Talk:Heavy metals/Archive 1
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Article suggestions
I was asked to take a look. It's an interesting and well-written article. In addition to the modest edits I already made, here are some more suggestions.
- 1. Too many quotes; these could be summarised.
- Should be easy to fix.
- Done.
- Should be easy to fix.
- 2. Perhaps a little too much discussion about the definition of the term. This will not be interesting to non-specialists, though it is interesting to me. --John (talk) 10:37, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
- Might be OK as non-specialists can get the gist of it by reading only the first paragraph of this section, or only the first sentences in each paragraph of the section. Perhaps this one cld go through to the FAC jury.
- 3. I'd also like to see more on the chemical (as opposed to physical) properties and uses of the substances, and on their biology. I'll be away for a few days so may not check this frequently. I will though. --John (talk) 23:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
- I'll have another look at Duffus as he has some content on chemical properties, and biology. Did you have anything in mind with more on chemical uses? Catalytic applications comes to mind but apart from soaps, I'm not sure if the period 3+ metals have other shared chemical uses. (Not that I've thought much about this yet). Sandbh (talk) 10:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
- On chemical properties I’ve added a paragraph in the definitions section about their behaviour as Lewis acids; electronegativity; and ionic or covalent bonding tendencies. For chemical uses I’ve expanded mention of their uses as anti-infective agents. As to biology, I’ve elaborated the nutrition section to show applicable biological processes for each of the named heavy metals.
- I'll have another look at Duffus as he has some content on chemical properties, and biology. Did you have anything in mind with more on chemical uses? Catalytic applications comes to mind but apart from soaps, I'm not sure if the period 3+ metals have other shared chemical uses. (Not that I've thought much about this yet). Sandbh (talk) 10:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comparative properties table now added. Sandbh (talk) 23:16, 14 July 2016 (UTC)Sandbh (talk) 07:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Shakey foundations
The article is premised on weak or non-existent definitions. Otherwise the lede or lede+1 would be loaded with high quality references. The opposite is found here. It is thus, in my opinion, a well intentioned OR project dressed up with a lot of jargon. If Wiki administrators or whatever want to evaluate important topics, they should first of all make damn sure that the topic is a topic, and not some loose term that caught some random editor's fancy. We all fall in love with topics and write a lot about them, me too, but that affection is not the foundation of an encyclopedic topic. Having said that, the article does no harm. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:26, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- There are good sources on this topic, as cited in the article: Nieboer & Richardson (1980); Hawkes (1997); Duffus (2002); Hübner, Astin & Herbert (2010). I believe it represents a fair overall summary and that the absence of a rigid definition has been appropriately noted. Sandbh (talk) 12:28, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
- Quite so. Yet another high school essay masquerading as a scientific encyclopaedia entry, bandying the term 'heavy metal' about as the writer's whim takes him.
Selenium as heavy metal?
Sandbh, I can't help but wonder if things have gone astray. The list of essential elements includes some elements that are heavy metals and some that are generally not considered metals (except by astronomers). Going on to explain that some essential elements are nonetheless toxic at higher doses is an important point as well. But I question whether selenium belongs on this page about heavy metals. Is this an instance of WP:COATRACK? Aren't we supposed to confine ourselves to the putative subject of the page? —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:26, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- G'day Jim. Thank you for your question. I'm inclined to leave Se in, but I need to do a better job of explaining why in the article. I just noticed it doesn't appear in the density periodic table, yet I talk about Se in the toxicity and biological role section. Headslap! If you have a look at the metalloid article, here, you can see that Se is commonly regarded as a heavy metal in the environmental literature. Hence my reasoning. How does that sound? Sandbh (talk) 10:48, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- Admittedly, heavy metal gets thrown around fairly loosely at times. I guess you have to do a delicate balancing act between the different scopes of interest. And I see you're already involved in balancing content between here and Toxic heavy metal, so I think I'll just stand back and stay out of the fray. —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 20:07, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry, not good enough. This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. These terms are being bandied about as though written by Humpty Dumpty. 'Heavy metal' is not a term you can define as the whim takes you.
FAC comments from Nergaal
Copied from User talk:Sandbh
I will have to go through it carefully again, but the intro is still on the too short side, and the source part in the second table still throws me off. The Goldschmidt classification article shows a different distribution. Nergaal (talk) 00:52, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks Nergaal. I think the intro succinctly captures all of the main body of the article but please let me know if there is anything you think I've missed.
- Still short. Here are some ex I pulled form a quick search: "Many of the heavy metals, such as zinc, copper, chromium, iron and manganese, are essential to body function in very small amounts. But, if these metals accumulate in the body in concentrations sufficient to cause poisoning, then serious damage may occur. The heavy metals most commonly associated with poisoning of humans are lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium. Heavy metal poisoning may occur as a result of industrial exposure, air or water pollution, foods, medicines, improperly coated food containers, or the ingestion of lead-based paints." or "The term has particular application to cadmium, mercury, lead and arsenic,[5] all of which appear in the World Health Organisation's list of 10 chemicals of major public concern." These might be a bit on the slightly too descriptive but some of the info should be explicit in the intro. Plus "heavy metals are useful in nearly all aspects of modern economic activity" is sooooooooooo vague. Give some explicit examples of common uses. Nergaal (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Sandbh (talk) 13:43, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Still short. Here are some ex I pulled form a quick search: "Many of the heavy metals, such as zinc, copper, chromium, iron and manganese, are essential to body function in very small amounts. But, if these metals accumulate in the body in concentrations sufficient to cause poisoning, then serious damage may occur. The heavy metals most commonly associated with poisoning of humans are lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium. Heavy metal poisoning may occur as a result of industrial exposure, air or water pollution, foods, medicines, improperly coated food containers, or the ingestion of lead-based paints." or "The term has particular application to cadmium, mercury, lead and arsenic,[5] all of which appear in the World Health Organisation's list of 10 chemicals of major public concern." These might be a bit on the slightly too descriptive but some of the info should be explicit in the intro. Plus "heavy metals are useful in nearly all aspects of modern economic activity" is sooooooooooo vague. Give some explicit examples of common uses. Nergaal (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The second table shows the abundance and primary geochemical classification of the naturally occurring elements in the Earth's crust. The Goldschmidt periodic table shows the geochemical classification of the elements in the whole of the Earth, rather than just the crust, hence the difference. Does this help? Sandbh (talk) 01:05, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I guess you could pull up the line into period 3 to go around the word litophile. But what about the f-block? The current scheme is not clear. Nergaal (talk) 01:13, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Would adding some explanatory text at the bottom of the table fit the bill? Something like, "Heavy metals above and to the left of the dividing line (including those shown by the * and † symbols), are lithophiles; those to the right are chalcophiles, with the exception of tin and gold. Sandbh (talk) 02:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- OK I've done this. Sandbh (talk) 11:57, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Would adding some explanatory text at the bottom of the table fit the bill? Something like, "Heavy metals above and to the left of the dividing line (including those shown by the * and † symbols), are lithophiles; those to the right are chalcophiles, with the exception of tin and gold. Sandbh (talk) 02:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I guess you could pull up the line into period 3 to go around the word litophile. But what about the f-block? The current scheme is not clear. Nergaal (talk) 01:13, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Legend for table 2: baby blue seems to be actually only up to 950.
- I believe that was because the middle four legend boxes spanned two magnitudes each: 102 to 104; 100 to 102; 10–2 to 100 etc but I agree in this case it's misleading, so I've changed it to 999. Sandbh (talk) 02:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Also, TBH, all the stuff in red and orange (plus Cd) in table 1 is what I think people think of when hearing HM. Anything in period 4 really seems like a stretch, so I would really like some clarification how and who see them as HM. Nergaal (talk) 01:09, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Don't understand n14. Why not just say artificial and list stuff like Tc? Nergaal (talk) 22:37, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- They're not artificial since they do exist in the Earth's crust as a result of the radioactive decay of heavier elements. I originally left out Tc as the reference I was using had left it out of their geochemical periodic table. As I recall, Goldschmidt did the same with his classification of the elements. This kind of thing morphed into a discussion on my talk page, here, that Double sharp initiated and resulted in the non-listing of the rest of the ghost elements. Sandbh (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
"Atomic weight definitions start at greater than sodium (22.98) to greater than 40, or 200 or more" rephrase- "Definitions based on atomic number have been criticised for including metals with low densities." that guy said Rb explicitly should not be a HM?
- No, that was my example of the point he was trying to make. He commented that some definitions refer to HMs having atomic numbers above 20, "that of sodium" [sic]. Obviously he meant to say "scandium". He then bags the inclusion of metals such as Mg and K as HM since they are essential metals and have densities lower than any that have been used as a defining property by other authors (as is the case with Rb, density 1.532 g/cm3). Sandbh (talk) 12:51, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
who is Hawkes- wikilink for class A/B
- I've redlinked these terms as exisiting articles are restricted to inorganic systems only, and say nothing about biological systems. Sandbh (talk) 13:13, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
- if some people dispute Ir, are there a specific set of metals that everybody strictly agrees are HM?
- No. Maybe Hg and Pb would be close, with As (handicapped by its metalloid reputation), W, Tl and Bi as runners up. Sandbh (talk) 13:31, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
- idea for intro: HM are relatively rare, but become a problem when concentrated as a result of industrial activities?
- I think the expanded into does this?
"antimony can kill;" vague"drug used to treat cancer," used to kill cancerous cells" arsenic (metabolic growth in some animals, and possibly humans" needs citationmaybe mention dietary intake or estimate mg of HM in the human body? (i.e. how much Fe, Cu, Zn, etc)
- I particulary like this one; will do some research. Sandbh (talk) 13:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
say that HM are abundant below the crust (Fe/Ni forms the core of Earth, U gives keeps it hot)
- This one is good too. Sandbh (talk) 13:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
don't call Au "nobelest""became concentrated " => sunk- mention the term coinage metal
- Mentioned in note 20, after the sentence that talks about HM use in coinage. Sandbh (talk) 23:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
who says actinides (U) are not heavy metals?
Nergaal (talk) 23:06, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
Striking a few done items.Sandbh (talk) 11:17, 14 July 2016 (UTC)- All done
or addressed. Sandbh (talk) 23:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
- All done
more
- I still think class A/B is a weird term Are you sure it doesn't refer to Patterson's classification of hard/soft bases? Anyways, a technical temr like this either needs to be explained or wikilinked to a real article. Nergaal (talk) 10:21, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
- the biological role ca probably list the complete list of trace HMs with rough estimates (something like: Fe ~5g; Ni, Cu and Zn ~?mg; and Co?, Mn?, V?, Cr? as trace?) Nergaal (talk) 10:27, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
FAC comments from Graeme Bartlett
Copied from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Heavy metal (chemical element)/archive1
- Is it possible to merge the "citations" and "references" sections as much as possible? They really only need to be distinct where there are more than one reference to different parts of the same work. It would be useful if there were many different pages from just a few books used for the whole article. As it stands it makes navigation to the actual reference extra complex, and for most of these there would be only one use any way. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:28, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I looked back at the 116 citations and found that they and their references had been merged, where practical. If I was to use only a few sources the article would be a pale and patchy imitation. For example, Duffus addressed the definition question but his paper stops at 1936, and missed Hawkes' paper on what is a heavy metal. Habashi records the likely first appearance of the term but says nothing more about it. Emsley, and Tokar et al. discuss toxicity and biological roles but are sometimes incomplete (neither mention aquatic silver toxicity) or some of what they say was better expressed or illustrated by others, such as the lethal dose of nickel carbonyl. Cox addresses formation, abundance and occurrence but I found some of his writing to be hard going or lacking in clarity. The uses section relies on a fair number of citations from different sources simply because I couldn't find any better overarching sources. Sandbh (talk) 03:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I've added a Further reading section as a way of focussing on some key works; there are a couple of additional coverage items there too. Sandbh (talk) 04:40, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I looked back at the 116 citations and found that they and their references had been merged, where practical. If I was to use only a few sources the article would be a pale and patchy imitation. For example, Duffus addressed the definition question but his paper stops at 1936, and missed Hawkes' paper on what is a heavy metal. Habashi records the likely first appearance of the term but says nothing more about it. Emsley, and Tokar et al. discuss toxicity and biological roles but are sometimes incomplete (neither mention aquatic silver toxicity) or some of what they say was better expressed or illustrated by others, such as the lethal dose of nickel carbonyl. Cox addresses formation, abundance and occurrence but I found some of his writing to be hard going or lacking in clarity. The uses section relies on a fair number of citations from different sources simply because I couldn't find any better overarching sources. Sandbh (talk) 03:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I will also investigate whether there are DOIs for some of those journals, and whether authors have article here on Wikipedia or not.
FAC comments by YBG
Resolved: Here's my first cut having just glanced through the article
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Hope to provide more input later YBG (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
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==lede==
Resolved
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YBG (talk) 06:48, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
A well-deserved breakThanks for working with me on sentence 3. What do you think about this:
Thoughts? YBG (talk) 04:08, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
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Pie chart
Resolved
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So, there was no mixed metaphor that I could see. I'm not a fan of pie charts except in limited cases; this one took up way too much room and the HM slice was indistinguishable. The metaphor is more powerful and does it in a fraction of the space. Sandbh (talk) 09:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
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Uses
Resolved
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Further to your earlier comments about general, specific, niche etc I'll see if I can re-sort these uses into something like (in no particular order yet): 1. Manufacturing and construction; 2. Density based applications; 3. Atomic number based apps; 4. Colouring agents; 5. Biological agents; 6. Soaps; 7. Catalysts; and 8. Electronics and electrical. This may take a while. Sandbh (talk) 02:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Here's another try at reorganizing the usage sections.
Thoughts? YBG (talk) 05:01, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
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Links
Resolved: Red links
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(blue links to follow) YBG (talk) 02:29, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
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More
There are several places where a mini-PT illustration might be helpful, like we used at Properties of metals, metalloids and nonmetals. Particularly where there are lists of elements. YBG (talk) 06:55, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
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Some more sections
DefinitionsResolved
ToxicityResolved
Biological roleResolved Biological role
Formation &cResolved
Hope this is helpful. YBG (talk) 06:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
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Now that this article has been renamed, what should its title really be?
2016-08-07 Sandbh nominated Heavy metal (chemical element) (this article) at WP:Featured article candidates#.... Something like a discussion about moving (renaming) this article took place over there, and then Sandbh moved this article to Heavy metal (science and technology). (WP:FAC is the place for nominating, but work was needed. Nomination looked premature. It says there "Before nominating an article, nominators may wish to receive feedback by listing it at peer review." (I.e., fix up an article and then nominate it.)) The discussion at FAC was mentioned at the top of this talk page, and Sandbh mentioned it again in the edit summary of the move. Before the move(s), nothing mentioned that the discussion (over at FAC) was also "discussing" moving (renaming) this article. (I couldn't care less about any "Featured Article" discussion or decision, so I would never follow such a link. I'm only on this talk page to question the move.)
I have a funny feeling about this move. Maybe it was better left undone. It is not a casual decision.
First of all: Heavy metal (chemical element) only needed the suffix "(chemical element)" because Heavy metal is a disambiguation page. (None of the multiple uses of "heavy metal" was deemed "primary".)
One impetus for moving from "Heavy metal (chemical element)" is that "metal" also refers to every alloy, and alloys are mixtures, not elements.
One could argue for Heavy metal (chemistry) because "heavy metal" is a chemical term that refers to the atoms, whether in solid metals, solid salts, or aqueous solutions; whether pure, alloyed or mixed. Heavy metal (chemistry) (created 2015-05-09T20:43:11 by Sandbh) is (currently) a redirect to Toxic heavy metal. (It probably should redirect to THIS article, but only after checking what links to it.) This is a potential gridlock. Consider making "Heavy metal (chemistry)" the article about the elements, while leaving "Toxic heavy metal" as the article about the toxic elements. Toxic heavy metals are obviously a subset (at least until some bureaucrat mis-deems beryllium a toxic heavy metal). (Related articles include Metal toxicity.)
One could also argue for Heavy metal (physics). Physics defines what "heavy" means (mass and atomic mass), and most definitions for "metal" are owned by physics (mechanical properties, electrical properties). But the physics term excludes chemical aspects. Chemistry, actually a subset of physics, branched off because of its depth and complexity. Most chemists inevitably use physical measurements every day, while many physicists never use chemistry, ever. The elements belong to chemistry (except when they decay). Reactive ions belong to chemistry (except when they are accelerated).
Copied from the intro of Metallurgy: "Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, ..." (follow those links)
Thus I think chemistry owns "heavy metal", especially as used here, more than do physics, engineering, or technology. I wouldn't say science owns that definition because it is too general (besides physics, science includes math, biology, psychology). So science and technology is way too general to own it.
Here are the renaming edit summaries:
The latest rename to Heavy metal (science and technology):
[1]
06:12, 18 August 2016 Sandbh ... (Sandbh moved page Heavy metal (chemical elements) to Heavy metal (science and technology):
Discussion at WP:FAC---dissatisfaction with HM (chemical element) and HM (chemical elements)---this one seems to be more encompassing)
A prior (minor, short-lived) rename to Heavy metal (chemical elements):
[2]
23:35, 11 August 2016 Sandbh ... (Sandbh moved page Heavy metal (chemical element) to Heavy metal (chemical elements):
Change from HM (chemical element) to HM (chemical elements) to avoid giving impression that there is a chemical element called "heavy metal" in the same manner...)
In closing, -A876 (talk) 19:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
- I don't really like the current title as it is a bit long in its disambiguation, as well as the above concern. Perhaps Heavy metal element, Heavy metal (element), Heavy metal (metallurgy), or even Heavy metal (metal) would be more succinct. I could live with Heavy metal (chemistry). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
An argument for Heavy metal (science and technology) would be: It is shorter than Heavy metal (chemistry, biology, and metallurgy) (which tells which sciences and technology apply). (But it's silly long.)
I'm almost definitely wanting THIS PAGE to be the primary Heavy metal article. I've just added a hatnote here to disambiguation page. If someone says "heavy metal", I (and I presume most people) assume that they refer to the metal(s) or element(s) (solid or ions or compounds), except if they are talking about listening to it, playing it, reading it, or watching it. The music, magazine, films, videos, etc. only have secondary claims to the phrase, because they have borrowed it, because it sounds cool. A heavy metal bullet is heavy metal. Heavy metal music is data. -A876 (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
- I like the primary option, and the hatnote. Historical precedent would appear to lend support, as you note. The actual metal sense dates from as early as 1817 whereas the musical sense dates from (AFAIK) no earlier than the 1960s. Sandbh (talk) 23:40, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
- WP:PRIMARYTOPIC lists two major aspects of being primary topic, usage and long-term significance. The former leans toward HM music and the latter toward HM(S+T):
- {+music} A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
- {+(S+T)} A topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.
- WP:PRIMARYTOPIC lists three tools that may help support the determination of primary topic. I believe all measure usage and so would lean toward HM music:
- {+music} Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
- {+music} Wikipedia article traffic statistics
- {+music} Usage in English reliable sources demonstrated with Google web, news, scholar, or book searches (NOTE: adding
&pws=0
to the Google search string eliminates personal search bias)
- WP:PRIMARYTOPIC lists four proposed criteria that have never won general acceptance, and gives counterexamples for each. Of these, three would seem to be relevant in this case, and in all three, the general principal would lean toward HM(S+T) but the counterexample is more similar to HM music:
- {+(S+T) general principal} Historical age
- {~music counderexample} (Kennewick, Washington is primary for Kennewick over the much older Kennewick Man)
- {+(S+T) general principal} If a topic was the original
- {~music counderexample} (Boston is about Boston, Massachusetts, not the English city that first bore that name)
- {N/A general principal} Principal relevance only to certain people groups
- {N/A counterexample} (House of Lords is about the UK's House of Lords, even though there have been many other Houses of Lords)
- {+(S+T) general principal} If a topic has only ascended to widespread notability and prominence recently
- {~music counderexample} (ISIS does not take the reader to an article on an Egyptian goddess)
- {+(S+T) general principal} Historical age
- I see some other ideas here that I do not find mentioned in the general DAB discussions (using the terms from WP:NCDAB):
- HM music has a natural disambiguator, and so, even if it were the primary topic, I don't think the page would not be Heavy metal.
- HM (S+T) has no natural disambiguator, and from the discussion above, no parenthetical disambiguator that easily wins wide acceptance.
- I'm not sure what to make of these observations, but I offer them here for you consideration. IMHO, if we can decide on a parenthetical disambiguator, it shouldn't require discussion beyond this talk page. But deciding to not use a disambiguator would probably require a discussion involving other editors, e.g., those who are interested in music but not in groups of chemical elements. YBG (talk) 13:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
- I read the policy around primaries last night and saw that historical first use doesn't count for much and that popularity, as a search term, does. The musical genre would be much more popular than the metallic substance concept. So the case for making heavy metal the primary appears quite weak. I like Graeme's suggestion of Heavy metal (metal). The one weakness it has is that it could construed to imply that the article is about a singe metal called "heavy metal". I think this is a remote possibility that is not worth worrying about. Sandbh (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- Heavy metal (metals) would avoid the idea that it is one metal, we might get away with Heavy metals too (currently a redirect to Toxic heavy metal), but I suspect both fall afoul of the naming standards. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- I do like Heavy metals. Or Heavy metal metal, since there is no plural for metals equivalent to the "music" in Heavy metal music. Perhaps better would be Heavy metal (periodic table). I see WP:TITLE allows for plurals to cater for "names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages)", so Heavy metals would be OK. At the moment I'm torn between these three options. Sandbh (talk) 21:33, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'm switching my preference to Heavy metal (metals). It doesn't have a plural in the main part of the title; it's less awkward than Heavy metal metal; it accommodates elements and their alloys; it doesn't imply there is a single metal called "heavy metal"; and it captures the subject matter precisely. Sandbh (talk) 03:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- If in fact plurals are allowed in article titles, then I would strongly favor Heavy metals over any of the others that have been listed. I find any of the things with metal repeated to be very clumsy. YBG (talk) 04:54, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- That would be OK with me. Anybody else? Sandbh (talk) 05:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- Out of my suggestions, Heavy metals seems to me to be the best, being compact, not waffly, not excluding some disciplines, and not sounding silly eg Heavy metal (heavy metal). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'm switching my preference to Heavy metal (metals). It doesn't have a plural in the main part of the title; it's less awkward than Heavy metal metal; it accommodates elements and their alloys; it doesn't imply there is a single metal called "heavy metal"; and it captures the subject matter precisely. Sandbh (talk) 03:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- I do like Heavy metals. Or Heavy metal metal, since there is no plural for metals equivalent to the "music" in Heavy metal music. Perhaps better would be Heavy metal (periodic table). I see WP:TITLE allows for plurals to cater for "names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages)", so Heavy metals would be OK. At the moment I'm torn between these three options. Sandbh (talk) 21:33, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- Heavy metal (metals) would avoid the idea that it is one metal, we might get away with Heavy metals too (currently a redirect to Toxic heavy metal), but I suspect both fall afoul of the naming standards. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- I read the policy around primaries last night and saw that historical first use doesn't count for much and that popularity, as a search term, does. The musical genre would be much more popular than the metallic substance concept. So the case for making heavy metal the primary appears quite weak. I like Graeme's suggestion of Heavy metal (metal). The one weakness it has is that it could construed to imply that the article is about a singe metal called "heavy metal". I think this is a remote possibility that is not worth worrying about. Sandbh (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- WP:PRIMARYTOPIC lists two major aspects of being primary topic, usage and long-term significance. The former leans toward HM music and the latter toward HM(S+T):
@A876:@Graeme Bartlett:@YBG:@Double sharp: Article title has been changed to Heavy metals; you may need to update your watchlist. Sandbh (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Okay, done! Double sharp (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I did the change via a copy and paste, and adjusted the associated redirect pages, as there was already a Heavy metal article (a redirect to Toxic heavy metal). Of course, I completely overlooked :( the fact that in so doing, the HM (science & technology) history would be left behind; ditto the talk page history. YBG has since asked for admin assistance to merge the orphaned histories into the heavy metals and talk histories. Sandbh (talk) 07:19, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
The List
In § List of heavy metals based on density, thorium is listed as being neither CommonCommodity, Strategic, Precious, nor Minor - despite the fact that Minor is defined as anything that is neither CommonCommodity, Strategic, nor Precious. Sounds like an error to me. Anyone know what's right? YBG (talk) 04:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- Oh! It should be minor since it's neither
CommonCommodity, Strategic nor Precious. Sandbh (talk) 07:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)- Common→Commodity above YBG (talk) 06:46, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- What about using a table formatted like this?
Classification of heavy metals Strategic heavy metals
(considered vital to the national interests of multiple countries)[1]Minor heavy metals
(neither commodity, precious nor strategic metals)Commodity heavy metals
(traded by the tonne on the LME)Precious heavy metals
(rare, naturally occurring and costly)[2]
* Antimony and arsenic are commonly recognised as metalloids[3] † Astatine is predicted to be a metal[4] ‡ Moscovium, nihonium, and tennessine are provisional names[5] Radioactive metals, including naturally occurring metals like uranium and synthetic ones like americium. () Bismuth is radioactive but effectively stable, with a half-life of 19 billion billion years,[6] over a billion times the 13.8 billion year estimated age of the universe.[7]
- ^ Chakhmouradian, Smith & Kynicky 2015, pp. 456–457
- ^ Cotton 1997, p. ix ; Ryan 2012, p. 369
- ^ Vernon 2013, p. 1703
- ^ Hermann, Hoffmann & Ashcroft 2013, p. 11604-1
- ^ IUPAC 2016
- ^ Emsley 2011, p. 75
- ^ Gribbon 2015, p. x
- YBG: I'm agog at your graphics-fu. Please proceed! Sandbh (talk) 09:52, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- The table looks OK, but I am a little concerned about its accessibility. Another issue I have is that not all the REE would be strategic. Some are just about useless. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, REE are rated as critical/strategic by the European Commission; the Government of the Russian Federation (Heavy REE only); the UK Government; and Geoscience Australia. See: Chakhmouradian A.R., Smith M. P. & Kynicky J. 2015, "From "strategic" tungsten to "green" neodymium: A century of critical metals at a glance", Ore Geology Reviews, vol. 64, January, pp. 455–458, doi:10.1016/j.oregeorev.2014.06.008 ---Sandbh (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- I agree about accessibility. The headers and contents are separated too far from each other and there is no way a screen reader could make the connection. I will work on another version which will not separate the labels from the lists. YBG (talk) 03:56, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, REE are rated as critical/strategic by the European Commission; the Government of the Russian Federation (Heavy REE only); the UK Government; and Geoscience Australia. See: Chakhmouradian A.R., Smith M. P. & Kynicky J. 2015, "From "strategic" tungsten to "green" neodymium: A century of critical metals at a glance", Ore Geology Reviews, vol. 64, January, pp. 455–458, doi:10.1016/j.oregeorev.2014.06.008 ---Sandbh (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- The table looks OK, but I am a little concerned about its accessibility. Another issue I have is that not all the REE would be strategic. Some are just about useless. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
- YBG: I'm agog at your graphics-fu. Please proceed! Sandbh (talk) 09:52, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
Version 2
As promised:
|
|
* | Antimony and arsenic are commonly recognised as metalloids[3] |
† | Astatine is predicted to be a metal[4] |
‡ | Moscovium, nihonium, and tennessine are provisional names[5] |
Radioactive metals, including naturally occurring metals like uranium and synthetic ones like americium. | |
() | Bismuth is radioactive but effectively stable, with a half-life of 19 billion billion years,[6] over a billion times the 13.8 billion year estimated age of the universe.[7] |
- ^ Chakhmouradian, Smith & Kynicky 2015, pp. 456–457
- ^ Cotton 1997, p. ix ; Ryan 2012, p. 369
- ^ Vernon 2013, p. 1703
- ^ Hermann, Hoffmann & Ashcroft 2013, p. 11604-1
- ^ IUPAC 2016
- ^ Emsley 2011, p. 75
- ^ Gribbon 2015, p. x
I don't think it is quite a visually appealing, but I believe it is better in the accessibility department. YBG (talk) 05:39, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- This highlights in the correct order, so screen readers should make sense. I would ask for a distinction between the minor elements, that you could buy, and the highly radioactive short lived elements, that have to be manufactured or extracted on demand (artificial/manmade elements). So you would need another table. I would put Promethium in the artificial category by the way! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:25, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- I don't think it makes sense to say that Eu is radioactive. Granted it has a natural radioisotope, but the half-life is too long to worry about. Additionally, indeed a note for Bi would be a good idea, but I would not put a radiation sign on it. You would have to be some sort of ageless immortal living on an incredibly time scale to need to worry about that.
- Additionally, I would make a distinction between radioactive metals that you can actually mine (Th, U) and those you can't, either because they are too short-lived (Po, Ra, Ac, Pa) or because they are essentially absent in nature (Tc, Pm, At, Fr, Np onwards.)
- Finally, I would not use the provisional names Nh, Mc, and Ts until they are actually approved. Our de facto guideline on this (which I remember having been applied for Cn, and then later for Fl and Lv) is not to use them unless the provisional names are the primary subject. So they should still be called Uut, Uup, and Uus until November. Double sharp (talk) 12:46, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
DS attempt
|
|
* | Antimony and arsenic are commonly recognised as metalloids[3] |
† | Astatine is predicted to be a metal[4] |
Radioactive | |
§ | Bismuth is technically radioactive but can be treated as stable for nearly all purposes given its half-life of 19 billion billion years[5] is over a billion times the 13.8 billion year estimated age of the universe.[6] |
- ^ Chakhmouradian, Smith & Kynicky 2015, pp. 456–457
- ^ Cotton 1997, p. ix ; Ryan 2012, p. 369
- ^ Vernon 2013, p. 1703
- ^ Hermann, Hoffmann & Ashcroft 2013, p. 11604-1
- ^ Emsley 2011, p. 75
- ^ Gribbon 2015, p. x
What do you think? Double sharp (talk) 12:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Looks good to me. I have yet another issue though. What happened to barium? Its name means heavy, so it would be a heavy metal. Thanks for dropping radioactive symbol from bismuth and europium! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Barium might be heavy for an s-block element (only surpassed by radium), but at 3.51 g/cm3 it fails to cross the 5 g/cm3 boundary. You do have a point – I think of barium as a heavy metal anyway, perhaps because its soluble salts like BaCl2 are toxic. (OTOH, I can't see strontium as one.) But given how ill-defined the term "heavy metal" is I suppose a sharp boundary can't hurt.
- I'm glad you like it. I was undecided for a while what to do with elements like radium, but decided that since it does occur in nature (though only at about 1 ppt of the crust) and can be (or at least has been) mined from natural sources, it could stay with its illustrious parents thorium and uranium. Polonium and actinium are still shorter-lived and rarer and are mostly produced from neutron irradiation of bismuth and radium, but I cannot think of a way to bring them down that does not need a lot of explanation. Double sharp (talk) 13:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Barium was given its name due to the density of its oxide (5.72 g/cm3) rather than the metal itself. Sandbh (talk) 21:57, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
YBG #3
Strategic heavy metals (considered vital to multiple countries' national interests)[1] |
|
---|---|
Commodity heavy metals (traded by the tonne on the LME) |
|
Precious heavy metals (rare, naturally occurring and costly)[2] |
|
Minor heavy metals (neither commodity, precious nor strategic metals) |
|
Artifical heavy metals (neither commodity, precious nor strategic metals) |
* | Antimony and arsenic are commonly recognised as metalloids[3] |
† | Astatine is predicted to be a metal[4] |
Radioactive | |
§ | Bismuth is technically radioactive but can be treated as stable for nearly all purposes, with a half-life of 19 billion billion years,[5] over a billion times the 13.8 billion year estimated age of the universe.[6] |
- ^ Chakhmouradian, Smith & Kynicky 2015, pp. 456–457
- ^ Cotton 1997, p. ix ; Ryan 2012, p. 369
- ^ Vernon 2013, p. 1703
- ^ Hermann, Hoffmann & Ashcroft 2013, p. 11604-1
- ^ Emsley 2011, p. 75
- ^ Gribbon 2015, p. x
Yet another alternative. YBG (talk) 04:01, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I like this one! Double sharp (talk) 04:35, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Me too!! Sandbh (talk) 09:48, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- This is more tidy and organised, more in a Wikipedia style. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree, and I'll refine this one a bit (graphically speaking). Sandbh (talk) 23:54, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I went ahead and posted the refined version of this table. @YBG: A big thank you for getting us going down this path. Sandbh (talk) 05:09, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- BTW, I note that we exclude Ge and Te on the basis that they are semiconductors. This creates a few problems with the superheavies: Cn is also predicted to be one (link). Additionally, it is not actually known experimentally if Mt, Ds, Rg, 113, 115, Lv, and 117 are metals, and Fricke describes 117 as "semimetallic". Double sharp (talk) 05:12, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- P.S. I have great difficulty thinking of the superheavies from Fm onwards as heavy metals, since their chemistry is mostly unexplored (indeed Cn is probably a semiconductor and not a metal) and you cannot viscerally feel their heaviness (nor would you for gaseous Cn and Fl). I would personally have pounced on the "superheavy metals" category of Loveland to exclude 104–117 from the bulk of the article for this reason: I can tolerate ending at Lr to finish the actinides. Double sharp (talk) 05:18, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- I might exclude mention of the superheavy metal (SHM) name since Loveland is a weak reference and I'm not sure the SHM label is helpful in the context of the article. The article originally referred to HM as including metalloids since that sometimes happens in the literature. Then I ran into some turbulence accommodating selenium (density 4.81 g/cm3), which is sometimes referred to as a HM, especially in the environmental literature. (If Gmelin had been working with the imperial system he may have chosen 300 lbs/ft3 as his light/heavy metal cutoff in which case Se, density 300.27, would've made the grade, but he chose 5 gm/cm3 = 312.14lbs/ft3.) So I decided to apply a stricter interpretation of what is a metal, and hence exclude the semiconducting metalloids Ge, Se and Te. But I forgot about e.g. Cn and maybe 117. So, I'm inclined to go back to the original approach of saying HM include metalloids that meet the density criterion, and that would accomodate Cn and 117, and the rest. The fact that we don't know the chemical properties of e.g. Mt, Ds and Uut I don't think matters, since no one is expecting them to be nonmetals (are they?). For predictions of gaseous Cn and Fl I would add carefully worded note saying this could call into question their status as "heavy/weighty" metals, although they would still presumably be the heaviest known gases. This reminds about historical arguments over whether mercury could be regarded as a true metal in light of its liquid form. Then someone poured some Hg into very cold ice, it froze into a malleable form, and mercury was admitted to the true metal club: see here. Oh, and I don't think the fact that you couldn't viscerally feel the heaviness of the superheavies matters. Same thing presumably applies to e.g. Tc and Po. Sandbh (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I think the original approach (including Ge, Se, Te, Cn, and 117) is the best, to be perfectly consistent with the density criterion (and rounding up a little for Se, because it is mentioned too often). Yes, no one thinks Mt–Rg or 113–Lv will be anything other than metals for now. Yakushev et al. said "Fl is the least reactive element in the group, but still a metal" – so we have some precedent for calling copernicium and flerovium true metals in light of their likely gaseous forms. No I can't viscerally feel Tc and Po either (Th and U is the furthest I could go towards instability) – but at least I could imagine doing so with glove-box shielding. I think it's just because no one has ever made quantities of Fm–118 that you can see and that I would let go of that as soon as you could. Double sharp (talk) 04:21, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- 1. Good. 2. Perhaps—unless I've missed something—you're attaching too much weight to the need to be able to handle/see these metals (never mind how dense they are) before accepting them as heavy metals? They certainly are heavy in terms of at least atomic number and atomic weight? No one has yet seen At. You wouldn't be able to handle it either---only whatever it was supported by. How does this line of argument sound? Or should we be bust out the super-heavies into their own Transfermium(?) significance grouping? Sandbh (talk) 12:53, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, yes, I suppose they are heavy in those terms. I don't think any atomic number division among the artificial elements will really work, because the fugitive astatine (85) comes way before the respectable, long-lived neptunium (93), plutonium (94), and curium (96), even if it does come after technetium (43). So I think the current scheme is the best – or rather it will be after Ge, Se, and Te are reinstated. Double sharp (talk) 13:22, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Ge, Se and Te are back in, and I hived off the artificial elements with half-lives of less than 1 day into their own significance grouping. How does that look? Sandbh (talk) 03:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- I like it: it's a nice, sharp, arbitrary cutoff. Double sharp (talk) 14:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Ge, Se and Te are back in, and I hived off the artificial elements with half-lives of less than 1 day into their own significance grouping. How does that look? Sandbh (talk) 03:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, yes, I suppose they are heavy in those terms. I don't think any atomic number division among the artificial elements will really work, because the fugitive astatine (85) comes way before the respectable, long-lived neptunium (93), plutonium (94), and curium (96), even if it does come after technetium (43). So I think the current scheme is the best – or rather it will be after Ge, Se, and Te are reinstated. Double sharp (talk) 13:22, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- 1. Good. 2. Perhaps—unless I've missed something—you're attaching too much weight to the need to be able to handle/see these metals (never mind how dense they are) before accepting them as heavy metals? They certainly are heavy in terms of at least atomic number and atomic weight? No one has yet seen At. You wouldn't be able to handle it either---only whatever it was supported by. How does this line of argument sound? Or should we be bust out the super-heavies into their own Transfermium(?) significance grouping? Sandbh (talk) 12:53, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I think the original approach (including Ge, Se, Te, Cn, and 117) is the best, to be perfectly consistent with the density criterion (and rounding up a little for Se, because it is mentioned too often). Yes, no one thinks Mt–Rg or 113–Lv will be anything other than metals for now. Yakushev et al. said "Fl is the least reactive element in the group, but still a metal" – so we have some precedent for calling copernicium and flerovium true metals in light of their likely gaseous forms. No I can't viscerally feel Tc and Po either (Th and U is the furthest I could go towards instability) – but at least I could imagine doing so with glove-box shielding. I think it's just because no one has ever made quantities of Fm–118 that you can see and that I would let go of that as soon as you could. Double sharp (talk) 04:21, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- I might exclude mention of the superheavy metal (SHM) name since Loveland is a weak reference and I'm not sure the SHM label is helpful in the context of the article. The article originally referred to HM as including metalloids since that sometimes happens in the literature. Then I ran into some turbulence accommodating selenium (density 4.81 g/cm3), which is sometimes referred to as a HM, especially in the environmental literature. (If Gmelin had been working with the imperial system he may have chosen 300 lbs/ft3 as his light/heavy metal cutoff in which case Se, density 300.27, would've made the grade, but he chose 5 gm/cm3 = 312.14lbs/ft3.) So I decided to apply a stricter interpretation of what is a metal, and hence exclude the semiconducting metalloids Ge, Se and Te. But I forgot about e.g. Cn and maybe 117. So, I'm inclined to go back to the original approach of saying HM include metalloids that meet the density criterion, and that would accomodate Cn and 117, and the rest. The fact that we don't know the chemical properties of e.g. Mt, Ds and Uut I don't think matters, since no one is expecting them to be nonmetals (are they?). For predictions of gaseous Cn and Fl I would add carefully worded note saying this could call into question their status as "heavy/weighty" metals, although they would still presumably be the heaviest known gases. This reminds about historical arguments over whether mercury could be regarded as a true metal in light of its liquid form. Then someone poured some Hg into very cold ice, it froze into a malleable form, and mercury was admitted to the true metal club: see here. Oh, and I don't think the fact that you couldn't viscerally feel the heaviness of the superheavies matters. Same thing presumably applies to e.g. Tc and Po. Sandbh (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- I went ahead and posted the refined version of this table. @YBG: A big thank you for getting us going down this path. Sandbh (talk) 05:09, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree, and I'll refine this one a bit (graphically speaking). Sandbh (talk) 23:54, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- This is more tidy and organised, more in a Wikipedia style. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Me too!! Sandbh (talk) 09:48, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
YBG #4
Strategic heavy metals (considered vital to the national interests of multiple countries)[1] | |
---|---|
Commodity heavy metals (traded by the tonne on the London Metal Exchange) | |
Precious heavy metals (rare, naturally occurring and costly)[2] | |
Natural minor heavy metals (neither commodity, precious nor strategic metals) | |
Artifical minor heavy metals (neither commodity, precious nor strategic metals) | |
- ^ Chakhmouradian, Smith & Kynicky 2015, pp. 456–457
- ^ Cotton 1997, p. ix ; Ryan 2012, p. 369
And another one YBG (talk) 05:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- With the change to a header of "primoidal" some of those minor elements are now in the wrong box, as polonium, radium, actinium, and protactinium are not primoidal. Also is plutonium strategic for any nations? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:20, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've changed it above to "natural", so that Po, Ra, Ac, and Pa are now in the correct box. Double sharp (talk) 14:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- None of the government agencies/nations cited in the Chakhmouradian article, including the US DoD and Dept of Energy, list Pu as a strategic. Sandbh (talk) 23:31, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I don't like this version—too busy. Sandbh (talk) 04:45, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- None of the government agencies/nations cited in the Chakhmouradian article, including the US DoD and Dept of Energy, list Pu as a strategic. Sandbh (talk) 23:31, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've changed it above to "natural", so that Po, Ra, Ac, and Pa are now in the correct box. Double sharp (talk) 14:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Further discussion
I'd like to advocate for including the micro PT's in the chart. I think it is useful to show how some groups cluster in the PT. YBG (talk) 05:28, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- I find it OK for one or two, but having it for every cluster feels like cluttering. Of course, this may be because I (and almost certainly Sandbh) have the whole thing memorised anyway. Double sharp (talk) 05:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree. Sandbh (talk) 06:03, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, I do find it helpful, and that's probably because I don't have it memorized. But adding it to the article in the way I did recently does have the additional advantage of improving (IMHO) the way the labels and definitions of each category appear, mostly due to the smaller font size. But I suppose my addition of the micro PT with all of the HMs may have been too much and so it was reverted. I agree that it mostly duplicates the "heat" chart above. But I did find it helpful to see it in the same scale and presentation as the other micro PTs. But having seen it once, I can do without. What would you think about adding it back in as a collapsible table? I won't do it myself, but if anyone else thinks that might be a way of including the helpfulness of the summary micro PT without being unnecessarily redundant.
- On a different note, I think the verbage introducing the different categories of significance could be improved. There doesn't seem to be an immediate connection between the term "significance" at the end of the paragraph (and the category names in the table) on the one hand, and the text that appears earlier in the paragraph. I agree that the "significance" categories are useful, but they don't seem to be connected with the rest of the section. Maybe split the last sentence of the paragraph into a new paragraph and add a bit more verbage? YBG (talk) 06:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Sandbh (talk) 12:36, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- But what exactly is "significance" in this context? YBG (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Economic or occurrence significance. I hope the latest iteration works. Sandbh (talk) 03:48, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, that was helpful. I've tweaked it some more, but I'm not completely satisfied. YBG (talk) 04:38, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Ditto. I'm not happy yet. A tough nut to crack. Sandbh (talk) 10:34, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Nearly there now. The layout is done. Have to nail down that title; add a note that some artificially produced HM occur naturally but are too rare to economically extract (so will have to undo some of Double sharp's edits); the footnote markers need to be rationalised; the table is marginally too wide for my ipad; and I'm not sure the naturally extracted and artificially produced titles need to be in bold. Sandbh (talk) 01:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, OK, I can understand taking Po and Ac out (usually made from neutron irradiation of Bi and Ra), but Ra tends to be extracted (there's no other way to make the longest-lived 226Ra isotope) and most of what we know about Pa comes from one single extraction in 1960 from natural sources IIRC. Double sharp (talk) 01:39, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- @Double sharp: Emsley says that, as well as cyclotron production, it's become viable since 2000 to extract Ac from unwanted thorium fuel pellets that were going to be used in a nuclear reactor in the 1960s. The pellets have 3% U-233 and this has been decaying via Th-229 to give Ac-225. On Ra, he says it used to be extracted from U ores but is now extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods. Subject to your thoughts I'm inclined to count both of these as forms of (indirect) artificial synthesis, rather than natural extraction (from ores). And I'll move Po. Sandbh (talk) 08:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'm a little outdated here evidently then, since as you know I'm only familiar with the rare radioactives (i.e. anything but Th and U) through summaries in texts. So yes, I think this would mean that Po (neutron irradiation of Bi), Ra (from spent nuclear fuel), and Ac (from unwanted Th pellets) should now be in the artifical category, based on how they are commonly made. What about Pa? Do we make that from neutron irradiation of 230Th now? If so it should join the others. Double sharp (talk) 08:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- I haven't found anything yet to say that Pa is now made artificially rather than being sourced from the 1960s UK stash refined from uranium ore. So, I'll leave Pa as a minor until something turns up to the contrary. Sandbh (talk) 01:27, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'm a little outdated here evidently then, since as you know I'm only familiar with the rare radioactives (i.e. anything but Th and U) through summaries in texts. So yes, I think this would mean that Po (neutron irradiation of Bi), Ra (from spent nuclear fuel), and Ac (from unwanted Th pellets) should now be in the artifical category, based on how they are commonly made. What about Pa? Do we make that from neutron irradiation of 230Th now? If so it should join the others. Double sharp (talk) 08:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- @Double sharp: Emsley says that, as well as cyclotron production, it's become viable since 2000 to extract Ac from unwanted thorium fuel pellets that were going to be used in a nuclear reactor in the 1960s. The pellets have 3% U-233 and this has been decaying via Th-229 to give Ac-225. On Ra, he says it used to be extracted from U ores but is now extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods. Subject to your thoughts I'm inclined to count both of these as forms of (indirect) artificial synthesis, rather than natural extraction (from ores). And I'll move Po. Sandbh (talk) 08:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, OK, I can understand taking Po and Ac out (usually made from neutron irradiation of Bi and Ra), but Ra tends to be extracted (there's no other way to make the longest-lived 226Ra isotope) and most of what we know about Pa comes from one single extraction in 1960 from natural sources IIRC. Double sharp (talk) 01:39, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Nearly there now. The layout is done. Have to nail down that title; add a note that some artificially produced HM occur naturally but are too rare to economically extract (so will have to undo some of Double sharp's edits); the footnote markers need to be rationalised; the table is marginally too wide for my ipad; and I'm not sure the naturally extracted and artificially produced titles need to be in bold. Sandbh (talk) 01:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Ditto. I'm not happy yet. A tough nut to crack. Sandbh (talk) 10:34, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, that was helpful. I've tweaked it some more, but I'm not completely satisfied. YBG (talk) 04:38, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- Economic or occurrence significance. I hope the latest iteration works. Sandbh (talk) 03:48, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- But what exactly is "significance" in this context? YBG (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Sandbh (talk) 12:36, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree. Sandbh (talk) 06:03, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
Latest iteration of the table
@YGB: Oh wow! That's stunningly pretty. I love the reduction in table line clutter. Is there a way to get rid of the borders around the micro-PTs? Sandbh (talk) 06:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've made a bunch of formatting changes and overall I'm pleased with the result.
- Overall width reduced by nearly 6%, hopefully enough for S&bh's ipad. (YBG) Great! --Sandbh (talk) 08:37, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Cleaner now that vertical lines are eliminated and also the border around micro PTs (per S&bh above). Maybe I didn't have to do both, but either could be added back in.
- Background color, double-top-border and bold makes the extracted/synthesized headers stand out
- Footnotes now are narrower than the table and so have been included within the table itself.
- I've changed "Artificially produced" to "Artificially synthesized" (is that the correct en-au?)
- "Artificially synthesized" struck me as a tautological, hence I had "artificially produced". "Synthesized" is acceptable in Oz English. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- What about making the rows "Extracted from <what?>" and "Synthesized <how/where?>" YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Hmm, I'd leave it for now unless we can think of something better. I had a quick look in some dictionaries and can't find synthetic associated with being artifical e.g. wool = natural; nylon = synthetic. Might be an Australian thing or I have to look further. Small beer, no rush. Sandbh (talk) 04:52, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- What about making the rows "Extracted from <what?>" and "Synthesized <how/where?>" YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- "Artificially synthesized" struck me as a tautological, hence I had "artificially produced". "Synthesized" is acceptable in Oz English. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'm generally pleased with the category names
- Superscripted all footnote markers and used 5-point-asterisk for Bi since it looks a bit like the radioactivity symbol (YBG)
- Ah, now I follow. I tend to think the section mark in the title is jarring and not worth the (obscure to me) resemblance between a 5-pt asterisk and the radiation symbol. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've changed them again - using * in the header and for Bismuth, a white triangle () whose resemblence is much less obscure. YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Better, and interesting. Is there a hollow triangle symbol that looks a bit darker? This one is a bit washed out, even when it's bolded. Sandbh (talk) 04:56, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- A Greek delta: Δ ? Sandbh (talk) 04:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Bold has no impact on images. Could use a delta Δ, or or , but overall I rather like with its almost-invisible dot in the center and the washed-out look apropos of Bi's level of radioactivity. Incidentally, these are all images of Unicode geometric shapes, which might be accessible directly (or maybe not). YBG (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Leave it as it is. It's growing on me. Sandbh (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Bold has no impact on images. Could use a delta Δ, or or , but overall I rather like with its almost-invisible dot in the center and the washed-out look apropos of Bi's level of radioactivity. Incidentally, these are all images of Unicode geometric shapes, which might be accessible directly (or maybe not). YBG (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- A Greek delta: Δ ? Sandbh (talk) 04:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Better, and interesting. Is there a hollow triangle symbol that looks a bit darker? This one is a bit washed out, even when it's bolded. Sandbh (talk) 04:56, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've changed them again - using * in the header and for Bismuth, a white triangle () whose resemblence is much less obscure. YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Ah, now I follow. I tend to think the section mark in the title is jarring and not worth the (obscure to me) resemblance between a 5-pt asterisk and the radiation symbol. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Things I'd still like to see changed:
- Table header: Currently says "... by source, usage or stability, and PT location". I'd prefer "... by source, usage, stability, and PT location" because then "stability" neatly covers two different things: the subclassification of the extracted HM and also the marking of radioactive HM. (YBG)
- I had used "usage or stability" since the six HM categories spoke to either usage (the first four) or stability (the last two). When I see "usage, stability" I expect to see something about usage and stability, for each of the six categories. But I don't get that. I sure get usage for the first four, and stability for the last two and perhaps (in a deductive way) for the first four, but I don't get usage for the last two. And I never intended for these six categories of convenience to be anything other than a quick and dirty-ish way to get your head around so many HM. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- What about "by source, usability, stability, and PT location".
- Usability applies to "extracted" elements because they are subdivided into strategic, commodity, precious, and minor.
- Usability applies to "synthesized" elements because they are subdivided into long-lived and ephemeral and long-lived elements have a potential for usability that ephemeral ones do not.
- Stability applies to "synthesized" elements because, although all are marked "radioactive", they are subdivided into long-lived and ephemeral.
- Stability applies to "extracted" elements because, although the subcategories are oriented toward usability, they are marked as being radioactive or not.
- I will grant you that usability and stability are not wikt:orthogonal (sense 5, independent and irrelevant to each other), but IMHO, this is relatively minor compared to the glaring clumsiness of saying "w, x or y, and z" where "x or y" is parallel to "w" and "z". YBG (talk) 06:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- This is clever. Could we revert back to "by source, significance, and PT location"? For a Q&D categorisation scheme, that says all that needs to be said doesn't it? Sandbh (talk) 06:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- My original problem with "significance" was that it begged the question "significant in what way?" We could probably omit the reference to PT location. What about "by source, usability, and stability"? Also, should the table itself mention that this is density-based? Or maybe the section title is adequate. YBG (talk) 06:59, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- I could even live with "by source, economic value, and stability". YBG (talk) 07:31, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- My intended answer to the question "significant in what way?" has always been "in the manner shown by the applicable category name". Thus the significance of tungsten is that it's a strategic HM, gold is precious HM, astaine is ephemeral etc. There is no deeper meaning or rationale underlying the significance categories apart from breaking down the large number of HM into smaller groupings that a reader could more easily grasp. Viewed from this perspective I don't think any further qualifier is needed in the table caption. If needs be the footnote could be amended to make it clearer that the significance categories are purely categories of convenience rather than being taxonomically robust. Sandbh (talk) 00:22, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- OK, so it answers the question "what makes this element noteworthy?"
- With that in mind, maybe it would be better not to specify anything in the table header. How about something like this:
- Table header: Heavy metals (density > 5 g/cm3, informally categorized)
- Group header: Produced primarily by commercial mining (classified by economic significance)
- Group header: Produced primarily by nuclear synthesis (classified by stability)
- YBG (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- That's good. For the table header, the "informally categorized" bit isn't necessary (in my experience of professional publishing). The density by-line is fine except we might(?) need another footnote explaining the inclusion of Se. For "produced" try "mainly"---there are currently too many p's. Rest is fine. Sandbh (talk) 03:44, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've removed the "mainly" qualifier as I don't believe it's required. And I changed "nuclear synthesis" to "artificial" transmutation" plus a link to nuclear transmutation. Sandbh (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
- Seems to me that without "mainly" there would be some elements that should be listed in both sections. Are there any of the elements in the top (commercially mined) section that have one or more isotopes that have been produced by nuclear means? If so, without "mainly" in the bottom section, they would need to be listed there also. I suppose some of the "¶" elements might have been isolated from natural ores, but the "commercial" adjective probably means they wouldn't need to be listed in the top section. But overall I think it would be better IMHO to include "mainly" in both sections.
- By the way, I like the change in the lower section label - especially the addition of the wikilink. And using a smaller font for the (informally ...) comment was a good call, though I would have kept that part in italics. YBG (talk) 06:40, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, without "mainly" you run into problems. For some time, Po, Ra, and Ac were isolated from natural sources, but nobody does that now. There are many medically significant artificial radioisotopes of the natural elements, as well: for example, 99Mo, 213Bi, 51Cr, 57Co, 60Co, 64Cu, 165Dy, 169Er, 67Ga, 166Ho, 111In, 192Ir, 59Fe, 177Lu, 103Pd, 186Re, 188Re, 153Sm, 75Se, 201Tl, and 169Yb. Double sharp (talk) 12:01, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
- I've removed the "mainly" qualifier as I don't believe it's required. And I changed "nuclear synthesis" to "artificial" transmutation" plus a link to nuclear transmutation. Sandbh (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
- That's good. For the table header, the "informally categorized" bit isn't necessary (in my experience of professional publishing). The density by-line is fine except we might(?) need another footnote explaining the inclusion of Se. For "produced" try "mainly"---there are currently too many p's. Rest is fine. Sandbh (talk) 03:44, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- My intended answer to the question "significant in what way?" has always been "in the manner shown by the applicable category name". Thus the significance of tungsten is that it's a strategic HM, gold is precious HM, astaine is ephemeral etc. There is no deeper meaning or rationale underlying the significance categories apart from breaking down the large number of HM into smaller groupings that a reader could more easily grasp. Viewed from this perspective I don't think any further qualifier is needed in the table caption. If needs be the footnote could be amended to make it clearer that the significance categories are purely categories of convenience rather than being taxonomically robust. Sandbh (talk) 00:22, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- This is clever. Could we revert back to "by source, significance, and PT location"? For a Q&D categorisation scheme, that says all that needs to be said doesn't it? Sandbh (talk) 06:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- What about "by source, usability, stability, and PT location".
- I had used "usage or stability" since the six HM categories spoke to either usage (the first four) or stability (the last two). When I see "usage, stability" I expect to see something about usage and stability, for each of the six categories. But I don't get that. I sure get usage for the first four, and stability for the last two and perhaps (in a deductive way) for the first four, but I don't get usage for the last two. And I never intended for these six categories of convenience to be anything other than a quick and dirty-ish way to get your head around so many HM. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Strategic PT: I'd like the definition part of the caption (the part above the <hr>) to be a single line, but I can't figure out a way to do it. Every other PT caption/definition fits on a single line, it would be nice if this one did too, especially as it already has those two extra lines below the <hr> to explain the overlap between strategic and the other categories. "Vital to multiple nations' interests" works, but I'm not sure it says everything that needs to be said. And when I tested it out, I realized that the size of the list meant that there was a gap below the PT caption, so maybe I'm not as interested in this as I once was. (YBG)
- Changed to "Vital to multiple nations' strategic interests". Now fits on one line. I may add a comment to the citation entry re which nations etc. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, it does fit on one line on my desktop but not on my ipad. So I may change it back to the two-line version. Sandbh (talk) 23:37, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Go ahead. The empty space below the PT is uglier than I thought. YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Sandbh (talk) 04:52, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Go ahead. The empty space below the PT is uglier than I thought. YBG (talk) 04:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, it does fit on one line on my desktop but not on my ipad. So I may change it back to the two-line version. Sandbh (talk) 23:37, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Changed to "Vital to multiple nations' strategic interests". Now fits on one line. I may add a comment to the citation entry re which nations etc. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Left to my own devices, I'd add "heavy metals" to the PT headers or the extracted/synthesized headers or to both. In "Commodity HM", "commodity" is clearly an adjective and clearly parallel to strategic, precious and minor. But without the HM, "commodity" seems more like a noun and so not parallel to the others. But I can see how leaving out the "HM" gives an overall cleaner look to the table. But I really want to have my cake and eat it too. (YBG)
- I think I read somewhere about avoiding redundancy in tables and titles, hence I strived to avoid adding HM again, when it's already clear from the table title. Sandbh (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Overall, even before these last changes, the table is so much better than where we started and astoundingly better than my first effort above that set S&bh "agog". That design was very, very brittle: imagine how messed up it would have gotten when moving HMs between categories as has been done several times!
- YBG (talk) 06:59, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
- Here are some other potential changes.
- Changing from bulleted lists to unbulleted. I think this would look really great if the lists were also centered, but I can't figure out how to do this. But unbulleted lists is easy -- and would make the whole thing even narrower, all the better for ipods.
- That would be worth trying but doesn't like it would be easy to do. Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- I can remove the bullets by putting {{tl}plainlist}} immediately after each {{div col}}, but I haven't been able to get it centered. YBG (talk) 06:27, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps ask at WP:Teahouse? Sandbh (talk) 10:02, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- Figured it out without WP:TH. What do you think? YBG (talk) 03:50, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Cool. I changed to left align as centred looked weird. Sandbh (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Figured it out without WP:TH. What do you think? YBG (talk) 03:50, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps ask at WP:Teahouse? Sandbh (talk) 10:02, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- I can remove the bullets by putting {{tl}plainlist}} immediately after each {{div col}}, but I haven't been able to get it centered. YBG (talk) 06:27, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- That would be worth trying but doesn't like it would be easy to do. Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Restore some borders. Try each of the following and let me know if they have any merit.
- Restore borders around micro PTs by removing
|style="border:0px;"
from {{periodic table (micro)}}
- No merit. Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Restore borders around micro PTs by removing
- Restore borders & shading in table by adding "class=wikitable" to the {| line in the table.
- I tried this and all it added was more horizontal lines :( Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Let me do it in article space and then you can revert if you don't like it YBG (talk) 00:36, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- I think I like it. Sandbh (talk) 02:05, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- Let me do it in article space and then you can revert if you don't like it YBG (talk) 00:36, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
- I tried this and all it added was more horizontal lines :( Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- (This will also add shading and borders to the footnotes, but they can be removed if desired, just let me know.)
- YBG (talk) 05:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
- Here are some other potential changes.
Do you think we could get rid of the (also strategic) and use a footnote marker instead. That would, I presume, mean we could have four columns in all six cells, rather than the mix we have now. And it could give us an excuse to try a flying hand footnote marker U+261C ☜ WHITE LEFT POINTING INDEX, although maybe a section mark § would be better given the match to S for strategic. And it would tidy up promethium. Sandbh (talk) 07:22, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- The standard order for footnotes is *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, ☞. Although we may not need to follow this, given that apart from the first three, the vast majority of our readers will not recognise this convention, and it will not really make a substantial difference to the few who will – save perhaps that of amused recognition. Double sharp (talk) 07:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- How does it look now, with "Strategic" and "Non-strategic" headers in the columns? My only concern is that in order to make things work out I had to use
|
which may be a bit messy for accessibility and screen readers. YBG (talk) 04:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)- It looks good. Screen readers would interpret a non-breaking space as just another space, wouldn't they? Sandbh (talk) 06:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- The problem isn't the nbsp, but the empty list element. YBG (talk) 07:01, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- It looks good. Screen readers would interpret a non-breaking space as just another space, wouldn't they? Sandbh (talk) 06:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- How does it look now, with "Strategic" and "Non-strategic" headers in the columns? My only concern is that in order to make things work out I had to use
- The standard order for footnotes is *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, ☞. Although we may not need to follow this, given that apart from the first three, the vast majority of our readers will not recognise this convention, and it will not really make a substantial difference to the few who will – save perhaps that of amused recognition. Double sharp (talk) 07:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Also, why is Pm strategic? Atomic batteries? Double sharp (talk) 08:12, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- It's a REM, and the source notes that REM are counted as critical/strategic. Sandbh (talk) 08:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- I am not entirely sure if that is what they meant, even if it is what they said, but I suppose we'll have to just follow that. Although I do wonder if they had earlier explicitly restricted this to natural elements. Double sharp (talk) 10:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'll see if I can look that up. Sandbh (talk) 11:22, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yep, drilled down some more. Pm not strategic. Good call. Sandbh (talk) 12:29, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- Great! Without this, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish strategic/non-strategic in the way I did. YBG (talk) 04:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yep, drilled down some more. Pm not strategic. Good call. Sandbh (talk) 12:29, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'll see if I can look that up. Sandbh (talk) 11:22, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
- I am not entirely sure if that is what they meant, even if it is what they said, but I suppose we'll have to just follow that. Although I do wonder if they had earlier explicitly restricted this to natural elements. Double sharp (talk) 10:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
More discussion of the list
Per Technetium § Occurrence and production, should Tc have a ¶? YBG (talk) 21:17, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
- You're right, it should. Added. Double sharp (talk) 02:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Beryllium and aluminium - mostly ionic?
Be and Al are usually the most common examples in high-school chemistry of not-completely-ionic metals – consider BeCl2 and AlCl3. Double sharp (talk) 03:25, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- But they are definitely not heavy metals, call them light metals if you like. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:12, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, but I raised this because the class A-class B distinction is given in the fourth paragraph of the "Definitions" section, where the article defines class A as "tend to have low electronegativity and form bonds with large ionic character...groups 1, 2, and 3, Ln and An, Al", and the heavy metals to be everything outside class A. So I am not sure this classification makes Be and Al very happy. BTW, Sc, Y, and the lanthanides and actinides would be considered heavy metals by some, but they are clearly class A (although Sc does have some covalent character – for example, ScCl3 sublimes rather than melts, like AlCl3). Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree, that is why the words in question say "tend to". And some would consider Sc, Y, and the lanthanides and actinides to be HM, yet biochemically they are class A and hence not HM from that point of view. Thus, the definitional space of HM is messy. It would be better to separate notions of "toxic metals" from the categories of light metals and heavy metals since not all heavy metals are especially toxic and not all light metals are harmless. But in real life mentions of heavy metals "automatically" convey—without foundation as Duffus said—notions of toxicity. Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- To be fair, Th and U are also chemically toxic metals, though they are more like pseudo-transition metals. Presumably the other actinides would be too, if not for the fact that their radioactivity should be your first concern instead. So I would accept the natural actinides, as well as Np and Pu, more readily as HM than the natural lanthanides. (The elements from Am onwards are a different kettle of fish, mostly because I don't see a way you can get much of a body burden of them without dying.) Double sharp (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'll see if Be and Al warrant a note as exceptions to the ionic bonding tendency. Sandbh (talk) 07:27, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Sandbh (talk) 12:10, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'll see if Be and Al warrant a note as exceptions to the ionic bonding tendency. Sandbh (talk) 07:27, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- To be fair, Th and U are also chemically toxic metals, though they are more like pseudo-transition metals. Presumably the other actinides would be too, if not for the fact that their radioactivity should be your first concern instead. So I would accept the natural actinides, as well as Np and Pu, more readily as HM than the natural lanthanides. (The elements from Am onwards are a different kettle of fish, mostly because I don't see a way you can get much of a body burden of them without dying.) Double sharp (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- Agree, that is why the words in question say "tend to". And some would consider Sc, Y, and the lanthanides and actinides to be HM, yet biochemically they are class A and hence not HM from that point of view. Thus, the definitional space of HM is messy. It would be better to separate notions of "toxic metals" from the categories of light metals and heavy metals since not all heavy metals are especially toxic and not all light metals are harmless. But in real life mentions of heavy metals "automatically" convey—without foundation as Duffus said—notions of toxicity. Sandbh (talk) 23:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, but I raised this because the class A-class B distinction is given in the fourth paragraph of the "Definitions" section, where the article defines class A as "tend to have low electronegativity and form bonds with large ionic character...groups 1, 2, and 3, Ln and An, Al", and the heavy metals to be everything outside class A. So I am not sure this classification makes Be and Al very happy. BTW, Sc, Y, and the lanthanides and actinides would be considered heavy metals by some, but they are clearly class A (although Sc does have some covalent character – for example, ScCl3 sublimes rather than melts, like AlCl3). Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Regarding the bismuth triangle
To my mind, it looks very silly to put anything that looks like a radiation sign on bismuth. It is not like thorium or uranium, where you have to take provisions for the radioactivity, but you can still work with them. No, with bismuth you do not even have to care about the radiation at all. That's why I originally (see above) just used a standard footnote marker for it (§), to completely avoid this association. The other point is that if you are going to mark out bismuth as radioactive, then you also logically end up having to mark out all the heavy metals that have natural radioactive isotopes that have a shorter half-life than bismuth. If 209Bi with 1.9×1019 years deserves a footnote, then I think 176Lu with 3.764×1010 years deserves one even more. It does after all make up 2.6% of natural lutetium. Given that I think it is very silly to mark V, Mo, Cd, In, Te, La, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Lu, Hf, W, Re, Os, and Pt as radioactive, I think a better solution might be to simply stop marking Bi in any way.
- I agree with your reasoning. Sandbh (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- I rather like the triangle, as its washed-out look is neatly symbolic of the mini-micro radioactivity. If Bi needs a footnote marker, I like this one. If I understand it correctly, Bi has only this one primordial isotope, whereas the others occur naturally as a mixture of both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes. So in this way Bi is unique. I would be opposed to marking all of them, whether with § or with the washed-out triangle. But I wouldn't mind removing the footnote marker from Bi. Perhaps the general footnote on radioactivity could also say "Elements which naturally occur with both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes are not marked, nor is bismuth, whose only primordial isotope just barely radioactive, with a half-life of ...." But then the footnote will extend past a word wrap, sigh. I can't have everything. YBG (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, it is not that Bi has only one primoridal isotope. Rather, Bi has no stable isotopes. I've just edited the table, removed the Bi triangle, adjusted the radioactive note, and vertically aligned the footnote markers. How does it look now? Foonotes that go over one line are more than acceptable as long as they wrap properly. Sandbh (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- Your "no stable isotopes" is much clearer than my "only one primortial isotope". Thanks. And yes, it is much better now, though I will miss that triangle. One unfortunate side-effect of the long footnotes is that it forces the table to grow to its maximum width, which makes for an unpleasant gap to the right of the micro PTs. I tried to move the footnotes outside of the table, but that introduces an ugly gap above between the table and the footnotes. I even tried to wrap the whole thing into a larger table, whose first row is a single cell containing the main table and whose second row is a single cell containing the footnote table, but still there was an ugly gap between the main table and the footnotes. I just now thought of another alternative which I will try after saving this post. YBG (talk) 04:28, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- Well, I made the change but there's still an unpleasant gap between the main table and the footnotes. YBG (talk) 04:38, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, it is not that Bi has only one primoridal isotope. Rather, Bi has no stable isotopes. I've just edited the table, removed the Bi triangle, adjusted the radioactive note, and vertically aligned the footnote markers. How does it look now? Foonotes that go over one line are more than acceptable as long as they wrap properly. Sandbh (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- I rather like the triangle, as its washed-out look is neatly symbolic of the mini-micro radioactivity. If Bi needs a footnote marker, I like this one. If I understand it correctly, Bi has only this one primordial isotope, whereas the others occur naturally as a mixture of both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes. So in this way Bi is unique. I would be opposed to marking all of them, whether with § or with the washed-out triangle. But I wouldn't mind removing the footnote marker from Bi. Perhaps the general footnote on radioactivity could also say "Elements which naturally occur with both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes are not marked, nor is bismuth, whose only primordial isotope just barely radioactive, with a half-life of ...." But then the footnote will extend past a word wrap, sigh. I can't have everything. YBG (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Also, regarding protactinium: our article says that it is now more often produced by neutron irradiation of thorium. Cotton's Lanthanide and Actinide Chemistry agrees with this. OTOH, The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements still lists the UKAEA production from the "ethereal sludge" as the main source of Pa. So I think we should leave it up there for now. I have not found information about Ra, although this could possibly be because unlike Pa, its chemistry is fairly boring, differing from Ba only quantitatively rather than qualitatively. (I reckon we get the same problem with Ac and La.) Double sharp (talk) 09:08, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- Our article's mention of Pa production is unsourced. As I read Cotton, he isn't completely clear on this point (p. 148). He says Pa is not generally extracted and then says most of what we know of its chemistry originates with the 1960 extraction of about 125 grams worth. Ullmann's (2012) refers to the 1960s stash and then says, "In future, larger quantities of 231Pa might be recovered from nuclear waste originating from reprocessing of thorium fuels [italics added]." Sandbh (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
re Origin and use of the term
It seems to me that it would be more natural if we stated that up until (when?) all known metals were 'heavy metals', that when the elements now known as 'light metals' were discovered, their 'metallicity' was something of a controversy, that this controversy was finally resolved by calling these newer elements 'light metals' and as a result the longer-known metals came to be known as 'heavy metals'. The wordsmithing needs some work, but this progression seems IMO to be a bit better than what is described in the article. All I can say is, I'm glad they didn't choose to bifurcate metals into 'light metals' and 'other metals'. Yuck! YBG (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
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"Heavy metal"
FYI, the meaning and usage of Heavy metal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, for the move request, see talk:heavy metal music -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 05:49, 15 June 2023 (UTC)