User:Splarka/Sandbox:isotopes

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These are random notes on ideas that aren't yet ready for suggestion on Wikipedia:WikiProject Isotopes. None of these are to be taken as decided, they are just myself talking to myself. However, feel free to critique.

Contents 1 Lists of Isotopes 2 Individual Isotope Pages 2.1 Combination table layout 3 Isotope Infobox Template 4 Color Ideas for Full Isotope Table 4.1 Organized by Origin 4.1.1 Origin Color Chart 4.1.2 Origin Sample Table 4.2 Organized by Decay Mode 4.2.1 Decay Color Chart 4.2.2 Decay Sample Table 4.3 Organized by Decay Mode (2) 4.3.1 Decay (2) Color Chart 4.3.2 Decay (2) Sample Table

[edit] Lists of Isotopes

Some pages I'd like to see:

• List of isotopes (expanded with slightly more info, but not too much (could also be List of isotopes (details) maybe)
• List of isotopes (by discovery)
• List of isotopes (by abundance)
• List of isotopes (by half life)

[edit] Individual Isotope Pages

• All isotopes have own page (3000+) ?

or

• Each element has one isotope description page, with a subsection for each isotope?

or

• Some divison thereof? Helium-3 and Helium-4 are different enough, but most of the differences are discussed on other helium pages. However, does there need to be 10 separate pages for the stable isotopes of tin?

I'm thinking of going with the subsection idea. If an isotope is particularly notable a link to its article can be place there. I'm wondering how we would do the infobox organization? - AJ

40+ infoboxes on one page might get pretty messy. Having 40+ individual pages just for tin (poor abused tin) would be messy too. Maybe a compromise. How about, for each element, a page (Element)_isotopes is made, like Tin_Isotopes, and then a chart of all (or most) the information in the infobox is made (with the PNG table snippit showing the range of that element's isotopes. Then, any noteworthy isotopes (Hydrogen-2/3, Helium-3/4, Uranium-238, tracers for various research, chemotherapy, etc) have a link to an individual page with the infobox (more can be added as needed). On each element's page there could be a link at the bottom of the "noteworthy isotopes" to "full isotope data". Any isotopes that have a full page they don't really deserve, can be redirected to the full isotope chart for that element. Maybe? -Sp

BTW, I don't mean to steal the convos away from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Isotopes, I just didn't want to spam it with this long list of ideas. -Sp

[edit] Combination table layout

Here is a quick idea of all isotopes for one element having all info without a table for each.

Isotopes of hydrogen
Isotope	Neutrons	Protons	Natural abundance	Half-life	Isotope mass	Spin	Excess energy	Binding energy	Decay modes	Decay energy	Decay products	Decay particles
1H	0	1	99.985%	stable	1.00794 u	1/2+	7288.969 ± 0.001 keV	0.000 ± 0.000 keV
2H	1	1	0.015%	stable	2.0141018 u	1+	13135.720 ± 0.001 keV	2224.573 ± 0.002 keV
3H	2	1	synthetic	12.32 years	3.0160492 u	1/2+	14949.794 ± 0.001 keV	8481.821 ± 0.004 keV	Beta- emission	18.6 MeV	helium-3	electron, anti-neutrino
4H	3	1	synthetic	9.93696x10-23	4.0279121	?	?	?	neutron emission	5.42 MeV	helium-3	neutron
5H
6H
7H

Thoughts:

• It could work, but it does look somewhat ugly and wide. Perhaps abbreviations for decay modes/products/particles, and some columns could be omitted maybe

[edit] Isotope Infobox Template

For the template, it seems fine to me. The only changes I'd make (if any) are to make decay modes plural, or rather, "decay mode(s)", since many isotopes have more than one.

Also, the header colors could change to match the elements project coloring scheme (small asthetic change).

about the header coloring... right now I have two templates, stable and unstable. For the unstable template the header color is defined via each individual article so that way you don't have to make 10 different tables for each color. The problem i forsee is what if we decide we want to make a color adjustment for lets say half lives of 10,000 years. We'd have to go and change many pages. Suggestions? Maybe we should make 10 different templates instead with fixed colors so all we have to do is change the template? - AJ

[edit] Color Ideas for Full Isotope Table

Ideas for improvement of Isotope table (complete) (as well miniature png versions and general color coding for isotopes?)

To colorize by origin, decay mode, half life, radioactivity, or what?

Possiblities for hue:

• artifical vs natural
• radioactive vs stable
• method(s) of decay

Possiblities for saturation or lightness:

• abundance (percentage of element)
• abundance (percentage of earth (whole/crust/air?)
• abundance (percentage of universe)
• half-life
• date of discovery
• difficulty of separation?
• price? (idea from very interesting article about [isotopes as money])
• toxicity? (non radioactive toxicity comparison, like Deuterium Monoxide)

Should isomers be listed? They aren't really a separate isotope, but if an isomer of an atom is more stable than the ambient electron configuration, it should take preference?

[edit] Organized by Origin

A color scheme based on origin (hue) and half-life (lightness), as well as stability (darkness) somewhat noisy and possibly confusing, but detailed.

[edit] Origin Color Chart

Half lives (measured in seconds)

half-life:	<10-6	<10-3	<100	<103	<106	<1012	<1018	<1024	<1036	<1044	stable?
primordial											12C
artificial			9C					98Tc
decay product											4He
cosmic ray/solar byproduct							14C
extraterrestrial											3He
isomer								180mTa

[edit] Origin Sample Table

Made lots of assumptions on the origin of most radioactive isotopes being artifical. We would get more light hues down near the transuranium elements. Also, Carbon-14 is not directly created from cosmic rays, but is produced when (if I read this right) a ¹⁴C + proton is created when a ¹⁴N is hit by a neutron which was knocked off another atom by the cosmic ray (shouldn't ¹⁵N be stable?)

Isotopes by origin

p	1	2
n	H	He	3	4
0	1H		Li	Be	5	6
1	2H	3He	4Li		B	C	7
2	3H	4He	5Li	6Be	7B	8C	N	8
3	4H	5He	6Li	7Be	8B	9C		O	9
4	5H	6He	7Li	8Be	9B	10C	11N	12O	F	10
5	6H	7He	8Li	9Be	10B	11C	12N	13O	14F	Ne
6	7H	8He	9Li	10Be	11B	12C	13N	14O	15F	16Ne
	7	9He	10Li	11Be	12B	13C	14N	15O	16F	17Ne
	8	10He	11Li	12Be	13B	14C	15N	16O	17F	18Ne

My thoughts:

• It does look rather sickly. Doesn't mesh well

[edit] Organized by Decay Mode

Here we have an alternate more informative version, based on the type of Radioactive decay: alpha decay, beta^- decay, electron capture, gamma radiation, internal conversion, neutron emission, positron emission, proton emission, spontaneous fission, or evaporation.

That makes about 10 different ways an atom can decay. However, some do not affect the actual number of protons and neutrons (gamma radiation, internal conversion), some happen so fast there is no real need to measure the time (neutron / proton emission, or multiples thereof), and some are hard to catagorize (⁸Be emits two alpha particles, basically is spontaneous fission, but also is alpha emission, and can be described as evaporation as well). Also, many elements have multiple decay chains.

[edit] Decay Color Chart

My idea first for this is, to divide the three main variable decays into primary colors, and mix the colors (into secondary) when more than one is happening. I could also mix the shade of each color, to indicate the proportion of each type of decay (is that even measurable?), but that would be a lot more work.

Here is a possible way to work it all into one color chart:

decay mode (with halflife gradient)

half-life:	less than 1ms	1ms to 1sec	1sec to 1day	1day to 1year	1year to 103y	103y to 106y	106y to 1012y
Alpha decay
Alpha and Beta
Beta± decay
Beta and EC
Electron capture
Alpha and EC
stable (>1012years)
neutron/proton emission
evaporation/spontaneous fission
gamma radiation / internal conversion (probably not needed)

My thoughts:

• Stable (as defined), p/n emission, and evaporation don't need gradient colors, as their half life is too short or too long. I am not sure if spontaneous fission should be grouped with evaporation, but since the latter only happens with very small atoms, and the former with very large, I think it works.

• It is hard to decide how to measure half life. In seconds like computer time? In planck units? On a sliding scale? I chose exponential seconds for the previous chart, but for this I tried a more understandable scale, based on about 10³ (1sec to 1day being a bit off!).

• It is debatable whether it is better to separate beta⁺ beta^- and merge electron capture with beta⁺, or to leave it like it is. Are we more interested in the type of emission (if any), or in the direction of the atomic number change? Another possiblity is to merge all three and go for a more simple color chart (Alpha in Red, Beta^-/Beta⁺/EC in Green, mixed in Blue.

• I experimented with a 'hot color' = 'faster decay', but this then would make more sense to have the fastest decays darker colors, meaning the whole table should have a dark background (and the stables should be white). I think it works better with 'hot color' = 'more stable' fading off into white where there are so many decays happening that you can't tell them apart. However, one complex possibility might be to fade from black --> color --> white. Note: See #Organized by Decay Mode (2)

[edit] Decay Sample Table

Isotopes by decay mode

p	1	2
n	H	He	3	4
0	1H		Li	Be	5	6
1	2H	3He	4Li		B	C	7
2	3H	4He	5Li	6Be	7B	8C	N	8
3	4H	5He	6Li	7Be	8B	9C		O	9
4	5H	6He	7Li	8Be	9B	10C	11N	12O	F	10
5	6H	7He	8Li	9Be	10B	11C	12N	13O	14F	Ne
6	7H	8He	9Li	10Be	11B	12C	13N	14O	15F	16Ne
	7	9He	10Li	11Be	12B	13C	14N	15O	16F	17Ne
	8	10He	11Li	12Be	13B	14C	15N	16O	17F	18Ne

My thoughts:

• Phew, it is a lot of work to decide just what decay is worth showing. Even though this was just for a small sample, I had trouble deciding for most of these, spending several minutes on some. Many have 2 or 3 different chains, often amounting to the same thing though.

[edit] Organized by Decay Mode (2)

More possible color combinations of Decay.

[edit] Decay (2) Color Chart

Some other possible gradients indicating halflife (just red/alpha for example):

half-life:	n/p	less than 1ms	1ms to 1sec	1sec to 1day	1day to 1year	1year to 103y	103y to 106y	106y to 1012y	Stable
color->white	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
color->grey	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
color->black	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
white->color	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
grey->color	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
black->color	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
black->color->white	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He
white->color->black	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He	3He

The white->color->black looks interesting, here is the full chart:

half-life:	less than 1ms	1ms to 1sec	1sec to 1day	1day to 1year	1year to 103y	103y to 106y	106y to 1012y
Alpha decay
Alpha and Beta
Beta± decay
Beta and EC
Electron capture
Alpha and EC
stable (>1012years)
neutron/proton emission
evaporation/spontaneous fission
gamma radiation / internal conversion (probably not needed)

My Thoughts:

• Not sure, they all look so tastey. I don't feel up to a sample section of the table in each one, but I'll try to do one at least, probably of white->color->black

[edit] Decay (2) Sample Table

Coming