is that simpler for you? Double sharp (talk) 00:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: I was going to say:

Joint statement by Double sharp and Sandbh. The two of us have discussed the ARBCOM filing at User talk:Sandbh and WT:ELEM. We've agreed to withdraw, and move past, previous allegations, and to continue to work together. We recognise we agree on some things, and disagree in other areas on philosophical grounds. We intend to not bludgeon one another (so to speak) on philosophical grounds but to engage in civil discourse. We've mostly done that anyway for the past nine years, and recognise that our philosophical differences should not escalate to the point of detracting from the WP:ELEM experience; requiring ANI involvement; or a referral to ARBCOM.

Could you incorporate some of that into your proposed form of words? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandbh (talk • contribs)

I'm fine with taking it as-is, actually. But if I may suggest one thing: could we add four words "engage in civil discourse as becoming of Wikipedians"? Double sharp (talk) 01:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought. I wonder if a joint apology to the community for wasting time at ANI would be appropriate? YBG (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@YBG: Certainly. Perhaps add a sentence saying "We further apologise to the community for wasting their time with multiple ANI threads and pledge not to do any such thing again"? Double sharp (talk) 01:09, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp and YBG: Here it is then:

Joint statement by Double sharp and Sandbh

The two of us have discussed the ArbCom filing, at User talk:Sandbh and WT:ELEM, with input from User:YBG, and cognisant of observations by User:EdChem.

We've agreed to withdraw, and move past, previous allegations, and to continue to work together.

We recognise we agree on some things, and disagree in other areas on philosophical grounds. We intend to not bludgeon one another (so to speak) on philosophical grounds but to engage in civil discourse, as becoming of Wikipedians. We've mostly done that anyway for the past nine years, and recognise that our philosophical differences should not escalate to the point of detracting from the WP:ELEM experience, requiring ANI involvement, or a referral to Arbcom.

We apologise since maybe after the first few rounds we should've figured that out rather than sending each other to ANI.

We thank X for bringing the matter to ArbCom.

Is that OK? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandbh (talk • contribs)

Looks mostly fine to me. Should we perhaps mention that we have decided to resolve the dispute by a compromise that both parties find acceptable, or is it too soon to say that yet before you've confirmed what you'd find to be one? YBG? And do you or YBG think we should mention that neither of us wanted to file the ArbCom in the first place? (I think you said it on my talk page; I'm not sure if I said it or if I was considering the situation offline first, but definitely when I got the talkpage message from CaptainEek I had no intention to do so and was surprised to find it started.) Double sharp (talk) 01:36, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Need to sleep now, will look at the situation tomorrow. Double sharp (talk) 01:39, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with or without the apology. I only wanted you two to consider including it. If you considered it and chose not to include it, I would be fine with that too. I only caution you to make sure that you don't say something that might be interpreted as a promise to never ever initiate anything at ANI. I don't think your statement means that, but I'm not sure what someone else might think.

Here's a thought: "We recognize that X was justified in brining this to ArbCom because we had wasted so much commuity time by our multiple ANI threads, for which we apologize." And, if the ArbCom filing helped you to rethink things, it might be nice to say so and to thank X. YBG (talk) 01:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG Hey, that's not a bad idea. Double sharp (talk) 11:26, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp and YBG: I've changed the last line (in our JS, above) to a simple thank you. Upon reflection, I doubt we have anything to apologise for. Each of us thought we were pursuing the matter in line with the way we understood "how things work around here" i.e. via ANI. Upon reflection, it seems to me that the real issue is, as I've alluded to, is a lack of guidance for aggrieved parties as to the unwritten rules re how things work, or don't work, at WP:ANI. I've also said I don't believe ANI is well set up to handle matters such as these, which span conduct-content-policy. Now, it may be that the community view is that ANI should not deal with such matters. If so, that's fine but there does not appear to be any guidance to that effect. Anyway these are things that can be worked on later. In the meantime, how does the draft of our joint statement look now? Sandbh (talk) 23:14, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp Did you get my ping? Sandbh (talk) 05:12, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently I didn't see it with all the pings flying around, but I agree with what you currently have written and said. Though I wonder if it might be better to apologise in good faith anyway, since maybe after the first few rounds we should've figured that out and not kept sending each other there. Double sharp (talk) 11:46, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp Righto. Looks OK now? Sandbh (talk) 22:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. Incidentally X = CaptainEek, for when we post it. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 22:46, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp I'll now post the JS to my comments section. Sandbh (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Double sharp (talk) 22:56, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trifurcating the nonmetals[edit]

I have raised the subject at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elements#Nonmetal_categories (similar to what is proposed at your RFC), since we both seem to be in favour of some kind of 3-way division of nonmetals into H-C-N-O-P-S-Se, F-Cl-Br-I "halogen nonmetals", and He-Ne-Ar-Kr-Xe-Rn "noble gases". Reading the responses, I seem to understand two things:

In general, there is some feeling that we should not spend too much time on this, and should just decide on something quickly and get to working on the article. That seems to suggest that we should be able to just implement the result, as we did for the 2013 polyatomic/diatomic split, or for the 2012 recolouring of polonium, of any short discussion. I.e., similar to whatever we do when we discuss changing the article. Rather than prolonging the issue with an RFC. I understand your feeling that our project should not decide for the whole of WP, but (1) we did that before, and (2) that is essentially what happens for pretty much every article: usually, it is a small bunch or even just one editor writing something in the first place. Haven't we already spent enough of the community's time with this?
YBG has no objections to either changing or not changing. Looks like R8R would prefer not to (because of "halogen nonmetals" mostly), but he also says We could do it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world, and doesn't mind "other nonmetals".

So, in order to make you not have to read the whole thing if you don't want to: what do you think of doing the 3-way split I understand you favour immediately (H-C-N-O-P-S-Se + F-Cl-Br-I "halogen nonmetals")? The temporary concession would be that the first category gets called "other nonmetals", with absolutely no prejudice to a future RFC or any other process to change later from "other nonmetals" to some more distinctive name.

I just suggest it because I get the feeling that if we try to push further now, we'll not get support, we'll rather get people tired of talking about things, we'll get people annoyed that the process is taking too much time, what little support we do get gets divided out of existence by too many possibilities, and we won't get even half of what we wanted. But if we stop at "other nonmetals" temporarily and just think of it as another thing to WP:BRD about just like new periodic table pictures, then we may get something relatively painlessly, and you may be able to push it the rest of the way later. So I suggest this to you out of pragmatism and a desire to resolve the conflict very quickly with some of what the whole thing was meant to achieve done, rather than force it to run for another month and possibly with nothing to show for all the words that were exchanged. I don't want a good idea to get stuck this way, to borrow your words. Just to consider, there's no obligation to say yes or no or anything. Double sharp (talk) 17:26, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Thanks. I don't mind what the will of the community would be wrt the RFC. I feel it would be worthwhile testing it. Sandbh (talk) 04:27, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a possible future RFC[edit]

If my second proposed compromise doesn't work, then I'll agree with you to proceed to an RFC. So I'd like to ask in preparation for that eventuality: would you be OK with me offering my own PT colouring proposal as an additional option?

I would like for clarity something along the lines of a bunch of coloured-in PT's with proposal numbers so that everyone is 100% clear what they're voting for. But looking at the sources (Britannica, LANL, RSC, and ACS) makes me want to revisit group 12 in an RFC, and that's far away from your proposed region.

So I think the clearest way to go for coordination would be something along the lines of:

Question: Please choose among the following proposals for categorisation in the main Periodic table on Wikipedia, for general use as a default when the context does not clearly demand a more relevant different categorisation.

Proposal 0 [status quo]: [illustration]
Proposal 1: [illustration]
Proposal 2: [illustration]
hopefully not too many to not bore everyone to death

We should presumably spend some time drafting it so that all the illustrations are in the same format. That way, we know people are commenting on the precise categories, not about any other differences.

Are you OK with this proposed procedure, or would you rather do it another way? Double sharp (talk) 23:27, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I would also like to seek EdChem's comments on whether this is an appropriate RFC question. Double sharp (talk) 23:27, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: I'd like to make any proposal to revisit group 12 the subject of a separate RFC. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 04:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not a problem with me at all, as long as we get to discuss it in some appropriate way. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 09:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added it to the RFC roster at WT:ELEM#Current; please let me know if that is OK with you or not. Double sharp (talk) 10:02, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Great! Sandbh (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. I'll start drafting it, then. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 10:58, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'd like to request a hold on having your nonmetal RFC go live until I hear comments from both of you about the astatine thing, if you don't mind. (Because if my At proposal doesn't gain immediate consensus to go live, then I would like to add it somehow to your nonmetal RFC as an extra option if you're agreeable.) Double sharp (talk) 22:06, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: I'll post my comments re At etc today, and look again at the nonmetal RFC. More later. Sandbh (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RFC's: procedure[edit]

I've read your response today. Thank you, it is thought-provoking. Now I'm waiting on R8R's response, but I wanted to talk to you first about procedure.

It seems that as they evolve our proposals are diverging rather than converging. That's not so good for an intra-project consensus, but it definitely is a reasonable reflexion of a contest of ideas. I agree with you that an RFC will be the best way to go.

However, I worry that me offering my current view as an option on your RFC will needlessly confuse the issue as it is diverging too far away. Yours is basically taking a split into halogen nonmetals and something else as the default trifurcation view, whereas mine is not necessarily about that alone. My view for a colouring now would not only revisit group 12 (which we've agreed to put in a different RFC), but also astatine (as previously stated), and quite possibly (assuming I don't change my mind shortly) also polonium. (As for why, this is because LANL and ACS call polonium a metalloid. Scientifically seems to me that it is almost at antimony territory in some ways in terms of losing metallic character while still having it just barely win out, to be honest. You can partly thank User:Jehochman for this one since he suggested LANL, BTW.) It seems to me that it would be unfair to you to have all these issues conflated with your RFC which is about one thing only; yet each of our current views excludes the other. It also seems to me (although that is secondary) that it would also be unfair to my current proposal to do that, because that would force each of its three parts (group 12, polonium, astatine) to be discussed separately.

Therefore, I would like to ask: would you be OK with me starting my RFC as a simple support/oppose for the colouring below first, perhaps within a day or two (to give R8R some time to respond to At as a halogen)?

(Yes, it is exactly the pre-2012 colour scheme prior to all our ELEM discussions, with the exception of Cn for which uncolouring is justified by the theoretical study pointing out that the experimental results' interpretation may have been mistaken. Uncolouring Cn is probably the one thing on the talk page that is totally agreed at this point, TBH! ^_^)

My logic is that it doesn't make sense for mine to be conflated with yours – it is too different – but someone's has got to go first, and since mine is a general, one-option one it may be easier if it goes first. I do not ask for your support obviously for the option; I don't expect it in the first place. But I just want to see if you would be OK with me starting an RFC in a day or two at Talk:Periodic table to see how it goes. Double sharp (talk) 00:37, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Will look at shortly. Sandbh (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I've changed my proposal to the even earlier pre-2010 colour scheme to be absolutely neutral, because that is before any of us ever touched the template, whether you, me, or R8R. And also to match ACS/LANL better. Sorry if this causes confusion. (The one and only difference is that tennessine is now coloured in, because this scheme is so old that Ts had not even been discovered yet.)

Right, now I'll go to sleep and hopefully wake up to hear your thoughts. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 01:56, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

wow[edit]

I'm not involved in chemistry or the periodic table or anything similar, tho some relatives of mine including this guy for one, have been. For no good reason i browsed at arbitration request today, including following my way to some long discussions. For what it's worth, i admire numerous comments you made in numbered lists, and your integrity and careful attention paid. It's a shame how "sucky" (technical term) is wp:ANI, and a shame that you've had to spend so much good effort on trying to work stuff out. I hope it does work out well enough for you and other collaborators to keep on developing good content on important topics for the free encyclopedia. And I really enjoyed your quote from Richard Feynman about several men having a discussion, where it seemed particle-guy's point was being lost, but lo and behold the closer of discussion and everyone else had really fully grokked it. Seemed hopeful and relevant to me! Browsing into different areas in Wikipedia is often really absorbing, and I am glad you are contributing. It's unlikely I'll find my way here or to all that stuff again, so just want to say now: you have a fan. cheers, --Doncram (talk) 23:20, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Doncram, reading your note was a pleasant and completely unexpected surprise. The best I can do for family, is that, according to my mother, one of my distant relatives worked with Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who discovered superconductivity. And my grandmother was an apothecary (in the Netherlands).

I appreciate your observation about the numbered notes, my integrity, and attention to detail. The Richard Feynman quote was by anther editor.

I have a few irons in the fire, and am looking forward to continuing to attempt to make WP a better encyclopedia.

I'll see if can drop by your talk page sometime.

Best regards, Sandbh (talk) 03:27, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Doncram: I was wondering if you felt in a position to support the FAC nomination of nonmetal? Obviously no obligation. It doesn't matter if you've had no involvement in chemistry or the PT. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 00:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shared properties of the NNNHNM[edit]

At User:Sandbh/Nonmetal rfc § Shared properties of H, C, N, O, P, S, Se your first bullet states:

They appear sub-metallic (C, P, Se), coloured (S) or colourless (H, N, O), and are brittle if solid. Black P, the most stable form in ambient conditions, is these days easily prepared.

Let me divide this statement into three parts and comment upon each

They appear sub-metallic (C, P, Se), coloured (S) or colourless (H, N, O),
This is of the form "They appear [either] (P1) or (P2) or (P3)", which at face value does not qualify as a shared property, but rather three separate properties each of which is shared by a particular subset of these seven elements. Furthermore, any random set of elements will satisfy this property because every element is either colorless or colored.
and are brittle if solid.
I'm not sure what you mean here
- You may mean that those element in this group which are solid under normal conditions are also brittle. If this is your meaning, then this is a shared property only of those element which are normally solid.
- You may mean that all elements in this group, if cooled until they are solid, are brittle. But this is hardly surprising. I suspect that if cooled to the temperature at which H or N or O solidifies, many if not all elements will be brittle. So while this might be a shared characteristic of these elements, it doesn't seem to be something that distinguishes them from other elements.
Black P, the most stable form in ambient conditions, is these days easily prepared.
How is a statement about one particular element germaine to a discussion about the shared properties of seven different elements? Perhaps you are mentioning explaining that you are speaking of one particular allotrope of P, but that is by no means clear from the sentence in its context.

In summary, I would have to say that this bullet point, if you wish to include it in your list of shared properties of these seven elements, should probably be listed dead last. IMO it is the weakest of your points. YBG (talk) 23:40, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, thanks, I listed this property first as it's the first thing one notices about the subject nonmetals.

1. The statement that they appear sub-metallic, coloured, or colourless, cannot be applied to any other colour category.

To the left are the metalloids, which all have a sub-metallic appearance. To the right are the halogens and noble gases, which appear coloured (F,Cl,Br), sub-metallic (I) or colourless (noble gases). Note that only iodine has a sub-metallic appearance.

So we can see:               Sub metallic   Coloured   Colourless Metalloids        6             0          0 SeSPONCH          3             1          3 Halogen NM &      1             3          6

In appearance terms, the subject metals are intermediate between the metalloids and the rest of the nonmetals, which is what could be expected given the L-R progression of metallic to nonmetallic character across the PT. There is also increasing metallic character going down each group, which explains the top left to bottom right diagonal occurence of the metalloids.

Most elements have a metallic or sub-metallic appearance. A few have a coloured appearance, including e.g. Cu; nine, nonmetals all, are colourless.

2. Yes, that is a good call. I meant to refer to C, P, S, and Se. This is the case for few metals (generally due to the influence of some directional bonding); all metalloids (all having db); four of the subject nonmetals (db); and but one of the halogens (some db). I’ll look at amending the RFC to be more specific on this point.

3. White P, the most unstable form of P, is soft enough to be cut with a knife. Since the properties of all other elements are based on their most stable forms and since black is the most stable from of P, I hope that explains its relevance.

4 Yes, if this shared property was as weak as it looked, then it would've been good practice to place it last.

--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandbh (talk • contribs) 2020-11-22 03:12:33 (UTC)

@Sandbh: I still find it extremely odd to tout diversity as a shared property. Diversity may be a property of a group, but to call it a shared property seems weird. It sounds a bit like "What the people in San Seriffe have in common is that they are all either red-headed or right-handed or left-handed". YBG (talk) 04:27, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, I don't find this diversity to be odd, given the seven nonmetals occupy the region between the mystery metalloids (two semimetals; four semiconductors) and the psycho halogen nonmetals (three insulators, one semiconductor).

The whole p-block is characterised by its diversity: metals, metalloids, nonmetals, and intermediate types. The PTM can be discerned; as can the metalloids; the halogen nonmetals; and the NG. By default, that leaves the residual p-block nonmetals.

The transition metals, to some extent, are comparable in their diversity. There are the active TM in, say, groups 3 and 4; the mainstream TM from, say V to Cu; the schism between the light transition metals and the heavy TM's in periods 5 and 6; the noble TM; Au acting in some respects like a halogen; and Hg a liquid. In some respects, the TM are like a microcosm of the whole periodic table, as noted by Wiberg, which speaks to their diversity. At least they are, so far, all metals.

Going back to the residual p-block metals, there is a semimetal (C); two semiconductors (P, Se); one wide band-gap semiconductor (S); and three insulators (H, N, O). S and Se are also photoconductors. You won't find that kind of diversity in any other category.

It's reasonable to observe the diversity of these seven; at the same time they're united by their numerous shared attributes.

For most of its life the WP PT has had three nonmetal categories. Nothing, it seems to me, merits continuing the two category arrangement, which we only introduced because we couldn't come up with a category name other than other nonmetals. It turns out there are plenty of alternatives in the literature. Of course, the future is a bit out the hands of our project now. Sandbh (talk) 05:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How does this seem now? Sandbh (talk) 05:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that it is not particularly odd to have diversity. I would go further and say that it is not odd to mention or even highlight that diversity. But what I find odd is to call that diversity a shared property', and even more so to list that as the first item on a list of shared properties.

I think this is one of those instances where an absurd example might shed some light.

Consider the set of elements Be, Si, Cr, Se, Ru, Xe, Gd, Rf, Fl. They include an AEM, a metalloid, a NG, a NNNHNM, three TMs, an La and an Ac. A very diverse set indeed. If you asked me what are the shared characteristics of this set of elements, would you say it is their diversity? If someone said that what unites these elements is their shared characteristics that they are all either a metal or non-metal (unless they are a metalloid or have unknown chemical properties)? That would be a very odd answer indeed.

And that is my point. Diversity may indeed be a characteristic of a set, but I think it cannot be a shared characteristic. A shared characteristic is something that is true of each and every one individually, and a single item by definition cannot be diverse (unless, I suppose, if you consider its allotropes).

By the way, the set above is not random. There is, in fact, a single defining characteristic that these elements share that no other elements have.

YBG (talk) 07:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, for that set of elements I probably wouldn't say diversity is a shared attribute since they're scattered across the periodic table. Saying so in that context would be meaningless.

OTOH, for the residual nonmetals, they are contiguous in periodic table terms and yet appear to be individually quite diverse. For hydrogen, there are plenty of authors who float it over the middle of the PT, and arguments have been made for placing it near or over B, C or F.

I mentioned the diverse appearance of the residual metals, and their variegated electronic structures.

The diversity extends to their electrical conductivity, with carbon's exceeding that of some metals, through to those of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, which are among the lowest.

Note how sharply properties change in this part of the periodic table, e.g. from N, a colourless relatively unreactive gas, to P a metallic looking solid (or the well known white or red reactive solids). Or contrast S, a yellow solid, with O, a colourless, gas. This does not happen in other parts of the table.

Consider the diversity of the allotropes of carbon (e.g., graphite, diamond, amorphous, fullerene, lonsdaleite); nitrogen (as the pentazonium cation, and predicted to be stable as N₆ and N₁₀); oxygen (as ozone), phosphorus (white, red, violet, black, blue), sulfur (too many to list); selenium (metallic, red, amorphous). Even the triatomic form of H makes up most of the universe. This kind of diversity in structural options is not seen in any other category (the metalloids get closest).

Perhaps I should say the residual nonmetals are characterised by their diversity and numerous shared properties?

Anyhow, I may have fixed this by changing "Shared properties", to "Unique and shared properties". --- Sandbh (talk) 12:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A separate point - actually a question. Is there any nonmetal that is neither colored nor colorless? Any element at all?

YBG (talk) 07:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, under white light, iodine has a sub-metallic appearance. Carbon, phosphorus, and selenium similarly have a metallic appearance. I don’t count metallic or sub-metallic as being “coloured” or “colourless”. Sandbh (talk) 08:31, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I get it. Under this convention, "colored or colorless" is not the equivalent "~p ∨ p" because things having a metallic or sub-metallic appearance are counted as being neither colored nor colorless. Are there other appearances (besides metallic and sub-metallic) reckoned as being not-colored and not-colorless?

Being unaware of your convention, I was taking a simple-minded approach based on the WP infoboxes, which state: C is black or clear; P is colourless, waxy white, yellow, scarlet, red, violet, or black; Se is black, red, or gray; and I is metallic gray, or (per the lede) purple-black.

YBG (talk) 09:08, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, the purple-black of I refers to its vapour. There is only metallic (e.g. Ag), metallic and coloured (e.g. Au), coloured e.g. (S), and colourless (He). Sub-metallic denotes the element is not as reflective as a metal. Sandbh (talk) 12:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, for the unique properties of H and the group 14–16 nonmetals I compiled the following list. Probably elements in other categories are as unique i.e. the TM, PTM, and metalloids.

H is unique in being the only element having no inner sub-shell.

C is unique in its capacity to catenate. The number of its compounds is so vast and their properties so peculiar that a separate branch of chemistry (organic chemistry) has been developed for their study. Compounds of no other element serve humankind in so many different ways as those of C.

N is unique in (a) the number of binary oxides it forms; and (b) having an electron affinity of approximately zero.

O is unique in that, of the naturally occurring substances necessary to sustain human life, it is taken up and used by organisms in its elemental form, i.e., as an O₂ molecule. It is unique as the only elemental gas that is paramagnetic.

P is unique amongst the major biogenic elements in that its elemental cycle excludes a significant volatile phase (although the gas phosphine, PH₃, has been recognized as a potential player in the P cycle). P is further unique in that it was first isolated from an animal rather than mineral source.

S is unique in its ability to form a wide range of allotropes, more than any other element in the periodic table.

Se is unique because it is folded into its protein while the protein molecule is still being made. All other trace elements are added to their respective protein molecules after the cell has finished synthesizing the protein. Sandbh (talk) 11:40, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re inner subshells: what about He though? Or is it about how they are unique in the category alone? Double sharp (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A list of unique properties is interesting, but doesn't help establish the shared properties of the NNNHNM. YBG (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp, for He, I understand its two electrons shield each another, to some degree. That is not the case for H. Sandbh (talk) 05:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

regarding high school students being taught about semiconductors[edit]

In fact, it does not seem to be on UK high school syllabi if Chemguide is anything to go by.

P.S. Sb does not seem to have a stable semiconducting form. Double sharp (talk) 14:58, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp, thanks for that.

Teaching semiconductors in high school

Some examples:

Fundamentals of senior chemistry, Heinemann Educational Australia, 1982: "Why study chemistry at high school(?)…Si and Ge have lustre and are semiconductors but their chemical properties are more typical of nonmetals."

High school chemistry unlocked, Random House Children's Books, 2016: "Many metalloids are used as the basis for semiconductors…".

Chemistry for high school, Rex Book Store, Manila, 1999: "The conductivity of semiconductors generally increaşes as the temperature is raised , which is opposite to the behavior of metals . Impurity doped germanium and silicon act as semiconductors."

Must know high school chemistry, McGraw Hill Professional, 2019: "The elements in this area (B, Si, Ge, As, Sb, Te, At) are the metalloids. Some have unusual electrical properties that make them valuable in the computer and semiconductor industry."

Semiconductor facts for kids, Kids Encyclopedia Facts, 2020: "A semiconductor is a material that in some cases will conduct electricity but not in others…Semiconductors are the foundation of modern electronics…Kiddle educational articles are based on selected content and facts from Wikipedia, rewritten for children and primary / elementary school students."

Semiconducting Sb

Black antimony is stable enough to be used in bolometers (1956): doi:10.1088/0950-7671/33/9/303.
Our own entry on black Sb says, "At 100 °C, it gradually transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable."
The Nature Chemistry article on antimony says, "A metalloid, rather than a true metal, antimony exists in four allotropes: the most stable is metallic and grey; with a non-metallic yellow, a black and an explosive white form also known."
Their article on polonium quotes the Curie's from 1898: "We believe that the substance we recovered from pitchblende contains a heretofore unknown metal, similar to bismuth in its analytical properties. If the existence of this new metal is confirmed, we propose that it be named polonium in honour of the native land of one of us.”
How cool were the Curies? They picked it over 120 years ago!
The Feb 2013 Nature Chemistry article on astatine, pre- the Sep 2013 announcement by Hermann et al., has the usual textbook error: "Even its colour is unknown; based on increasingly dark colours for halogens from fluorine to iodine, however, black seems a logical guess."

Preliminary observations

High school students are taught about semiconductors.
"Describing the intermediate elements as metalloids is clearly in fashion today." (Goldsmith, 1982)
All known metalloids are (semimetals or) semiconductors, or exist in semiconducting forms.
Rayner-Canham regards Sb as a metal but, curiously, does not explain his rationale.
The properties of Po are consistent with the Curie's regarding it as a metal.

Are we able to agree on these? Sandbh (talk) 23:38, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think we can for all of them.

I was talking about the mechanism by which semiconductors conduct electricity. Unlike those for metals and semimetals (which is just metallic bonding leading to mobile electrons), and insulators (which don't conduct significantly due to a lack of mobile charge carriers), the semiconductor mechanism does not seem to be part of most high-school chemistry syllabi. Naturally, the name and the fact that Si is one may easily be thrown around, but I do not consider that to "count". Surely every high-schooler sees the superheavy elements on his or her periodic table, but that does not make them a high-school topic.
According to Holleman & Wiberg (p. 758), black antimony starts to transform into the metallic allotrope already at 0 °C. I doubt that could be considered particularly stable. If that's enough to disqualify antimony, though, shouldn't tin be worried because of the grey allotrope? White tin starts turning into grey tin below 13.2 °C already.
A metalloid category is certainly common, and I am not proposing we get rid of it on WP. There is simply disagreement between sources about its boundaries. It is true that if writing a chemistry article or book off-WP, I would not use the term and prefer to speak only of metals and nonmetals, but that is different.
Whether all known metalloids are semimetals or semiconductors or exist in semiconducting forms depends very much on which elements an author considers to be metalloids, on which there is not agreement. In any case, there are certainly elements that exist in semiconducting forms but which are rarely considered metalloids (iodine springs to mind).
R-C explains it in the article of his that you sent me, referring to Hawkes who notes that it's only B, Si, Ge, As, and Te (not Sb) whose conductivities fall in the gap between clear metals and clear nonmetals. That being said, he is one author and others disagree. Just like how others disagree with calling Po or At metals, though.
I actually agree that Po is better considered a metal. Same for At. And, although you probably disagree with that one, the same for Sb. And I would do all that if writing a chemistry article or book off-WP. But, that's not what I feel should be the basis of what WP shows. Given that there is scientific disagreement, both between you and me, and within the literature, I feel that arguing based on science for WP is never going to give any reasonable resolution until the literature develops some kind of consensus. I already explained on YBG's talk page. I think there's no point continuing this because it'll go over the same thing again and again; the community will decide it when I put up the 2010 scheme for an RFC.

Double sharp (talk) 23:55, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding metallic lustres[edit]

You may like Metallium's photo gallery of the elements (plus some extra photos). I think you might see what I, following DA, am getting at when I say that Ge does not have a really metallic lustre. Compare:

True metallic lustre: Ga, In, Sn, grey Sb, Bi, Po (different site)
Glassy, "metalloid" lustre: Si, Ge, black As (different site), Se, Te (different site)

I couldn't find a good picture of black Sb, raising suspicions in me that H&W are right and that it is really quite unstable. Double sharp (talk) 09:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp, Rochow discussed the optical properties of the metalloids in his 1966 book. He gave the following reflectivity values: Diamond 6%; Si 41; Ge 35; As 46; Sb 70; Te 59. Sandbh (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, and notice how high Sb is compared to everyone else! ^_^ Does he give values for Sn and Bi? (And although that is probably difficult, Po?) Double sharp (talk) 11:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From the second link with extra photos are some more rods: Au, Pt, Pd, Ir, Ru, Sn, Sb, Bi. Here Sb does not seem to look visibly distinguishable from any other metal. Ge, however, is further up the page and looks very distinct. Double sharp (talk) 21:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Copying licensed material requires attribution[edit]

Hi. I see in a recent addition to Periodic table you included material from a webpage that is available under a compatible Creative Commons Licence. That's okay, but you have to give attribution so that our readers are made aware that you copied the prose rather than wrote it yourself. I've added the attribution for this particular instance. Please make sure that you follow this licensing requirement when copying from compatibly-licensed material in the future. — Diannaa (talk) 13:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Diannaa Thank you. I wrote that text myself (as the author of cited article). Is an attribution required in this case? Sandbh (talk) 03:42, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think you should, because patrollers won't know that.— Diannaa (talk) 12:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding goodness-of-fit values[edit]

Interesting, so it is towards higher-degree polynomials (which degree?). So it's not as bad as I was worried about, even though because of even-odd periodicity I have to wonder if polynomials may undersell the goodness of a trend like B-Al-Ga (3d insert)-In-Tl (4f insert). But something I'm wondering according to your analysis: how does Ti-Zr-Ce-Th compare to Ti-Zr-Hf-Rf? Reason being that the other d block trends are all like Ti-Zr-Hf, V-Nb-Ta, etc. with the kink. If they show worse goodness-of-fit values than the Sc-Y-La-like Ti-Zr-Ce, V-Nb-Pr, Cr-Mo-Nd, then I think it is suggestive.

Not that it really proves anything, because a Lu supporter like me can always say "of course group 3 should follow the group 4 trend, they are both d block", and a La supporter like you can always say "of course group 3 should follow the group 2 trend, because the Ln contraction should come only after group 3". So it becomes like Jensen's 1982 arguments: they are only persuasive if you already have determined where the f block is inserted, and otherwise are not definitive. That's why as you know I consider the thing settled by Jensen 2017 rather than Jensen 1982.

I also think it should be pointed out that among people who have views on this, some consider the thing ultimately settleable by one answer (me, Scerri), and some consider that different versions will always have their places (like you). I guess, partly it is a matter of how people feel physics and chemistry should be reflected on the PT: if you feel they are both relevant, then maybe you want to move elements around to create different versions, but if you feel that the physics in terms of the electronic structure is supposed to be explaining the chemistry, then you'll probably want only one version. Therefore I am not sure your proposed IUPAC guidance will satisfy people.

Also, I rather suspect that if Scerri is actually writing an article summarising the conclusions, it's likely that the six project members have managed to agree on something. But we'll see.

(Left off the ELEM talk page because this is getting a bit FORUM-y, I think.) Double sharp (talk) 02:02, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: 2nd degree polynomials, in all cased. On group 4 I only looked at C-Pb, and C-Si-Ti-Zr-Hf. I can look at Ce-Th too; that would be interesting.

Yes, I know about Scerri's view. AFAIK he has never looked at the way I've done it, which takes a leaf out of G&E. I suppose it's never occurred to anyone to extend it to group 2 and group 4. Sandbh (talk) 02:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Similar figures appear for group II in Jensen (p. 956 of this paper) and for group IV in G&E (2nd ed., p. 957). So I wouldn't say no one's extended the idea. Actually I kind of think that in some sense just about anybody who's used A and B group numbers or an 8 column periodic table is looking at it this way or is at least close.

I worry that 2nd degree polynomials may be inadequate for a trend with two kinks like B-Al-Ga-In-Tl (kink at Ga and then in Tl). 4th degree might fit better except that it would probably be too easy to fit anything then. Double sharp (talk) 02:40, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Now that I'm not quite as sleep-deprived as that day; of course it would be too easy, it's five points with a 4th degree polynomial, and can always be fit perfectly.) Double sharp (talk) 07:00, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Hmm. For group 4, the figures are C−Pb = 0.69; C−Hf = 0.71, so nothing effectively there. For C-Si-Ti-Zr-Ce-Th it's 0.81! I can sort of see an argument here for C-Si over Ti-Zr, and then splitting the f-block so that Ce-Th are under Zr. So the sp block has equal halves, as Scerri once supported.

I hesitate since I'm OK with B-Al- over Sc-Y-La, since there's barely any TM chemistry here, whereas with C-Si-Ti-Zr-Ce-Th and Ti³⁺ and Ce³⁺ I think the different kinds of chemistry become too scrambled. Sandbh (talk) 03:35, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if one wants to justify it, one could say that boron and carbon are certainly not stuck in their group oxidation states, but show many lower ones as well. OTOH, any thoughts of ionicity for them are basically fantasies, so the oxidation states may be too formal to really use here. I kind of wonder how N-P-V-Nb-Pr-Pa looks compared to N-P-As-Sb-Bi-Mc, continuing the march towards the right. I somewhat suspect that what's going on is that your measure is still somehow overly favouring linearity (a parabola can well approximate a line if needed, but it can't really approximate a kinked trend like B-Al-Ga-In-Tl that looks more like a quartic if anything), which is why the "no block insertions" trends are getting overly high values.

Anyway, I think this comes back to my usual response: "if the argument gives us something bad if we apply it where we're sure of the answer, then why should I have faith that it'd apply when we're not sure of it"? I think we agree (correct me if I'm wrong) that whatever thing one wants to use as one's PT basis in one's context, one ought to apply it consistently. That basically explains why I'm in the "physics only" camp: I'm not seeing any way one can apply chemistry consistently, because it's too fractally complicated with trends and then exceptions to the trends and then exceptions to the exceptions. That's why I favour the physics-only He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu table, because it's consistent and I don't see any other way to be consistent: the fuzziness of chemistry I prefer to leave for the fuzziness of categorisation. You could say maybe that I'd be willing to accept a consistent "max out physics" = He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu table as well as a consistent "max out chemistry" table as two fundamentally correct representations, but with the problem that I have serious doubts that the second can even exist. So, that's why I think there's only one. But you can see that there's a window of possibly changing my mind. ;) Double sharp (talk) 03:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, agree 100% ^_^ They each have value, in their contexts. A better chemist bears in mind both options at the same time, rather than one or the other. The chemistry one will always be fuzzy, unless we ever get to a day where chemistry becomes 100% reducible to physics. Might need a brain the size of a planet to do that one though.

I'll have a look at group 5 and 15. Black P might be hard to get good values for. Sandbh (talk) 06:09, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp Group 5 as N-P-V-Nb-Pr-Pa = 0.71; group 15 as N-P-As-Sb-Bi = 0.81; Group 5 as N-P-V-Nb-Ta = 0.90. Sandbh (talk) 07:16, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, interesting. I think we're not really in that much disagreement about this idea; I do agree that a better chemist can understand all options. I think where we differ is whether we think they should be reflected on the PT generally, really. I could see relationships like B-Al-Sc or Be-Mg-Zn or Sc-Y-La maybe as special illustrations when something needs to be emphasised, but because of the consistency issue, I think I would prefer something along the lines of 8 column periodic table or Bayley pyramid or parenthesised pseudohomologues to show the secondary relationships. But I generally feel that the strict-physics He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu table is best at consistency, best at pedagogy, and best at the most general case when you aren't trying to make any chemical point and just need to show a PT for a general context. But YMMV; after all, the greatest benefit of this sort of thing is making it clear what both of us really think and sharpening it, I guess. Double sharp (talk) 10:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I also think the 1-18 finger-count group labels suck. I think you also know the ones I like. But if not, you can see them at User:Double sharp/Template Periodic table as usual. They are something like those of the Marks brothers' Newlands Revisited but a bit different, and are sort of an attempt to make sure the secondary chemical relationships are not lost: going B-Al-Sc-Y-La-Ac, we go from groups IIIp to IIId to IIIf rather than 13 to 3 to unnumbered. Just for fun of course. Double sharp (talk) 10:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Short question[edit]

If you're in favour of chemistry as a possible organisational principle for the PT (whence B-Al-Sc-Y-La), then how do you justify Og under Rn? It is an extraordinarily poor match there in properties and in continuing group trends, being rather similar maybe to Si or Sn. (In fact, the end of the 7th period gives much better chemical congeners if it goes Mt-Ds-Rg-Fl-Ts-Og-Mc-Lv-Nh-Cn. YMMV on whether that is acceptable given how much it scrambles the atomic numbers.) Likewise, how do you justify U under Nd rather than under W? U under Nd is mostly nonsense if we think of chemically similar elements as belonging together; it only makes sense from a physics POV. Do you have some way to deal with these, or would you advocate moving them too? Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp, Eric has written about the possible end of the periodic table and periodic trends in period 7. And there are probably some relativistic perturbations in e.g. Cn and Og. I don't worry about these so much since we can explain what is going on, and there are relativistic phenomena elsewhere in the table.

The common form of the periodic table is mostly chemistry-based but it does make some concessions to electronics/physics.

On the early An, Wiberg (p. 1720) says:

"Th, Pa and U display redox behaviour similar to that of the TM Hf, Ta, and W, and for this reason, the An were at one time placed in transition groups IV, V and VI. However, the spectroscopically determined structure of their electron shells, as well as many of their physical and chemical properties (see below), show they do actually belong in the An group. The similarities in redox behaviour of An and TM progressively disappear when moving in the direction Np, Pu, Am. However similarities in redox behaviour between An and Ln first appear with the heavier AN from Cm onwards."

I recall reading somewhere that PT trends are vertical in groups 1−2; start becoming diagonal in the p-block; are horizontal along the 3d metals, vertical along the heavy TM; and horizontal along the An and Ln, with the early An midway between the d-block and and the f-block.

For Nd and U, I guess the lack of a good vertical trend is not so relevant, given my preceding paras. There is a resemblance between La-Ac; Ce-Th; and Pr-Pa. By the time we get to Nd-U the resemblance has nearly gone (the best Nd can so far do is +4). Restrepo says, "Mathematical and computational tools estimate that the number of energetically stable chemical compounds is greater than 10⁶⁰, which is called the chemical space." Eugen says, "chemists have so far explored only a completely negligible fraction of this chemical space!!". So who knows, if we can get Pr to +5 maybe one day we can coax Nd to +5 or even +6. --- Sandbh (talk) 01:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Is the common PT mostly chemistry-based? OK, we can agree I think that a physics table is He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu, right? Then it seems to me that the common form of the PT (He-Ne + Sc-Y-La) has 115 elements placed according to physics and 3 elements placed against it (He, Sc, Y). Seems lopsided the other way if you ask me. I think we can agree though that the PT is slightly poorer for not being consistently one way or the other, though.

I agree that we have not explored most of the chemical space. But I think we can legitimately say that chemists have explored most of the easily accessible parts of it. That is, we have at least explored most of the representative chemistry of the elements, that are naturally shown without us trying to force things; and what remains requires more effort.

I think what you say about we can explain what is going on is pretty much why I favour the physics table. Because it's not a zero-sum game: by going to physics, you don't necessarily go against chemistry. Rather, the physics enriches the chemistry by helping to explain it. To put it another way: you don't lose the Sc-Y-La relationship if you decide to go for a physics table and show Sc-Y-Lu first, because no one can take away the fact that Sc-Y-La are all three electrons above the noble gas, and it is still shown by the fact that each of those elements is the third element from the start of the row. Same with B-Al-Sc for that matter. The physics just explains why you see the trends you see: Sc-Y-La has a s-like smooth trend, because there is no insertion of a block to be involved, whereas Sc-Y-Lu has a d-like trend with the first element (Sc) a bit different from the similar other three (Y, Lu, Lr). You just have to accept that what is shown as a vertical relationship may not always be the closest chemical relationship – but we already understand this: as you said, PT trends are only consistently best as vertical in the s block. Elsewhere they may not be. So I would say: He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu is not only a physics/electronic table. Rather it is a table where physics/electronic is enlisted to explain chemistry, and therefore unites both physics and chemistry. Even though physics does not explain all of chemistry yet, if we limit ourselves to chemical periodicity, it explains enough already for general use.

Which loops back to my first point: B-Al-Ga is nearly universally accepted by now, even though anyone can look and see that Al-Sc is often significantly closer than Al-Ga. So, small differences in chemistry are not really worried about in these cases if the physics dictates a placement: I think we can both agree that Al and Ga do share many things in common. We also know that the La table first came about because of a misunderstanding of electron configurations: firstly the configuration of La, [Xe]5d¹6s², was misinterpreted as implying that no 4f involvement could be had from it, and then because of faulty configurations Yb-Lu was thought to add the last 4f electron implying that Lu ended the f block. Now we know both are wrong, but because the result doesn't look too horrible chemically, most people didn't bother changing it. But the point I'm making from it is that Sc-Y-La came about from physical considerations too: sure, they were wrongly interpreted and based on wrong data, but the argument was a physics one rather than a chemistry one. Therefore, I rather suspect that if IUPAC recommends Sc-Y-Lu, the majority of chemists are not going to make a fuss over it, just like they didn't for B-Al-Ga: I think we can both agree that Y and Lu do share many things in common. (They are both rare earths after all.) But if they don't, then for sure those who think from physics are going to complain. Which for me is maybe the sociological argument for Sc-Y-Lu: the only way the dispute will ever die out is if Sc-Y-Lu gets accepted. From just chemical taxonomy, neither Sc-Y-La nor Sc-Y-Lu is less than useful, so no one will make a fuss. From physics explanations, Sc-Y-La is absolutely less than useful, so people will make a fuss. Therefore what presumably will end up eventually happening is that physicists, and chemists who prefer to think physically, keep on arguing for decades and decades in favour of Sc-Y-Lu and eventually win because the "silent majority" is not really favouring La; it just does not care. Double sharp (talk) 02:38, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: I think the only thing worth agreeing on is the idealised blocks table with He over Be and Lu in group 3. Disagreeing on anything after that is a non-disagreement, since each variant is good for its particular purposes. The form used within IUPAC is customised in the direction of chemistry, with He over Ne, and 15 Ln and An (but still with a tip of the hat to physics, with B-Al- over Ga). For a chemistry body that's understandable, and I could understand their reluctance to recommend any particular form. If IUPAP had an internal PT that ought to be He over Be and Lu in group 3. After that it's up to the chemistry community as to which form becomes the most popular. I'll have to back and read Eric's 2020 article about recent attempts to change the PT, and his rationale for Lu. Sandbh (talk) 03:36, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well perhaps my He-Be + Sc-Y-Lu view (for chemistry even) is partially guided by my personal preferences in pedagogy. I find it a lot easier to motivate periodicity from the physics rather than to do "stamp collecting", but perhaps for others that is not so. Let's say it is the mathematician's prejudice. ;) Leaving aside disagreements on whether it is best to illustrate other periodic trends by changing elements or not (I think it might cause some pedagogical confusion but I can simultaneously see the visual appeal), I kind of feel however that if you're just introducing the PT as an organisational tool, without having any purpose beyond that at emphasising some particular trend, the "blocks PT" is still probably best as something to start from and deform at will.

Seems to me Scerri's 2020 article makes his usual rationale for Lu. He argues that we should keep in mind the 32 column form (fine), keep Z in increasing order (fine), not split the d block (umm), and keep the block sizes in accordance with how big QM says they should be (so no 15-element footnotes). Well, my opinion on this is basically that: from a physics perspective, this is not a totally satisfactory argument because the blocks are not defined, but since defining them physically naturally leads to the conclusion against a split d block we can chalk it up as "incomplete, but completes to a correct argument". From the perspective of the final chemistry, the blocks are not important, but Lu and La are not too chemically distinct, so this perspective says "who cares". From the perspective of pedagogy, then since trends across blocks match each other better with a Lu table and without a split d block, this argument works fine: the Lu table is easier to learn how to use. Therefore, even though I think the really definitive argument is searching for 4f involvement and finding it only in La but not Lu, I won't be disappointed if IUPAC decides on the Lu form on this basis. Double sharp (talk) 03:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Yes, re-reading his article now, it strikes me as being circular-ish. He says there is no optimal table, and the choice is interest contingent. Then he plugs for Lu in 3, on the basis of four grounds of interest:

"First, it unifies all the elements together by including the f-block. Second, it displays all the elements in order of increasing atomic number. Third, it avoids splitting the d-block into two highly uneven portions and fourth, it depicts all the blocks of the periodic table in accordance with the underlying quantum mechanical account of the periodic table which calls for 2,6,10 and 14 electrons to occur in various electron sub-shells. If one insists on retaining an 18-column format, we recommend that it should be the version shown in figure 4 which benefits from the insight afforded by the equivalent 32-column table, namely figure 10."

This is a weak position. In the 18-column form argument 1 is irrelevant. Argument 2 applies in the 18-column La form. Argument three has no basis in science. Argument 4 is somewhat relevant. Arguably, what Christie and Christie (2000, p. 42) said is still the case: "chemistry rests much more strongly on its…foundations of the 19th century and earlier, and much less on the insights of modern quantum physics. This may change if chemistry can be reduced to physics.

It's no better than whatever prompted the internal IUPAC form. Sandbh (talk) 04:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, even as a Lu partisan, my general impression of most of the Lu-supporting papers around is that they are right for the wrong reasons. That is, I feel that their conclusions are correct, but I cannot support the way they get there as definitive. Sometimes they are only suggestive and sometimes I feel they just don't work. And my impression of some parts of your La paper (not all of it) is that it is wrong for the right reasons. I feel your conclusion is not correct, but I think that you are on the mark in some ways, such as when you talk about symmetry not being a valid decider by itself. Hopefully to be taken as half-joking. ;)

What's really funny though is that the early physics papers on the La-Lu issue present a much stronger position. Their arguments basically boil down to the one DA and I have been advocating here: "La-Yb use 4f orbitals, Lu doesn't". If you look at Hamilton's 1965 original paper you will notice that nearly all his arguments are about this 4f involvement. The exceptions are superconductivity – which Mathias and Wittig later related to 4f involvement in La anyway, so it's not an exception – and in one paragraph a few rattled-off properties along the lines of Jensen's article, which Hamilton calls "unsophisticated" before moving on to his 4f arguments. This is literally the only argument I've seen that seems decisive by itself, provided the definition of block implicit in it is accepted, which I feel can be given a pass because it seems natural to ask for f elements to use f orbitals. And maybe that is confirmed in the sense that this is the one Hamilton and Wittig ran with! So the mystery is why the single strong and deciding argument has not been seized on: maybe it and its importance was not understood well enough. Or maybe no one could stomach it because they realised that consistently applying it means helium most go over beryllium, who knows. Instead we had a falling down to circular ones and just plain cosmetic ones in the end. Of all the six on the project, judging from their writings, I feel that Jensen is closest to a good view on the matter because he at least presents the 4f argument in his writings. I am not too thrilled about all the other arguments he bundles it with, though. I think those other Jensen arguments confirm that Lu gives internally consistent chemical and physical trends, but do not succeed at proving that Lu is correct (see the next section for why). Scerri's view we've seen above, I haven't seen Ball and Ohrstrom really tackle the issue in depth in their articles on it, Restrepo's is inconclusive because we all know the most similar element is not always the one placed below, and Lavelle is only looking at the ground-state configurations (in this case Jensen is right on the mark when he points out that you have to look at excited states, because that is the 4f argument).

As I said, I will not be disappointed if Lu is chosen for the reasons Scerri gives, mostly because it is nothing new for valid scientific advances to make it for the wrong reasons. That seems to be more or less exactly what happened with heliocentrism vs geocentrism, which is an analogy you will recall DA and I have used for this issue. It should also be noted that heliocentrism over geocentrism was largely agreed between scientists even before Newton provided the theoretical framework and physical justification, so even if you think physics has not adequately explained chemistry, it would be nothing new. (I agree that it has not, but contend that when it comes to the specific subject of periodicity, it has done enough.) So even though it may be to me scientifically half-disappointing (in terms of the way in which the conclusion is reached, not the conclusion itself), sociologically I will be totally unsurprised. Double sharp (talk) 05:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Yes, it seems to me that the current situation arose as a result of historical accidents; the obscurity of La and Lu chemistry; and the lack of an aficionado of periodic table history of the calibre of such as Scerri. As well, and as you allude to, many of the arguments one way or the other were poorly thought out or presented. I see that a lot in the research literature with complaints about poorly designed studies. A byproduct of publish or be damned, or, never mind the quality, feel the width.

I have a bias against simple solutions; symmetry; and consistency, since chemistry---based on my readings---is full of subtleties, inconsistencies, and weird things that happen in the margins. The texture of the world, as I’ve referred to it as. Characteristic I supposed of a discipline that has not been reduced to physics.

My impression is that the arguments about f-involvement in La and no such involvement in Lu are questionable since, although I haven’t been delving into this too deeply, the full f-shell in Lu does influence its properties.

I won’t mind what Eric's project comes up with, or what IUPAC does with the report, given some of IUPAC’s bizarre recommendations, since each option, even the IUPAC form, has its context. If Lu rises to the top of the heap, so be it. --- Sandbh (talk) 06:03, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandbh: My impression is that the arguments about f-involvement in La and no such involvement in Lu are questionable since, although I haven’t been delving into this too deeply, the full f-shell in Lu does influence its properties. – only to a similar extent as Hf. In other words, La-Yb have direct usage of the 4f shell for bonding; 4f has influence from Lu-Rn, but it is only the incomplete shielding effect, similar to 3d from Ga-Kr. The bonding orbitals for Lu are only 5d, 6s, 6p. So no, this argument is not questionable: it can be and has been calculated, and when that is done, it becomes decisive. (Provided of course that you accept its premise. The cost is accepting helium over beryllium, it should be noted.) It is true however that these arguments (which fix information about lack of Lu 4f involvement, presence of Zn 3d involvement, and so on) are difficult to use and understand due to the need for rigorous quantum mechanical calculations to justify them, which probably accounts for their lack of prominence: one must scour the computational chemistry literature to use them effectively without misunderstandings, and one has to have some sort of knowledge of how things work there to avoid misreading the papers (there are some local terminology uses). If not for DA (a computational chemist, as you remember) I could not have. So, I think you have the wrong impression based on not having delved into it deeply enough. Nothing wrong with that; so did I before DA explained it to me. Even now I don't understand the chemistry involved in how they get to their conclusion; I just know enough to be able to read their conclusion correctly.

Presumably this is also exactly what happened about the sideline of condensed-phase configurations, which Scerri talked about based on Schwarz's article. He called them condensed-phase configurations. In actual fact, Schwarz was not talking about the configuration in the metal, which is what is usually meant by the words "condensed-phase configuration", but about configuration state-averages of neutral free atoms. The configuration of the metal is in fact not well-described by integer occupancy and can only be well-described by averages: Cu metal is about 90% d¹⁰s¹, 10% d⁹s². In fact, visible light is usually enough to change the averages for the TMs, and they often flow continuously through different configurations when this is done (cite). So in a roundabout way, what happened when I first convinced you to the La form was that because of this terminological confusion, I looked up old information (before this flowing was known, apparently) about the condensed-phase configurations of the Ln and An, and based on wrong data was convinced to La. (Which would have been correct if the data had actually been correct, which it wasn't.) I think this underscores the need to have an expert who understands the terminological uses present.

Well, you know I differ with you about "each option has its context". So let's leave it at that. Simple solutions and symmetry are for me not requirements, but not something to be suspicious of either. If they're there, they're there, and if they're not here, they're not there. However I have a nagging feeling that consistency may be underrated among chemists for the PT (a sentiment echoed by Jensen) for the reason that it's pretty obvious that it would start demanding helium over beryllium. Some chemists do indeed draw from this the conclusion that that placement is right (Kurushkin), but most would probably rather retreat away from it. I feel that Kurushkin has gotten it right, but also that he's going to have a hard time persuading people until helium chemistry blossoms. In any case, I'll reserve judgement on the IUPAC project till its results come up, but as you know I have a strong suspicion based on Scerri's comments at the Zoom workshop that indeed Lu will be the outcome. Which will, of course, make me happy enough, as I feel that scientifically speaking this should have already been settled by the physics papers of the 1960s and 1970s. I also do suspect that I will not be too satisfied with the rationale used to justify that outcome, though.

In any case, it seems that physicists and IUPAP are getting somewhat fed up with IUPAC's custodianship of the periodic table. That's because the way the PT usually changes now is to add new superheavies, for which it's obvious that physicists and not chemists have the expertise, and the JWP reports that legitimised elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 were...scientifically not the best. (The conclusions were probably all right; the way they got there, not so much. Sounds familiar?) If these tensions go far that the significant physicist view that IUPAC should no longer play a role in this process eventually becomes reality, we may indeed end up with the PT being taken over by physicists. Which is an outcome I'm of course entirely in favour of. ;) Double sharp (talk) 08:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp The IUPAP minutes say, "Cecilia, and many others, are of the opinion that there should no longer be a role for IUPAC in the validation and naming of new super heavy elements, given the central role played by nuclear physics in the synthesis (or discovery) of the new elements." There is nothing there about IUPAP/the physicists taking over the PT. Pardon my scepticism that this would ever happen. Sandbh (talk) 05:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on Jensen 2017[edit]

Please note, I don't agree with everything Jensen said. In fact I agree with you that the 1982 paper doesn't really prove anything much from most of its arguments because of a circularity problem: it amounts to saying Sc-Y-Lu is better because it better matches the other d block groups, but asking for that implies you think the f block goes before group 3 and doesn't interrupt the d block, which implies you already think Sc-Y-Lu is better. What I think however is that the 2017 sentence I quoted from him is, as you put it, a key observation. I also think it is the categorical argument that settles it: I guess for you it might not, but maybe you could agree that it settles it from a physics point of view (or maybe for you within an electronic/physics context). Lu and Lr are in the d block, because they cannot use f orbitals as valence orbitals; La and Ac are in the f block, because they can. (As shown in 10.1364/JOSA.61.001112, the 4f→5d promotion energy of Yb is higher than that of the 5d→4f promotion energy for La, and the 5f→6d promotion energy of No is higher than that of the 6d→5f promotion energy for Ac. So the f orbitals in La and Ac are more chemically available than the d orbitals of Yb and No, which we already know are chemically available.) To some extent I think the original sin here is not defining what a block is, but since the definition his 2017 paper seems to be implying (that f elements ought to somehow use f orbitals for chemistry) seems particularly natural, I will give that a pass. Note also, this is not a symmetry-based argument, despite its symmetrical result.

On whether the PT is an electron configuration table: clearly it is not (whether ground-state or idealised), because He-Ne. But neither is it a chemistry table either clearly, because H-Li, and indeed because Rn-Og, and because Nd-U, and because N and Bi in the same group. In fact, I would agree with you that the traditional forms are basically just inconsistent and cannot decide what they are supposed to be based on, as Kurushkin complained about. And from the fact that most chemists don't seem to bat an eyelid about this, I rather suspect that the foundations of the PT are just annoyingly poorly documented as standard notions: no wonder writing the PT article is so hard, when nobody is defining what a block is ("I know it when I see it" is not convincing when you literally have an argument in the middle of the table on group 3), and nobody is sure about the relative roles of chemistry vs physics when deciding PT placements. Maybe this will change because IUPAC will probably have to deal with this issue when its task force decides what it's going to recommend, but even then it will probably be slow since the average chemist's reaction to He-Be is probably just incredulous. Jensen said it was an idealised electron configuration table here (so it's not a ground-state one, which is what I think he was complaining about based on this): I think that's what it should be, because nothing else really works with consistency and explains so much rather than just documenting it, but as long as He-Ne is there I do not think it can legitimately be said that that is what it is. Ultimately, I suspect that waiting for IUPAC is the best bet here, because whatever they do, some air will be cleared out wrt how these issues deal with Sc-Y-La. Maybe pencil in the helium issue sometime before the end of this century. I am sure the element can wait, it is really 13.7 billion years old after all. ;) Double sharp (talk) 14:48, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Jensen 2015[edit]

Strangely enough, in his response to Lavelle, Jensen gets it in the right order.

“

Slightly more than 32 years ago I published an article in the Journal of Chemical Education entitled “The Positions of Lanthanum (Actinium) and Lutetium (Lawrencium) in the Periodic Table” in which I called attention to the fact that, based solely on their groundstate, outer (n-1)d¹ns² valence configurations, both La and Lu (and by implication their heavier analogs, Ac and Lr) had equal claim to placement in Group 3 of the d-block below Sc and Y (1). Since both La and Ac also had low-lying empty f-orbitals, whereas Lu and Lr did not, this fact alone strongly suggested that the former two elements had, like almost a quarter of the other d- and f-block elements, irregular configurations and should therefore be assigned to the first group of the f-block as idealized (n-2)f¹ns² elements, whereas Lu and Lr, for which this option did not exist, should be assigned instead to the first group of the d-block below Sc and Y.

To further support this conclusion, I compared groups trends in such properties as atomic radii, ionization energies, melting points, and electronegativity values for the alternative sequences Sc-Y-La versus Sc-Y-Lu with the corresponding group trends for the other members of the d-block and showed that the latter, rather than the former, choice gave the best fit. Yet further evidence for this choice came from a comparison of the structures of metallic La versus metallic Lu with the structures of metallic Sc and Y, the structures of their oxides and chlorides, their superconductivities, the structures of their conduction bands, and their behavior during fractional crystallization. Once again all of these properties favored the placement of Lu rather than La (and by implication Lr rather than Ac) in the positions below Sc and Y in the periodic table.

”

This is precisely the convincing order. First the f block is established as La-Yb / Ac-No according to the f-orbitals argument that DA and I have been using. Then the group trends are only there to further support the conclusion and show that it is internally consistent; they are just there to support a conclusion that has already been made. When used that way, they actually work.

Judging by this, I have to say that this supports my stand that out of the writings of the six IUPAC project members, Jensen's are the best in terms of convincingness and deep understanding of the situation. In fact it makes me think even more highly of his stand and understanding of the f block situation. The expression of his understanding, however, seems to me not ideal: while in 1982 he mentioned the anomalous configuration arguments, and even put them first, he did not refer to the low-lying f orbitals there so clearly as he did in 2015, and just mentioned that thorium was a similar case. I guess the huge size of his figures showing the trends (which are properly the confirmatory argument only) did not help. So, I somewhat think that he might have gotten more traction if his article had been presented a bit more like Hamilton's... Double sharp (talk) 11:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And a small funny aside[edit]

Strikes me that -Lu-Lr does better at showing what happens in group 3 in this particular way: if you show 18 columns, then La-Ac can be aligned under -Lu-Lr like I do at my table in a way that preserves the alignments that give "pseudohomologies" like Th to group 4, Pa to group 5, U to group 6. But -Lu-Lr cannot be so aligned under group 3 in an 18-column -La-Ac table. Double sharp (talk) 11:45, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cox @ Metal[edit]

Do you remember by any chance what that Cox, 1997 is standing for? It stays undefined since 2018. Thank you. --Nk (talk) 15:06, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Same for the other sources in the same edit. --Nk (talk) 15:14, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nk, I see what the problem is. The whole referencing system needs to be overhauled in that article. I've added Cox to the Further reading section, as an interim solution. Do you have an interest in metals? Sandbh (talk) 23:32, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I have found the rest of the missing references in Heavy metals - [3]. Interest in metals - I don't have a special one, just trying to expand the article in bgwiki related to meta:List of Wikipedias by sample of articles. --Nk (talk) 08:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Nk: I was wondering if you felt in a position to support the FAC nomination of nonmetal? Obviously no obligation. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 00:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A minor but frustrating nit to pick[edit]

You recently added a section heading called "Placeholder" and then in a subsequent edit eliminated the placeholder. This meant that when I tried to follow the link in the edit summary, it took me absolutely nowhere. And with the current size of WT:ELEM, scrolling through pages and pages and pages to find the context is difficult. Not sure what the solution(s) could be, but I did want to let you know of the problem. YBG (talk) 08:18, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll bear that in mind, in future. I guess the same thing will happen at any time a section title is changed. Sandbh (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, when I add a new subsection or change the section title, I try to remember to add my own /* section title */ in the edit summary. YBG (talk) 01:43, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PT image edit proposal[edit]

Since you created File:Taxonomic_PT_wth_halogens.jpg as a jpg, I'd suggest you make this edit to the original & upload. In the categories-legend, in the below-row add the word "metalloid" (singular). It would complete that row, instead of making metalloid(s) confusingly and inexplicitly standing out. Thx. -DePiep (talk) 18:36, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks DePiep, that's a good idea. Done. Sandbh (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One more[edit]

In the same image File:Taxonomic_PT_wth_halogens.jpg, could you add the title? Top word now is "groups" ...

I'd prefer the titel to be "Periodic Table of the Elements", especially since it is our First PT for readers. Thx. -DePiep (talk) 15:11, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my suggestion would be to put the title in wikitext outside the graphic. Similarly, I think it would be better to put the footnotes in wikitext outside the graphic. But this is just my idea, subject to others' thoughts. YBG (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That could be done later. Situation now, it's ugly and incorrect. -DePiep (talk) 19:40, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Sandbh (talk) 21:59, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Use of sources at WP:ELEM[edit]

Your input would be appreciated at WT:ELEM § Informal poll 2. Thank you. YBG (talk) 21:28, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rearranging threads at WT:ELEM[edit]

A question and a personal request / suggestion:

When you did the rearranging recently, was anything removed / edited, or was it only reorganisation? I am looking at a cumulative diff where so much is happening that I can't tell.
When doing changes like this, cutting-and-pasting in a single diff and commented as "moving X thread into Y" or whatever makes it much easier for other editors to see what you have done. Adding in one edit then removing from elsewhere in another is harder to follow, IMO, especially with multiple edits. So, I request that you consider making moves in single edits of the entire page rather than as a series of single-section edits.

Thanks, EdChem (talk) 23:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I've just tried to make an edit at WT:ELEM. In each case when I clicked to edit a section, the section that came up to edit was the wrong one because the thread number had changed due to your edits. I know that your changes are making editing more difficult only inadvertently, but keeping them to a single edit would minimise this disruption as well. EdChem (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

EdChem Nothing was removed. If I had I would’ve indicated this in my edit summaries. Entire page edits are tricky and a matter of keeping fingers crossed. Even when editing single sections I semi-regularly encounter edit conflicts due to someone else’s edits in the meantime. I will bear in mind your suggestion and seek to provide better edit summaries. Sandbh (talk)

Glad to hear nothing was removed... I figured that was likely to be the case, but wanted to check. :) EdChem (talk) 11:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would go one step further: Please do not rearrange threads. It makes it very hard for those of us who try to follow this discussion by looking following the diffs. And furthermore, to move the talk contribution of other editors without their explicit permission seems to me to be at the very least inconsiderate and possibly in violation of explicit WP policies. YBG (talk) 03:35, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The specific guideline is WP:TPO. It lists specific cases when it is allowed to edit others' talk page contributions. It is possible that I might have missed something, but I do not believe that the major reorganization that you attempted today falls under any of these allowed edits. YBG (talk) 03:46, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG I have semi-regularly undertaken such housekeeping in the past, with no objections. I have experienced it myself with my own edits being moved around, and that hasn’t bothered me.

A further consideration is that people occasionally complain about how hard it is to follow what’s happening on our talk page. I’ve found that too with multiple conversations on the same topic occurring in different threads in different parts of the page.

I have sometimes wondered, when looking at the TOC, how people, including me, can keep track of things.

I recall DePiep complaining about this.

The top of WP:TOP says it is best treated with common sense. I believe this is the case here. No other editor’s posts were edited by me. All original section headings were retained. The policy says, “ Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning…”. None of my edits, IMO, changed the meaning of the comments concerned.

In terms of following the diffs I’ll try and provide better edit summaries so that it’s clear edits of this kind these are housekeeping-relocation edits.

How does that read? Sandbh (talk) 04:33, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have been annoyed by DePiep similarly violating WP:TPO in the past, though as near as I can remember, it was never as extensive as this. My reading of WP:TPO may be wrong and it may be that your restructuring is well within acceptable WP practice. I considered asking a question about this at the teahouse or at ANI to see whether my expectations are out of line or not. But in the end, I decided to simply retire from WP for a while. YBG (talk) 04:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, an informal poll may be in order. Asking at the teahouse was a good idea. Sandbh (talk) 06:45, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted these, editsummary should be clear ('arbitrary' = in this case, promoting to Major/important is not clear cut to me, as there are similar threads ~equally important).

Grouping by topic looks helpful indeed. However, in many places there the WP:ELEMENTS editing process itself is the topic. We all should keep an eye for these interwoven threads, as they are Major by themselves. These issues should not be hidden from attention.

As for promoting to Major:

1. I am not sure if adding 'Major' helps, given the regrouping already done. May become arbitrary. For example, from me:

2. WT:ELEM § Major: Interesting publications looks not needed to me, as no editing or even discussion follows from these,

3. #Use of sources at WP:ELEM, #WP:NOTAFORUM, # About thread lengths could be considered Major (see also previous note on editing process).

Technically:

tech 1. It is good practice to leave an {{Anchor}} after section title change. It keeps existing incoming links like See User talk:Sandbh/Archive 2#Metal functioning. So that would be:

=== '''Major:''' Organising the nonmetals {{anchor|1=Organising the nonmetals}} ==

tech 2. Please stop using ---- partitioning. It is not a common organising practice, and leaves paragraphs in doubtful state (¿what does it mean? ¿what is the status of this block?). In general, well recognised is: newline bullet=new topic in a subpost, indent=a response. A new topic may be in bold, which to me looks like a clear meaning.

-DePiep (talk) 09:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, referring to DePiep as "similarly violating WP:TPO" is not fair, especially if you did not raise concerns with him at the time. You can express dislike for edits or feeling uncomfortable with rearrangements without casually declaring that an editor who is not the subject of the present discussion has violated policy. A discussion at WT:ELEM about older reorganisation as well as Sandbh's recent changes seems a sensible next step, but please leave out accusations of policy violations against DePiep or anyone else if you want a collegial discussion as comments like the one above are unhelpful. :( EdChem (talk) 11:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

EdChem, I stepped over that part, might have a touch of truth. Don't even mind reposting it myself. No the true problem is that YBG is retiring. @EdChem: please ack this clarification (so, this is not a complaint about YBG remarks re me). -DePiep (talk) 12:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DePiep, I did see that YBG mentioned retiring "for a while", which I took as taking a Wikibreak rather than an actual retirement. I think it is desirable for editors to take some time away when they feel the need, but I also hope that YBG will return refreshed and re-energised. YBG, I hope that your break is helpful and I will welcome your return when you feel able. I hope that my comments have not detracted from your WP experience, and my comment above was more that you could have worded it to convey the same point without making what reads to me as an accusation. For example, by saying some like that DePiep has made similar reorganisations which have led to you uncomfortable given WP:TPO and that Sandbh's more extensive changes are even more concerning. The ELEM team has had far too much tension and friction and so I am encouraging everyone to try to choose words so as not to trigger tensions as everyone may still be over sensitive. DePiep, does that address your concern? I am not certain how to interpret your request that I "please ack [sic] this clarification." Please note that I posted the above comment before seeing that YBG had archived his user talk page, etc, which I agree does look more like retirement than a simple Wikibreak. EdChem (talk) 20:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My point was in the "retire for a while" part, not YBG's comment about TPO. (So, I responded to point to this, after your 12:07 post here replying to the earlier part, eg "not fair", to prevent the talk going in an unintended direction). An editor "retiring", even it temporally, is a bad signal for the ELEM project. It signals frustration with the goings, while YBG repeatedly tried to get WT:ELEM back on track, carefully, over a very long period including recent weeks. Some days before, another editor expressed anger and wanting to walk away from the talks. And some editors have not yet returned to cooperating in the stormy content issues. In other words, the intentions expressed when ArbCom came in sight look like showing cracks. Is what I call problematic. -DePiep (talk) 21:29, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

YBG has retired for a short break on at least one other occasion. I expect he will be back, at a time of his choosing. Sandbh (talk) 04:53, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PT edits[edit]

Why not create explicit consensus first? -DePiep (talk) 01:34, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DePiep, consensus is not required before editing.

Re Double sharp, he said, "So, you can do what you want, and I'll let people who actually are going to be active comment on it if they so wish."

I extended Double sharp the courtesy of notifying him of my intention to revert. I did not do so until he posted the above.

I am now attempting to contribute to the effort to bring the periodic table article back up to FA status.

As a fellow member of WP:ELEM may I please have the courtesy of some revert-free space so that I can continue my work? If you subsequently have any concerns could you please first discuss them at WP:ELEM, before reverting?

If I do not hear from you shortly, I'll continue my work, and IGF undo your revert. I hope this will be OK.

thank you, --- Sandbh (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

re: consensus is not required before editing Sure, except for editwarring of course. Anyway, Your edit is the "B", I did "R" (no consensus need either, we know), so we are at D now. (No need to threat "If I do not hear from you shortly"; it's not BRDT. Proceeding after this may be considered editwarring).

I note that in this editsummary you mentioned "per WT:ELEM" without a link. So you did claim consensus. However, I cold not find it, and nor did you link to it in the es nor in your answer here. (you only suggest consensus by interpretation of isolated quotes). Why not ask Double sharp for explicit agreement, beforehand? -DePiep (talk)

DePiep, thanks for the quick response. Could we please not get bogged down here? I'd be grateful for that. As a fellow member of WP:ELEM could you please extend me the courtesy of some revert-free space, following DS' advice, as I posted above, that "…you can do what you want, and I'll let people who actually are going to be active comment on it if they so wish."? Please note DS's reference to commenting on edits (rather than reverting).

For the record:

In your reversion, you included my reversion of DS' edits. You are in breach of BRD.
Given DS's post, this has nothing to with edit warring.
My reference to not hearing from you shortly wasn't intended as a threat, sorry. I was looking forward to some further editing for the rest of this afternoon and didn't want to be left hanging, not knowing how long you'd still be online.
The reference in my edit summary to "per WT:ELEM" was a reference to DS' comment.
Given what he said, there is no need to now ask DS beforehand.

Could you please let me know if you would extend me the courtesy of some revert free space? If I do not hear from shortly, I intend to continue editing. This is not a threat. I'm trying to make best use of my time, that's all.

Thanks again --- Sandbh (talk) 02:46, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes in a 16k revert some comma might be reverted unintentionally. Up to you to establish consistent editing, not me.

TL;DR. -DePiep (talk) 02:49, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DePiep Could you please let me know if you would extend me the courtesy of some revert free space? If I do not hear from shortly, I intend to continue editing. This is not a threat. I'm trying to make best use of my time, that's all. Sandbh (talk) 03:43, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If I do not hear from shortly, I intend to continue editing. This brutality.

To be clear: No, I do not give you any leeway re editing and reverting. That is because you do not edit from talk & consensus. And this is not about fixing typo's, it's about deleting -8k, -16k. The only arguments I hear from you are, like, 'bold does not require talk'. Not once, in recent times, did you engage in a communal talk to get some agreement. Your WT:ELEMENTS contributions, as I haved noted there before, are only describing you taking freedom to edit-without-discussion; invoking policies that fit you, but not self-reflecting on policies that might be, eh, mitigating your edits. @Double sharp and EdChem:

Now you could go on editing this way without my "approval". I just want to note that, with this beaviour, you are putting our WP:ELEMENTS group at risk. That is: think ArbCom. It might not have to do with me or my edits at all. -DePiep (talk) 04:03, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DePiep, Thank you. May I continue editing without your approval and being reverted by you, until I complete my current round of edits? You may take me to WP:ANI or Arbcom in the meantime, if you like. I will notify WP:ELEM when I have shortly concluded.

The 1st deletion you mention is ancient history, being done on 15 Nov, as part of the fresh energy initiative for improving the PT article. The 2nd deletion you refer to is not a deletion but a reversion by me, as I flagged at WP:ELEM for discussion and did not do until Double Sharp posted his statement that I could do as I wanted, subject to other people commenting. Since you reverted my reversion, you are in breach of BRD.

Bear in mind the recent edits by Double sharp were not discussed before hand. He posted his comments after the edits. The same thing happened with the other recent edits to the periodic table. I am asking for the same approach to be extended to me.

Bear in mind I discussed some items to consider in going forward with the PT article, here. The only person who commented was Double sharp. Since he has now withdrawn from the discussion, I am proceeding in accordance with those items.

Thanks again for your prompt responses. Sandbh (talk) 04:28, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sandbh, YBG is taking a break. Double sharp is stepping back and my reading of his comments is that he was expressing frustration at the editing environment. His withdrawal did not read to me to be an endorsement that you should go ahead with what you think is best; I read it as giving up having lost the will to continue discussing. DePiep is expressing frustration even more clearly, in my opinion. A request for revert-free editing as the best use of your time when you have posted an intention to revert others certainly strikes me as seeing your contributions as worth more than those of others – though I can't speak for either of them, of course. Your recent edits to WT:ELEM include more advocating for La over Lu in group 3, despite supporting the thread that decided to leave the topic until IUPAC says something. They also include more material on B-Al in group 3 rather than 13, which is a historical fact that is used in no modern PTs and which you continue to be pushing. Editors leaving a project is never a good sign. My observations and the comments I have read lead me to suspect that you are a significant factor in both YBG's and Double sharp's choices. These are not good developments, in my opinion. EdChem (talk) 06:31, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, EdChem.

YBG has temporarily left the project in the past. He'll be back. Double sharp has left the project in the past. He continued to contribute. He returned to the project. He has now left the project. Based on previous experience, he'll continue to contribute, and he'll return to the project. Project membership counts; contributions count more.

As Double sharp said to me:

""So, you can do what you want, and I'll let people who actually are going to be active comment on it if they so wish."

How does that read to you?

Yes, I posted an intention to revert some edits by Double sharp (not those of "others"), out of courtesy, so that discussion could ensue, which it did.

Only when Double sharp posted what he did, and he was the only one to discuss the dozen suggested items to consider in going ahead, did I revert. In contrast, there were no contributions or discussion before DePiep reverted, including a breach of BRD.

Yes, I posted some content about the group 3 issue in the interesting publication section, not to revisit that in the context of the periodic table article, but to share information, including in the context of the IUPAC project, which at least Double sharp and I are looking forward to reading. As the hat note at the top of the interesting publications section says, "When a publication gains traction and responses, please start a separate thread." I was not expecting any responses.

I would be pleased to learn of any evidence of me continuing to "push" B-Al over Sc in the article space. In the isodiagonality PT in the periodic table article, before I was reverted by DePiep, I showed Al in two places, over Sc (shaded), and in its ordinary place in group 13. I added a contextual explanation of what is going on, in the notes under the periodic table. I relocated a part of these notes, into a footnote proper. I made each of adjustments taking on board Double sharp's concerns; I'm not doing what I "think is best", as you say. I edit in the context of discussion and concerns raised at WP:ELEM. There is no B-Al in group 3. The only place there should be mention of B-Al over Sc is in the historical section.

I was going to continue editing the periodic table article IGF and in the context of discussions at WP:ELEM. I'm not inclined to do so in the face of the potential for capricious reverting.

--- Sandbh (talk) 07:28, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus Requests[edit]

Hi Sandbh,

I note your recent restructure of the consensus requests at WT:ELEM, which I think was a good change. I am wondering if you would mind a further separation of proposals from discussion. I don't mind doing it (or you can, if you prefer) but I think having (a) the proposal and (b) discussion of it (including your rationale) would be easier to follow, or even (a) proposal, (b) rationale, and (c) discussion.

Thanks, EdChem (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

EdChem Thanks; please go ahead as you see fit. Sandbh (talk) 00:19, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Community-imposed topic ban[edit]

In this discussion, specifically here the community decided to impose a six-month topic ban on you from the topic of chemical elements, broadly construed. This means that you are not allowed to edit any page related to this topic until six months after this message, or you may be blocked from editing; see WP:TBAN for more details. Sandstein 20:32, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Triggering[edit]

Hi Sandbh,

I want to acknowledge your ANI post in which you disclosed your battle with major depression, your experiences of triggering, and having had thoughts of self harm at times. I feel great empathy for your suffering as I too have those experiences. In fact, I am presently struggling with my most difficult period of the year, from a little before Christmas until towards the middle of January, where I have a series of anniversaries of traumatic events that make me vulnerable at this time and likely to experience unintended triggering events. I reached out to DePiep regarding his post as I know how awful these experiences are for me, and I hate the idea of triggering others even accidentally. I also reached out as I know that acceptance and understanding can be helpful.

Sandbh, I am very sad to hear that you too have major depression and face the difficulties that can come with it. I want to thank you for the trust involved in making the disclosure, and to say that it has helped me to understand better how you have responded at times. I also want to apologise for any triggering or distress that I have caused or added to in this time. I hope that I have done more good than harm, as I hope is true of all my contributions. My own issues lead me to be harshly judgemental of myself at times and to struggle to be objective in self-assessment and reflection, which is a challenge that I continue to face. I also hope that you can accept that the comments that I have made about you and regarding you were made honestly and are not intended to be hurtful / harmful.

DePiep, though this is not your page, there is somthing that I think it appropriate that I acknowledge to both you and Sandbh. When I am struggling with depression, one of my responses is to try to be extra-helpful / useful for others. I won't call it a coping mechanism as I am not sure that it is necessarily always helpful. I am wondering about how this tendency has fed into my suggestion for a page in my user space. DePiep, I truly did not intend it as a back door for Sandbh to side-step the tban, but I can see how it could have facilitated that inadvertently. I can also see how it could be triggering for you, given the immediate post-ArbCom events. It appears that we have all had experiences that are leading to actions with inadvertent consequences. Sandbh's participation in the topic area has importance to him that makes a tban a potential trigger – so leading to efforts to find any alternative. Those efforts, viewed through a typical ANI lens, made the tban inevitable – in effect, seeking to avoid a trigger led to the triggering becoming unavoidable. My need to be helpful led me to try to find a form of on-wiki inclusion that prevented ongoing problems and disruption, which had a form that was triggering to DePiep and led to disagreement about the idea... and as a consequence, I am feeling like I have failed to be helpful in the way that I was trying. I am also feeling annoyed that the close did not address the scope of the tban, as requested, which led Sandbh to post a request for clarification that could be used against him.

Sandbh, in any response you make, please avoid talking about the area of the topic ban in any way – there are some who take any alleged "boundary testing" very seriously, and you do not need or deserve any more attention than is already occurring. I posted here as I think there is value in recognising the mental health issues that have been connected with recent events. Hopefully, that will lead to better understanding of each other.

Kind Regards,

EdChem (talk) 00:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dear EdChem

I appreciate your post, and the thought that went into it. I'm sorry to hear this time of the year can be tough for you. Are you able to get past such events, rather than dwelling on them, or forgetting them? I like to think we are not defined by our past, unless we choose to be for whatever reason. I try to look forward.

On the comments you made about me it's good to know these were made in honesty. I try to do the same.

I'm puzzled as to the purpose behind making a topic ban so vague. What's so hard about a black and white ban? Beats me.

I've heard from DePiep, Droog Andrey, ComplexRational via PM and will keep in touch with them. Nothing yet from R8R or Double sharp.

I have a few WP articles or essays that I can work on, as listed at my talk page, and some other projects.

Best regards, René aka Sandbh (talk) 07:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strikethrough[edit]

Please use <s>...</s> – or the {{strikethrough}} (a.k.a. {{s}}, {{strike}}) template wrapper for it. The <strike>...</strike> version has not been valid HTML since the 1990s. Use of obsolete tags impedes our migration to HTML 5 and creates extra cleanup work to do. If you would like to help with tag cleanup, please see WP:LINT and WP:HTML5. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Freezing of mercury[edit]

Hi, I do not get the first sentence in the discovery of nonmetals, sorry. The fact is missing which connects the freezing of mercury with the discoveries, or is it a simple time stamp, like the "after George Washington got married" (the same year).

Nice to see that the Element pages are still on the way, even without me and a lot of the others which did the job 10 years ago. Have fun! --Stone (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Stone, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from you and to learn you are still around. Coincidentally, my first wp edit was ten years ago, in June 2011. It'd be fair to say it has taken me that long to become sufficiently familiar with the subject matter of nonmetals. The reference to the freezing of Hg was a time stamp. I've now made this clearer in the article. There is some more work to be done on the article to bring it up to FAC level; it has been fun so far. Thank you, Sandbh (talk) 01:05, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I look every now and then, but I work and family leaves only minimal time. -Stone (talk)

costs of elements[edit]

In case you haven't seen that list already: Prices of chemical elements might be useful. :) Double sharp (talk) 13:37, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I stumbled upon that one a couple of days ago; I didn't know it existed. Sandbh (talk) 07:58, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A not very serious question[edit]

If we were living on Pluto, I wonder if you'd consider Sn a metalloid or nonmetal. After all, then alpha-Sn would be considered the standard state. :) Double sharp (talk) 14:40, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Grey tin as a metalloid, or even a nonmetal, has a few things going against it.

Tin has no semiconducting allotropes, unlike the elements commonly recognised as metalloids (ECRAM). Seeger (1991 p. 30) says that grey tin, although actually being a semimetal, in electrical measurements acts like a semiconductor having a gap of 0.09 eV.
Sanderson (1960, p. 82) observed a quite abrupt transition from lower heats of fusion in metals, after whose melting much of the stronger bonding still persists, to higher HoF in metalloids, which have more specific structure that breaks down completely on melting: Be (11) to B (22); Al (10) to Si (50); Ga (5.6) to Ge (31); Sn (7) to Sb (19.8). This can be seen to in Pb (4.7) to Bi (11) but other considerations come into play for Bi. I presume the HoF for grey tin would be in the same vicinity as white tin; this source doi:10.1103/physrevb.7.1479 gives an experimental mp for grey Sn as 220±13 °C cf. white Sn 231 °C. So, physically, grey Sn does not appear to match the metal to metalloid pattern.
Unlike the ECRAM, tin forms a relatively well-characterised hydrated +2 cation in aqueous solution (Richens 1997, p. 152).
Smith (1973, p. 558) says Bi is a typical "B" metal like Sn or Pb (i.e. physically and chemically weak).
Moody (1969, p. 267) writes that hot concentrated sulphuric acid yields the dioxide when acting on the non-metallic elements, being reduced to SO₂. However Sn is sufficiently metallic to form a mixture of SnO₂ and sulphate, while Pb forms PbSO₄.
Tin can form many more alloys with metals, than is the case for metalloids.
Tin can form Zintl phases, which is something that AFIAK, only applies to post-transition metals or metalloids, rather than extending to nonmetals.

Probably #3 and #6 are killers.

Here on Earth, Cohen and Chelikowsky (1988, p. 99) regard grey tin as a very poor metal, which is a rather good description; Pauling (1988, p. 577) said it has the properties of a metalloid (I guess he was referring only to some of its physical properties, e.g. it being brittle; having the diamond structure; sub-metallic electrical conductivity; and seeming to Pauling to be a semiconductor); and Ebbing and Gammon (2010, p. 891), who distinguish between metals, metalloids, and nonmetals, treat grey tin as a nonmetal and describe it as a brittle grey powder, suggesting they didn't do their homework.

Perhaps, whether on Pluto or Earth, there'd be more gained by referring to grey tin as a near metalloid (on the left side of the notional dividing line between metals and nonmetals.

References

Cohen ML & Chelikowsky JR 1988, Electronic Structure and Optical Properties of Semiconductors, Springer Verlag, Berlin
Ebbing DD & Gammon SD 2010, General Chemistry, 9th ed., Brooks/Cole, Belmont, CA
Moody B, Comparative inorganic chemistry, 3rd ed., Edward Arnold, London
Pauling L 1988, General Chemistry, Dover Publications, New York
Richens DT 1997, The chemistry of aqua ions, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester
Sanderson RT 1960, Chemical periodicity, Reinhold, New York
Seeger K 1991, Semiconductor physics: An introduction, 5th ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin
Smith JD in Bailar et al., Comprehensive inorganic chemistry, Pergamon, Oxford

-- Sandbh (talk) 07:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts! I did say it wasn't a serious question, so it's a pleasant surprise to get a well-researched reply. So, perhaps Plutonians would treat tin the way we treat bismuth: by band structure not a true metal, but chemically persuasive enough. :)

You got me curious about HoF values. I think this is another of those things that only holds good for main-group elements. The transition metals often have incredibly high values, e.g. rhenium 60.43 kJ/mol! I guess this must be the covalent contribution to the bonding helping. Also, it's interesting that polonium is higher than bismuth (though I wonder how well it was actually measured). (Relativity is apparently responsible for why Po does not follow the structure of Se and Te.)

What would you include in "near metalloids"? Among PTMs, I guess the term makes some sense for Al, Ga, Sn, Pb, Bi, Po. But In and Tl might be too far. Double sharp (talk) 08:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Probably C, P, Se, α-Sn, I, Bi. I wrote about this, doi:10.1021/ed3008457, as follows:

"An interesting and elegant solution for accommodating these metalloid-like elements was provided by Adler47 who suggested defining a metalloid simply as a semiconductor or a semimetal. His suggestion can be viewed as a step too far; few other authors have regarded these additional elements as metalloids. As well, the question of which elements would be counted as insulators rather than semiconductors was not addressed.

There may be some merit in adapting Adler’s suggestion by distinguishing between the notion of a “metalloid”, and that of a “near metalloid”. Metalloids are those elements commonly recognized as such, which fall within the scope of the definition set out in this article. A near metalloid then becomes any other chemical element having the electronic band structure of a semimetal or a semiconductor, with the latter (for this purpose) being taken as an element having a band gap less than or equal to the visible spectrum cutoff of 1.8 eV.48 A semiconductor with such a relatively narrow band gap49 has a metallic or black appearance,50,51 and metalloids have traditionally been regarded as looking like metals52 (semiconductors with wider band gaps, and insulators, appear colored, white, or transparent).53,54 This definition would include graphitic carbon, black phosphorus, gray selenium, gray tin, iodine,55 and bismuth. As noted, these are all elements described in the literature as being metalloid like, or words to that effect. Craig,56 for example, refers to the “near metalloidal” status of selenium; Schroers57 refers to carbon and phosphorus as near metalloids. Although aluminum and polonium are also mentioned in the literature as showing some metalloid character, both elements have the electronic band structures of metals and, arguably, show at least a reasonable preponderance of metallic character. They are both better regarded as poor metals or chemically weak metals.37,38"

It's cute that there are six elements commonly recognised as metalloids, and six near metalloids (in this scheme).

Sandbh (talk) 00:43, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so you are including the nonmetallic side too! That certainly makes more sense than including just some p-block metals.

Perhaps hydrogen needs some kind of word, too, for its chemistry rather than its physics. Double sharp (talk) 15:00, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a quasi-metal? Sandbh (talk) 23:47, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice! Double sharp (talk) 07:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Hydrogen as a quasimetal, a concept introduced by Graham, is still a fruitful working hypothesis." Here: doi:10.1007/3-540-08705-2, p. 2 according to Dr G. :) Sandbh (talk) 02:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought ...[edit]

In the nonmetal article, I think it would be better if you treated the classes in the reverse order from what you are currently doing.

Not this L-to-R order: (1) metalloids (2) unclassified nonmetals (3) halogen nonmetals (4) noble gases
But this R-to-L order: (1) noble gases (2) halogen nonmetals (3) unclassified nonmetals (4) metalloids

To me it makes better sense to start with two classes that are well defined and clearly classified as nonmetals, then the less-well-defined class that are still clearly classified as nonmetals, then for comparison, the class that is not-so-clearly nonmetals; you could even go on to compare the metals themselves. Just a thought. YBG (talk) 08:50, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this thought makes a lot of sense too, especially since the noble gases and halogens are quite a lot better as "stereotypical nonmetals" than metalloids (which aren't always included) or unclassified nonmetals (because of things like selenium). Double sharp (talk) 08:46, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. The order I’ll try (not quite the same as that suggested) is: nonmetal halogens; unclassified nonmetals; metalloids; noble gases. I get the sense of NG; halogens; UC; and metalloids, and that the NG and halogens are well defined. OTOH the NG are not typical examples of nonmetals given they (uniquely) don’t bond with one another; their lack of anionic character ; and that they bridge the halogens and the alkali metals. Whereas the nonmetal halogens are well defined, and exemplars of nonmetallic behaviour. Now, the elements commonly recognised as metalloids, for authors who distinguish metalloids, are separated from the nonmetal halogens by a potpourri of UNC nonmetals, so I feel it makes sense to list them (the UNCs) next. Sandbh (talk)

Other advantages of the original scheme include:

it is PT order, albeit R-to-L, and so it keeps the reader who is consulting a periodic table from experiencing whiplash.
the two categories (group 17 & 18) which are both well-defined and universally considered NM are listed before any categories less-well-defined or not-universally accepted as NM
the three categories universally accepted as NM are listed before any categories that are not universally accepted as NM
the category not universally accepted as NM (metalloids) is listed last, so that it can reasonably be introduced by saying "for comparison, the metalloids, which are sometimes considered to be nonmetals, are ..."
it can easily be expanded to include the metals after the metalloids, again by stating they are mentioned "for comparison, the metals are ..."

YBG (talk) 00:09, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done! Looks good, too. Thanks YBG. Sandbh (talk) 00:57, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding metallic astatine[edit]

Something mighty interesting in this historical review that I haven't yet followed up: Since elements at heavier periods often resemble their n+1 and n-1 neighbors more than their lighter congeners, eka-iodine also was expected to be radioactive and metallic like polonium. So apparently the early workers probably had the right idea all along! Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: An excellent find, thank you! The line about n+1 and n-1 neighbors is pricless. I've added it to the At footnote in the Definition and applicable elements section. Sandbh (talk) 01:59, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You probably won't believe me[edit]

But I'd forgotten about that barn star. In any case there was no COI. Doug Weller talk 17:39, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller: G'day again. I'd forgotten all about that. So much water under the bridge. I believe you. That wasn't the issue. It was the perception of a COI, that was the concern. Food for thought perhaps. Sandbh (talk) 06:58, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What is your preference?[edit]

I know your ideas about chartjunk, and so I'm asking your opinion about these options

Thanks! YBG (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I wanted to transclude them, but, alas, I could not. I even went to Villiage Pump to ask. Fortunately, I checked the archives before posting the question. The question had already been answered back in 2015 at WP:Village pump (technical)/Archive 142 § Can I transclude a permalink?. Good thing I didn't ask, it would have been really embarasing. YBG (talk) 00:52, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nonmetal[edit]

Hiya! I saw your effort to make nonmetal an FA. We don't see enough vital articles at FAC, so I'm really happy to see this. I'm a bit busy now with the climate change TFA preparation, and my sustainable energy FAC, but might have some time to give feedback before the next round at FAC early November. From a quick glance, I'd say the article could benefit from a copyedit (not really my expertise) and a ~~idiot~~ lay person review (I didn't do much chemistry after secondary school, so should be able to help here). Thanks for your work! Femke (talk) 08:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Femkemilene: Nice to meet you on my talk page, and thanks for the kind words. The reference to the article as being vital prompted me to actually look this up on wp. So I know now what the significance of a vital article is. FAC #3, all going well, will be 1 Nov. I intend to copy edit the article by reading it from the end to the start, rather than the start to the end which I've done way too many times to now be able to copyedit it that way. If you have the interest and time for a layperson-read that would be most welcome. I'll see if I can get round to reading your sustainable energy FAC. Sandbh (talk) 06:52, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The sustaible energy FAC should be nearing its end now. I'll see if I can make some time tomorrow for some feedback :). Femke (talk) 07:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Femkemilene: I was wondering if you felt in a position to support the nomination? Obviously no obligation. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing the entire article is unfortunately still out of reach for me. I'm recovering from long covid and reading something from a different field drains too much energy. I see a lot of my talk page comments have been addressed :) , but there are some remaining. Femke (talk) 17:08, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistencies and the "culture" at FAC[edit]

Happy to discuss my experiences over the last decade or more, in private if necessary, as obviously such discussions aren't welcome in some quarters of Wikipedia...! The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:13, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In appreciation[edit]

		The Civility Barnstar
		By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this barnstar in recognition of your attitude during the ongoing review of nonmetal. On its third run at FAC it has received a vigourous set of reviews and you have responded in a thoroughly collegiate and Wikipedian manner. Well done. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:36, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much (!) @Gog the Mild: That was an unexpected, pleasant surprise ^_^ Civility is evidently a fine thing! Sandbh (talk) 07:27, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Gog's assessment and appreciation. YBG (talk) 10:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nonmetal structures[edit]

Roughly speaking, I suppose one could distinguish between dimensionality of the structure of covalent bonds more or less as follows:

3D: C (diamond), Si, Ge, Sb (grey)
2D: C (graphite), P (red, black), As (grey, black), Sb (black)
1D: Se (grey), Te
0D (molecular): H, He, N, O, F, Ne, P (white), S (yellow), Cl, Ar, As (yellow), Se (red, black), Br, Kr, I, Xe, Rn

I count, say, black P as 2D because the covalent bonds do not extend indefinitely in all 3 directions. Grey arsenic is a bit of a close call, but there's noticeable difference between how much delocalisation you get in each direction. For antimony it is closer, might as well be considered 3D already. YMMV on where to draw the line: if we just look at structures, not too much difference between grey Sb and Bi. (But hey, it's just one of many criteria to help triangulate.)

Incidentally, sudden shift from 1D chain structures of Se and Te to 3D structure of Po thanks to 6p_3/2 destabilisation does make me more willing to believe in fcc At than before. Double sharp (talk) 14:46, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page refactoring[edit]

Moving comments around is generally frowned upon, but if you decide to do so, please do it in a single edit rather than cutting in one edit and pasting in the second edit. This is slightly more difficult for you because you have to edit the page instead of editing sections, but it means that anyone who looks at the edit in the future can immediately see that the paragraphs were moved without change. The WP software conveniently uses arrows to show paragraphs that are moved with no change or with very few changes. Thank you. YBG (talk) 04:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

YBG, There is no indication from WP:REFACTOR that moving comments around is generally frowned upon, and it assumes good faith which in this case there surely was. If further advises, "Good refactoring practices are an important part of maintaining a productive talk page." I'll bear in mind your preference but don't expect it if I'm working on an iPad or a phone. Sandbh (talk) 04:21, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

May I have your permission ...[edit]

... to reformat your entry at Talk:Periodic table § Rfc about the periodic table in the lede so that it is a single bullet? YBG (talk) 06:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@YBG: Yes indeedy. Sandbh (talk) 06:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

TPO for starters[edit]

I am surprised that I have to tell you, once more, on how to behave in a discussion. This edit is unacceptable. That includes the misleading editsummary. You'll understand this is tearing my patience (with you & your editing behaviour). There are other paths to walk if you have questions or issues (but not me is gonna point them out to you any more). I will not accept you breaking or spoiling a discussion. So best consider this as a serious warning. -DePiep (talk) 08:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your remarks[edit]

Thank you! Buffs (talk) 14:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment[edit]

Nonmetal has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:18, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No thanks[edit]

There is no need or use to thank for each and every edit. Unless you want to signal something -- which then better be 'signaled' directly. Even worse, it might be experienced as owning or parenting. -DePiep (talk) 08:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given our chequered history as members of WP:ELEM my thanks for your edit, however minor, was intended to express my appreciation of your contribution. In future I'll bear in mind your view on such things. Sandbh (talk) 00:12, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, and that is how I read it erlier on. Now fixing a typo is hardly noteworthy. Edits, even minor doubtful edits, otoh, can be dicussed etc. as ever, or a careful rv-es could do. -DePiep (talk) 06:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In appreciation[edit]

	The honourable opposer's award
	By the authority vested in me by myself I present you with this award in recognition of one or more well argued opposes at FAC. I may or or may not agree with your reasoning and/or your oppose, but I take a Voltarian attitude towards your right to state it. Thank you, such stands help to make Wikipedia stronger. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:40, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New message from Jo-Jo Eumerus[edit]

Hello, Sandbh. You have new messages at Talk:TRAPPIST-1.
Message added 14:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Email[edit]

Hi Sandbh. I received your email but you may not be aware that the system does not include your reply address unless you deliberately put it in the text. I am happy to chat about the Group 3 problem but my ability to contribute will simply be to evaluate sources: as an organic chemist by (ex) profession I have no personal expertise on the subject. This is normally better done on-Wiki on Talk Pages so all interested editors can engage. I have used email, for example recently to supply Double sharp with some .pdf of sources but that's only because for copyright reasons such material has to go via email attachments. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re why I withdrew my support for the 2017 submission[edit]

Exchange of views (Eov) 1[edit]

Since you just referred to it at Talk:Periodic table, I feel I should explain this.

The essential case of the 2017 submission appears to have been as follows (at the very least, that's what felt the most important to me):

If group 3 is treated as transition, then it makes more sense as Sc-Y-Lu, to match groups 4-8. If it is treated as a main group, then it makes more sense as Sc-Y-La, to match groups 1-2. (Per "1965: Similarity of Lu with Sc and Y"). But the behaviour of group 3 is more like that of a main group than a transition group (per "Chemical behaviour").
Weak f-character seems plausible for La and Lu, but Lu at the end of the f-block better matches Zn at the end of the d-block, as neither shows involvement of the characteristic subshell. As we wrote under "Blocks", Now, if we were to start the f block at La and end it at Yb, it would start before the f orbitals are capable of becoming chemically active and stop just before they sink completely into the core. It is worth considering the Sc–Zn case similarly. At the end of the block we have Cu, [Ar]3d104s1, with a filled 3d shell that can still be ionised. The next element is Zn, [Ar]3d104s2, with a 4s differentiating electron; but the d block effectively ends here because this is where the d shell first becomes chemically inactive. Is this not more similar to Yb (in an -La-Ac table) and Lu than to Tm and Yb (in an -Lu-Lr table)?
Th is not a direct comparison because it shows 5f involvement.
Condensed-phase configurations have fewer irregularities in a Sc-Y-La table.
La-Ac are a pair out of place.

If that was all true and uncontroversial, I'd support Sc-Y-La still.

However, since the submission, and after some conversations with DA and others, I found various considerations that make these arguments weaker:

The behaviour of group 12 is also more like that of a main group than a transition group. But that seems to suggest that Be and Mg should be in group 12. So the argument doesn't seem that conclusive after all. Also, consider Zr, Hf, and Rf in group 4. They do not show very much complex coordination chemistry because there's too few d-electrons for pi backbonding (the end of the G&E chapter on group 4), they don't show multiple oxidation states, they're very electropositive and reactive (just forming an oxide layer like Al). In that way they look also like valence-4 s-block, main-group metals. So group 4 is split between one transition-ish element (Ti, which even then prefers +4) and three main-group-ish elements. Main-group behaviour is actually the majority. Maybe it makes sense to split Sc from Ti, but by this logic, does it really make sense to split Y from Zr? Or La/Lu from Hf?
Zn is not a match after all. 3d is actually bonding (Tossell 1977) in ZnF₂. However, nobody could confirm such a thing for Lu. So the parallel Zn-Lu is weak. Tossell 1977 in fact parallels an interesting Chinese paper, as Tossell notes that you need highly electronegative ligands to coax the 3d of Zn out. Well, the same is true for 4f in Yb, per that Chinese paper; you need something like F or O. But 4f can't be coaxed out for Lu even by F and O. That rather suggests a Zn-Yb parallel.
Wittig, Gschneidner and others have been suggesting that 4f may be responsible for some properties of La. They are made quite plausible by the fact that those anomalies are never seen anywhere outside the f-elements. Even in 2017 we wrote we found evidence for the former effects to be plausible about Gschneidner on thermodynamic properties. Just as an example that Wittig points out, dhcp is never seen outside the f-elements, for example. Yeah, it's true that La is larger than Sc and Y, but look at the alkali metals. Li and Cs are so different in size, but they are both bcc. So obviously size differences are not enough of an explanation. Something else must be going on. And indeed, in the alkaline earth metals something else is going on (in Ca 3d appears), and there is a change between Mg hcp and Ca fcc. This strongly suggests that Th is in fact a direct comparison with La, contrary to what we thought: Jørgensen says that the level of f-involvement is similar for both. In particular, I am not aware of any other explanation that has been invoked to explain why La's melting point is lower than expected, except for 4f involvement per Gschneidner. I attach a graph from his last paper where he shows the value calculated for La's melting point if there weren't any 4f hybridisation. I have no answer to that whopping 450 K difference. There is chemical evidence for dative 4f-2p bonding in LaF₃ and some 5f-occupancy in Ac(HOPO). But then we're back to Jensen's point that it's inconsistent to allow Th in the f-block but bar La and Ac. Even though I agree that some other parts of his case are not that solid (they would suggest Be-Mg-Zn, as Ca is usually different from those three), I find his point strong here: surely we can't change the rules between two elements that are exactly next to each other (Ac and Th).
Condensed-phase configurations support Be and Mg over Zn, per your table. This was not addressed in our case. Since the position of Be and Mg over Ca is extremely well-settled at this point this weakens the argument.
Since 4f involvement for Lu could not later be substantiated, Lu-Lr equally become a pair out of place in the Sc-Y-La-Ac form. In fact, they're even worse than La-Ac in the Sc-Y-Lu-Lr form, since at least La and Ac have some kind of valence f-involvement low enough to make some kind of physical (and perhaps chemical) difference. Where's that for Lu and Lr? Wittig and Gschneidner don't think there is any for Lu, at least.

Given that, I think it is not surprising that I changed my allegiance. The thing that tipped it over for me is: if La and Ac have valence f involvement, but Lu and Lr don't, then why call Lu and Lr f-elements? If Ac and Th both have chemical 5f involvement, and neither has 5f electrons as a ground-state gas-phase atom, then shouldn't they be treated in the same way? And if the rare earths are so close in chemical properties, then why split the blocks at all? It would presumably put the (much more different) 2p elements' placements in jeopardy.

Finally, the d-involvement in Ca-Sr-Ba isn't an exact parallel. Sc, Y, La, and Lu all have 3 valence electrons, so something else has to decide. But per Tossell, Zn has 12 valence electrons (3d+4s), whereas Be, Mg, and Ca obviously only have 2. So there's a reason to have Be-Mg-Ca that doesn't have a parallel for Sc-Y-La.

P.S. Re Jørgensen, he says that the 4f element ions Pr³⁺ through Yb³⁺ show characteristic narrow bands with their positions almost completely independent on the ligands, but the following 5d elements (along with the 3d and 4d elements) behave significantly differently; while both types of elements show electron-transfer bands, ligand field theory becomes important for the d elements. I presume this is his reason for saying Lu is more conveniently considered as 5d.

P.P.S. Wulfsberg makes perfect sense if he's referring to the +2 cations rather than the +3. Not only is that more realistic for formal Ln^III cations in terms of real charge, it also makes sense of why he refers to both the f-block and the d-block elements in the same paragraph. Then there is no standard oxidation state across the d-elements that is universally stable. But +2 makes some sense for all of them as a baseline that ionises the outer s² electrons. All configurations are then as expected apart from La, Gd, Lu, Ac, Th, Pa, and probably 6d elements. Double sharp (talk) 14:41, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Thanks. Here are some initial comments.

I stumbled upon a chemistry stack exchange page which appears to shed some light on the question:

"Q: Are the elements La and Ac considered to be in the d block or the f block of the periodic table?

A: The real lesson here is that the boundaries between "blocks" of the Periodic Table, like the boundary between "strong" and "weak" acids or bases or even between what is a stable compound and what isn't, is not sharp. Some other examples of a rough, spotty, changeable real world:

Most simple magnesium compounds, even the best known hydride and boride compounds, are primarily ionic, but when they have covalent character the magnesium often bonds tetrahedrally as if using 3𝑝 as well as 3𝑠 valence orbitals. See for instance the coordinated structure given here for methylmagnesium chloride in THF. Beryllium shows this effect even more prominently in its wider variety of covalent compounds.

Calcium could be called a 𝑑-block element when it bonds with its 3𝑑 orbitals in this calcium(I) compound (and yes it is +1, showing multiple oxidation states like a transition element).

Cerium, the second element is the lantanide series, does some straddling of its own between 𝑑 and 𝑓 blocks as its valence in the metal is changeable between 3 (with a core-like 5𝑓 electron) and 4 (with this electron engaged in the bonding). See Johanssen et al. 2 and the WP article citing this reference.

Among the actinides there is also thorium, which appears to involve only 7𝑠 and 6𝑑 valence electrons in the gas phase but brings in 5𝑓 orbitals in the metal (see this answer and the references therein).

References

1. Krieck, Sven; Görls, Helmar; Westerhausen, Matthias (2010). "Mechanistic elucidation of the formation of the inverse Ca(I) sandwich complex [(thf)3Ca(μ-C6H3-1,3,5-Ph3)Ca(thf)3] and stability of aryl-substituted phenylcalcium xomplexes". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 132 (35): 12492–12501. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja105534w.

2. Johansson, Börje; Luo, Wei; Li, Sa; Ahuja, Rajeev (17 September 2014). "Cerium; Crystal structure and position in the periodic table". Scientific Reports. 4: 6398. Bibcode:2014NatSR...4E6398J. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06398."

On a related note Sanderson (1960, p. 8) wrote:

"If a d electron, for example, can easily behave like an f electron, or vice versa, the argument as to the exact ground state configuration becomes relatively unimportant."

That is to say, both La and Lu can relatively easily behave as if they were f elements never mind their 4f⁰5d¹6s² and 4f¹⁴5d¹6s² formal configs.

Sanderson RT 1960, Chemical Periodicity, Reinhold, New York

The chemistry stack exchange response and Sanderson show that the presence of this or that kind of electron, especially in marginal cases at the borders of putative blocks is less than a major consideration.

1a., 4. On groups 2 and 12, I suggest there is more to the question than a sin

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Re why I withdrew my support for the 2017 submission[edit]

Exchange of views (Eov) 1[edit]

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