Talk:Chemistry

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Contents

[edit] Archives

[edit] Chemistry (etymology)

Seeing as how this is such an in-depth topic, with so many sources and nuances, I will move all of this to its own page and group the etymology paragraphs from both alchemy and chemistry on one page (with links to main). Let's all work to build a good article there. --Sadi Carnot 12:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved to: Talk:Chemistry (etymology)

[edit] History of chemistry summary section

There seems to be some alchemy leaking into the history of chemistry section. I'm not sure if there is an agenda to these additions as well. As important and influential a figure as Geber was he is not considered the father of modern chemistry. His work was far back in what is generally considered the alchemical period and most of his work was concerned with the proper mixing of his four elements (not earth,air, fire and water but close) to transmute metals. It is undeniable that he achieved real chemistry and is by far the most important chemistry figure of his time. The distinguishing feature of chemistry versus alchemy is the application of the scientific method to the study of matter. I would not say that Geber's work did not have some strong elements of this but the same can be said about Hermes (or the egyptian alchemical school that are represented by the legend). It is the formalism of the scientific method in the 17th and 18th centuries that make chemistry chemistry. Additionally I am not sure that this needs to be debated in the summary of the history article here.--Nick Y. 16:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I have rewritten parts of this section to both correct this and make the whole thing more complete and accurate.--Nick Y. 17:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Nick Y. isn't going to like me, as some alchemy leaked in once more (my fault). The sense I presented the alchemy in is to present the problems which chemistry ended up having to solve. I kept as much original text as possible, but ended up having to add quite a bit. I was dissatisfied with this history as being all but a series of disconnected facts, supposedly written that way for brevity. There was very little sense of evolution; of chemistry evolving out of a need for a scientific method; and of a connection with the evolution of mankind (I provided a cursory connection; enough to indicate one existed). One of the main criticisms of alchemy was that it lacked reproducibility. I also disagree with an implication in an earlier version of this history that Chemistry had to be somehow separated from Philosophy. In fact, it badly needed a whole lot more philosophy. Descartes and others served this end by discussing scientific method. Many today (including myself) still believe science and mathematics to be nothing more than a branch of philosophy. And what is science, math, and philosophy other than the search for answers to questions that concern us? Science, math and philosophy only differ by how the search is done. -- Paul King 21:13 EDT, 5 January 2007.
While the quality of your writing and understand is much better than what was previously being corrected, the reason for breviety is that there is an entire article on the subject. In general when there is a main article on a subject on a separate page we usually create a breif summary of about a paragraph as a teaser or introduction to the thorough and complete article. I would suggest that you reconsider duplicating the entire effort and filling up so much space on this page. Your contributions could be better directed towards improving History of Chemistry.--Nick Y. 07:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Figured about as much. I don't have time to correct it right away, but I will some time this week. Pking123 09:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I used to be user user:pking123. I have re-worked the history section, making several subsections, each pointing to a different main article. I got rid of the Nobel Prize section, leaving only the link to the main article; and made "Chemical Industry" into its own section (it's not a history topic anyway). The reason for chopping the article up became apparent when the 
{{main}}
tag could hold only so many parameters. I had at least 8, where the Wiki stopped at around 4 or 5, then flagged an error. In terms of length, however, the History section is now under half of its former length. --Paul EJ King 14:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main Image

The current first image that strikes the reader is that of a helium atom. The way it is labelled, quarks and all, it is more relevant to physics than to Chemistry. A better representation of chemistry would be the periodic table, however I cannot find a suitable image on Wikipedia or Commons. Can anyone help? LukeSurl 23:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's an interesting version of the periodic table:
px
-- Itub 00:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, but to the untrained eye it may look more like a religious shrine than a periodic table. LukeSurl 01:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the periodic table itself as a symbolic representation in the public domain? Is the problem that certain representations might be copyrighted? Earendilmm 18:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's right yeah. I just can't find an image in the PD which actually looks good. I guess someone could make one. LukeSurl 11:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Um... what is it again? I mean, it does look cool and all, but...

yeah, not very useful, don't you think?


[edit] Alexandria library

"Egyptian alchemy [5,000 BC – 400 BC], Alexandria has the world’s largest library"

Somewhat misleading. It's been created between 300 BC and 200 BC, it seems (more likely between 300 bc and 250 BC). That's what the famous online encyclopedia "wikipedia" says anyway: Alexandria library. 82.241.221.24 14:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll clarify the text. --Sadi Carnot 17:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced

The unreferenced tag was added to the top of the article today without any justification given. This seems a little broad, so I've removed it, creating this for people to discuss things. I think it would be more constructive if [citation needed] could be added at the points people want referencing. LukeSurl 11:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The subject of the article is general, chemistry. It has a further reading section at the bottom with some chemistry books. Should it be made more clear where in which book what information can be found? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
    • We do not want to go down that road. I think the content should be consistent with general chemistry books otherwise you end up with a footnote every two words. Lets focus on issues where preferences differ and try to limit yourself to the {{fact}} tag. V8rik 21:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason I added the unreferenced tag is because over half the article, more specifically everything below the "Subdisciplines" section does not have any reference of footnotes.--Sefringle 07:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I have added a general sentence to the References section to clarify that any book on General Chemistry is a reference for this material. However, the section on "Etymology" does need specific references. On a quick glance it appears that Chemistry (etymology) needs more references than it has. I'm not sure the two references there cover all the material. Once they are added to Chemistry (etymology) they can be copied back here. --Bduke 07:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Please consult the recent Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines especially the section on uncontroversial knowledge Some statements are uncontroversial and widely known among people familiar with a discipline. Such facts may be taught in university courses, found in textbooks, or contained in multiple references in the research literature (most importantly in review articles). The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. Therefore, in sections or articles that present well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative sources at the start (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify later statements for which no in-line citation is provided.

Also the etymology section refers the the dedicated etymology page and this is the place where references go. There is no point to have references in duplicate when you have a main page tag. The page itself did lack some references but on the other hand the topic was discussed at length WITH references. I took the liberty to collect two references from the talk page and inserted then into the article. Please Sefringle specify what material you find controversial or what specific parts you disagree with V8rik 21:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

In that case I have placed the wrong tag. I'll replace it with the correct tag.--Sefringle 04:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)


  • the tag will go again, please specify in what way you challenge content in this article. It should be clear by now that the article contains plenty secondary literature for you to consult. V8rik 21:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
specificly, the introduction has only one source, and I can't find any in the history. How am I supposed to know it isn't WP:OR?--Sefringle 23:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Read any of the books in the "reading list for university students", or in fact any chemistry or general science textbook. See the detailed citation guideline above. Iridium77 23:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The guideline says it still needs at least one source.--Sefringle 03:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Please Sefringle, consult the general references or identify controversial elements in the text. Perhaps if you can point us to one article that you have contributed to with no doubt many references you can set a good example. V8rik 21:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I think DNA is a good example of how an article should be sourced, expecially since it was recently a featured article. But as I usuaully don't edit scientific articles, the Scientific guideline doesn't really apply to the articles I edited. But getting back to the guideline, it says "The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. Therefore, in sections or articles that present well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative sources at the start (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify later statements for which no in-line citation is provided." Hope this clarifies things up.--Sefringle 05:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Britannica 1911

Hi, here is Britannica's 1911 90-page article on "chemistry". I think it will be a good guideline to follow as we build this article. --Sadi Carnot 17:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed section titled 'chemical reactions'

"==Chemical Reactions== Chemical reactions are when two chemicals react to form a different substance."

Removed from article, because it's not a precise definition. It's also explained in the rest of the article. --Bfesser 23:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Let's get rid of the External Links

Wikipedia is not a web directory. The topic is too general; there are thousands of websites about chemistry. The selection currently found in this article is arbitrary (any selection would be). In general the links do not comply with WP:EL. And we have people constantly adding links to their websites, some of which are only tangentially related with the topic and with dubious encyclopedic value. The only semi-reasonable option IMO, other than dispensing with the external links section altogether, would be to link only to a few web directories, which will do a better job of having large collections of links about chemistry. --Itub 16:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We should remove the lot, but we might expand the "See also" list to articles on WP that have good external links. --Bduke 22:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with the remove all suggestion. It would be nice to have a few very select high quality external links about this broad subject, but that may be impractical.--Nick Y. 17:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Let's stop being eurocentric and add more than one line about chemistry in the Arab world

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