Talk:Caesium
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Article changed over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by User:maveric149. Elementbox converted 12:08, 10 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 12:30, 4 June 2005).
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[edit] Information Sources
Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Cesium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Cesium Statistics and Information, USGS Periodic Table - Cesium, and from the Elements database 20001107, and Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913). Other information was obtained from the sources listed on the main page but was reformatted and converted into SI units.
[edit] Talk
someone more knowledgable about these things please consider the information at: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/nelson/cesium/cesium_color.html
[edit] color
"Caesium, however, is pale gold in colour" - Shouldn't that be "Caesium, however, is caesium in colour ". The only element I know of that's gold is, well, Gold. ;).
- It would be nice to know just exactly why cesium is goldish in color. Apart from cesium, copper, and gold, metals are blackish ot whitish silver, no? Some with a bluish hue. But why are these 3 elements so differently colored? Why are there no greenish metals for example? It's probably something about their absorption spectra. But I see no underlying factor why most metals should preferentially absorb in the long-wave part of the visual spectrum, and a few in the short-wave part. Dysmorodrepanis 11:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] which isotope
I know one isotope is used as a source for cancer therapy (along with Co-60 and a few others). WHich is it? Pakaran. 22:12, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Cesium 137.
It would be nice if articles like this included a link to a page explaining how the pronounciation guide works. ChrisLawson 13:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Spelling: caesium vs. cesium
Why is this page called 'Caesium', while all the sources you quote say have Cesium in their names? Shouldn't we also name our article cesium, and put a redirect from caesium? Cederal 16:48, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I would say it is best to leave the title as is, seeing as how that is the approved spelling.
- It seems to me that the "approved spelling" criterion is in violation of the "use common names" policy. "Cesium" is in fact more common than "Caesium". [1]. Nohat 23:58, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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- The IUPAC name for the element is "caesium". The use common names part of the MoS is so that we have article titles like caffeine instead of 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione. If you move this, you're going to open a whole can of worms with aluminium/aluminum and sulfur/sulphur. -- DrBob 02:23, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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- But also, according to the article, "cesium" is an approved spelling variant. Gene Nygaard 04:14, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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This arguement is futile. The best and most obvious solutionis to leave the page where it is and change every occurance of 'cesium' to the more correct 'caesium'. Google results are inadequate: everyone knows American English is more popular, while International English is more correct in being universal. It's really too bad that Americans have skewed such a wonderful language. --Zippanova 16:38, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
- You don't have to get so emotional over different spellings. "Wonderful," especially when used to describe a language, is completely arbitrary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.126.5.184 (talk • contribs) .
The UK spelling being more "proper" is a crock. Do you suggest we also change magnesium, xenon, helium, platinim lanthanum to magnaesium, xaenon, haelium, platinium and lanthanium? --Paul2505 08:26, 13 August 2005
- The Norman conquest of Britain all but destroyed the English language. Anything the Amercans do (whether it's attempting to undo damage or adding more idiosyncrasies) is inconsequential when compared to what has already been done.
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- That's laughable. Old English can hardly be described as "the English language." How could something (the Norman conquest) that contributed so much to what English is now "destroy" "the English language," when in fact it (the Normal conquest) altered Old English to *create* "the English lanuage"? It's symmantics, I know, but I can't let people get away with twisting their words to get away with false logic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.126.5.184 (talk • contribs) .
- Darrien 13:36, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
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- The Norman conquest of England created the English language. Anything before that was Anglo-Saxon. --Carnildo 03:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
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- No, the Norman conquest of England created Middle English, which in turn supplanted Old English. Anglo-Saxon is just another name for Old English.
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- Darrien 21:30, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
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If using the UK spellings is so important, why arent the articles for Fetus, Pediatrics and Anemea not Titeled "Foetus" "Paediatrics" and "Anaemia". In fact, shouldnt this whole site be called "Wikipaedia" instead of Wikipedia??? -Guest
The results of a little Googling may be interesting:
cesium/caesium
cesium caesium cæsium ratio
651,000 199,000 826 3.27
site:.au 9.180 8,260 1.11
site:.ca 8,340 641 13.0
site:.nz 173 255 0.68
site:.uk 5,790 14,800 0.39
site:.us 5,090 7,310 0.70
site:.za 224 232 0.97
[English language] 377,000 142,000 291 2.65
site:.edu 44,500 3,530 14 12.6 site:.gov 92,800 1,720 54.0 site:.com 164,000 63,900 131 2.57 site:.mil 5,950 35 170 site:.org 97,000 14,700 54 6.60
site:nist.gov 4,070 10 407 site:bipm.org 5 15 0.33 site:harvard.edu 7,180 398 2 18.0 site:npl.co.uk 5 125 0.040
site:.de 15,000 9,690 3 1.55 site:.fr 7,740 1,090 69 7.10 site:.no 1,670 340 3 4.91 site:.jp 6,600 723 9.13
Gene Nygaard 04:14, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Can I convince you, of all people, with a hypothetical googlefight "u vs g/mol", that the prevailing use of an equally accepted variant should have little influence on settling on another as per the suggestions from an international body of standardization? Femto 12:55, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- Convince me? I can't even figure out what you are trying to say. Gene Nygaard 22:42, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- On the one hand, the unified atomic mass unit is the most widely used and approved variant of writing things, yet we change it to "g/mol" (which I think is good, by the way). On the other hand, at xenon you reverted "caesium" back to "cesium" in which was almost an edit war. In a scientific context such as these articles, either variant is perfectly valid English, in any flavor. But the single preferred IUPAC spelling, if you're not strictly bound by other style rules, is the UK "caesium" (they do swallow "sulfur" in turn). Usage statistics and approved spelling variants or not, I think Wikipedia as a whole should try to uniformly follow IUPAC as much as we try to follow BIPM. Even where localized spellings would be more appropriate, it's good practice to use a piped link cesium to avoid a redirection. Femto 14:00, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- What's the relevance? None of the Wikipedia articles I edited used either "u" nor the "unified atomic mass unit". See http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec05.html#5.1.3
- Furthermore, in that case there is an additional factor other than whatever rules any standards agency promulgates—there is also our explicit, self-limiting claim in the footer of those tables that "SI units are used". We can indeed limit ourselves to one choice among the acceptable alternatives. While doing so is certainly an issue that is appropriate for debate, the fact is that as it stands now, that claim is made in those footers.
- Since the units which were used (namely, "amu") are NOT even on the list of units acceptable for use with SI, it was quite reasonable for me to change those to the SI g/mol.
- Like you say yourself, "either variant is perfectly valid English". That justifies a reversion, as I did in xenon. In other words, if either is acceptable, you need a better reason to change it than personal preference. If you just do it on the basis of personal preference, you deserve to be reverted.
- In the spelling of cesium, that spelling is accepted by the IUPAC, which apparently has taken the lead in this area. That has to have some meaning. You are interpreting it as if that were meaningless. The IUPAC don't have any plenary authority, but I'm not claiming at this point that any other standards agency sets any contrary standards in this area. I don't need to. IUPAC has accepted "cesium". This may well be a political decision, a facing of the reality shown by the Google statistics I cited. They probably decided, quite reasonably and understandably, not to hinge their credibility on this issue. Gene Nygaard 15:13, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- The relevance of "cesium" being accepted as an equally valid American English variant, for me, as an European Wikipedia user, is none. My point is, "u" is accepted within the SI and is widely used, yet you made a choice to go against common use but with a standard. IUPAC suggests an international spelling-neutral naming standard, and to deviate from that would be the personal preference here. I couldn't see a better reason to change something than to avoid local spellings. Femto 16:51, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- Speaking of relevance,
- Can you show me anything specifically stating that it is only acceptable in "American English" from the IUPAC?
- Even if you can, my Google statistics clearly show that this variation is NOT specific to "American English". There is nothing "local" about it. Not even anything limited to "English" about it, in any flavor of English. Even the web sites in Germany and France use "cesium" more often than "caesium". Gene Nygaard 17:08, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Speaking of relevance,
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- No, I can't. Divide the English language like you want, the fact remains that some people use aluminium/caesium/sulphur, while others use aluminum/cesium/sulfur, neither of who are willing to use all of the other's spellings. But they all can agree on a unified compromise like aluminium/caesium/sulfur as suggested by IUPAC. Femto 18:42, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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Edited the Caesium page to change everything to Cesium. Would have moved, but cannot. I agree that Cesium should be used because it is most widely used. I have yet to EVER see Caesium except on british sites and wikipedia. It more seems like UK is the oddball here and not the US this time.
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- above unsigned post by Ergzay.
- Reverted. Please don't restart disruptive spelling disputes. The situation has been quite stable, let it be. Vsmith 04:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
- How did all we "cesium" advocates get corralled by the "caesium" people so we're beating around the logic bush, are just playing their games, and got manoeuvred into group-think paralysis? This is an American Web site that uses American english. Period. The first time I linked to "Cesium" and saw the link had been redirected (WTF?), I questioned my own sanity. I looked up cesium in my American encyclopedia (World Book) and read some NIST papers. Even all my spell checkers flag "caesium" (so I had to double-check it as I typed this message). The objective in all writings—especially technical writing—is to communicate without confusion. This Web site needs consistency across its articles. If someone who speaks British-English adds an article using British spellings, bless their hearts for the contribution. But the British spellings must eventually be converted to American conventions. Reverting articles back to British spellings would be simple childish vandalism. Someone with sufficient Wiki stature needs to fix this and be done with it. Greg L 17:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, Wikipedia convention is not to favor any national variety of English; see WP:MOS#National varieties of English for the gory details. Sorry, I should have explained that to you before. Melchoir 18:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is being politically correct. The practical reality is that Wikipedia articles contain many, many articles that mention "cesium" and which provide links to an article titled "caesium." Notwithstanding Wikipedia's P.C. poslition that ‘no point of view, or position on a topic, or cultural practice is more meritorious than another’, having different spellings for an important noun (and an article's title) throughout Wikipedia is inconsistent and simply detracts from Wikipedia's value. Cesium should either be spelled one way or the other, not both.
- I recommend reading Technical writing. Political correctness is a poor excuse for accepting confusion in Wiki articles.
Greg L 04:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Such confusion results from failure to define and use standards. Sometimes, not everyone accepts proposed standards. British spellings are accepted by a large minority of English users. It would be wrong to completely ignore them. Generally in such cases, the obvious thing to do is note the majority usage and notation (whatever that is), and then (if the minority is a large one) to note it secondarily. Here, I think cesium should indeed be the article name. As also anesthesia (not anaesthesia) and hemoglobin (not haemoglobin).Steve 06:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
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- I took a look at the article on Technical writing. Wow--- it was in need of a surprising amount of editing. :). It's still not pretty. Steve 06:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Fight!!! Seriously though, cesium may be more common (one reason being that Americans have more scientific influence that any other nation, so cesium would naturally occur more frequently - even in non-English speaking nations), but the fact is that it is recommended by the appropriate international body to spell it caesium (maybe due to to historical reasons: I for as hell don't know and I also don't care). The proper people to argue with would be with them. Just accept it that caesium is the convention. From the UK vs. US perspective, both sides should be dignified enough to accept comprimises. Krea 19:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a book Published in London that contains a periodic table with the spelling "cesium" so therefore I conclude that "cesium" is used in both countries. The Spelling Cesium is used by the Los Alamos website the main resource for this page. This should be titled "cesium" the poper AMERICAN way of spelling it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And as far as sulpher and aluminium go, they should, in my opinion, be changed to sulfer and aluminum
[edit] disputed
Oh come on, there are many stronger bases than hydroxides! LLNL isn't as smart as I'd like. lysdexia 10:00, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Actually, hydroxides are the strongest bases, since they contain the most electropositive elements.
Untrue. Hydroxides can be compounds of a wide range of elements including not particularly electropositive ones (eg copper (II) hydroxide), which are amphoteric rather than strong bases. The most basic hydroxides are the fully dissociated, uncrystallisable ones where the cation is a large complex cation, which need not in fact contain electropositive elements at all. Tetrabutylammonium hydroxide is a stronger base than CsOH and contains C, N and H in the cation! Lysdexia is right that (in nonaqueous environments) there are H+ acceptors stronger than any hydroxide (eg carbanions), but he/she should have included examples and refs. AGC.
[edit] Latin phonetics
Removed from the page:
- though it goes against Latin phonetics
...apparently in reference to the English pronunciation of the word. First off it doesn't seem relevant (what do Latin phonetics have to do with English pronunciation?) and second off it's inaccurate anyway (The "Caes-" in "Caesar", while not from the same root, was pronounced the same in Latin, /kais/, and the same in English, /si:z/, as this word, so it's not like something inconsistent is happening).
There are exceptions to everything, but the overwhelmingly common pronunciation of "ae" is pronounced like "aye". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.126.5.184 (talk • contribs) .
I'm sure there was a reason it was put in though, so if it can be better explained I won't object to putting it back. —Muke Tever 00:39, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Making Caesium
It can be made by electolysis of CsCl or by reacting CsCl with Ca at a temperature where Cs boils off similar to the Potassium entry.
[edit] Bromine?
The article currently states that Gallium, Francium, and Mercury are the only three elements that are liquid at or near room temperature. From looking at other wikipedia articles (and high school science classes) it seems to me that we are forgeting Bromine?
Has it been a lie all this time that bromine is liquid at room temperature?
I would go ahead and change it...but I'd like to make sure that I'm right. Would someone please confirm this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.50.43.220 (talk • contribs) .
- The article specifically narrows the characterization to metals, not elements, so bromine shouldn't be a problem here. Femto 12:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Curious
Why are we using caesium instead of caesium instead on cesium? Look at what the other languages have:
- Bosniak: Cezijum
- Catalan: Cesi
- Czech: Cesium
- Corsican: Cesiu
- Welsh: Cesiwm
- Spanish: Cesio
- Esperanto: Cezio
- French: Césium
- Galician: Cesio (elemento)
- Croation: Cezij
- Ido: Cesio
- Italian: Cesio (elemento)
- Latvian: Cēzijs
- Lithuanian: Cezis
- Hungarian: Cézium
- Dutch: Cesium
- Norwegian (both dialects): Cesium
- Polish: Cez
- Portuguese: Césio
So if we really want an international spelling, we should go with cesium.Cameron Nedland 18:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
The page is at Caesium as it is official policy. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)#Element_names for clarification. I think it best to prevent this talk page from becoming like the pages of arguments over where Aluminium should be. Atomic1609 01:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry, my bad.Cameron Nedland 14:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Caesium reaction with water
does ceasium react badly with water? i read that it does but im confused!?!?i guess in hot water it would becuse of its low melting point...? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 138.217.219.38 (talk • contribs) 02:03, 5 March 2007.
- Alkali metals are highly reactive and react violently in water (very fast and very hot); the further down the periodic table you go, the more violent the reaction. Squids'and'Chips 22:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Death by cesium?
is it possibly that you could die by being exposed to a cesium reaction? in a book i read some soccer player is murdered with it… Milldog 93 22:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
