Talk:History of chemistry

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A Wikipedian removed History of chemistry from the good article list. There are suggestions below for improving areas to satisfy the good article criteria. Once the objections are addressed, renominate the article as a good article. If you disagree with the objections, you can seek a review.
Removal date: September 14, 2006
Article Creation and Improvement Drive History of chemistry was the Article Creation and Improvement Drive for the week spanning from Sunday, 18 September 2005.

For more details, see the Article Creation and Improvement Drive history.

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Contents

[edit] New content needs home

The history of science was getting too long, in mav's estimation. So I am looking for a new home for some of the content. Would it be allright with everyone if I injected some of the content here? Ancheta Wis 19:35, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, please! --Arkuat 20:27, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)
The combined effect of the stuff I wrote, plus Ancheta Wis's imports of text from history of science is to make this article a bit too gushy about Linus Pauling, at least. Giving that a proper edit without removing any useful and appropriate information is going to be something of a chore. --Eric Forste 23:23, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Another thing that bugs me about this article is the length of the See also list. Many of these people (Faraday! Berzelius! etc.) ought to be mentioned and explained in the main text. (But don't remove Maria Sklodowska-Curie from the see also list: she deserves to be mentioned at least twice.) --Eric Forste (talk) 05:32, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alchemy

Did chemisty evolve from alchemistry? -- Jerry Crimson Mann 09:45, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it did. There's lots of good information about the "prehistory" of chemistry (chemical discoveries made during the age of alchemy) buried in articles such as sulfuric acid. This is also the period during which Islamic science was at the forefront of chemical research, such as it was at that time. I don't how much of that stuff is properly covered in the very long article on alchemy (which I haven't given a proper reading yet, and I don't know anything about Taoist alchemy), or how much of that stuff ought to be alluded to here. Perhaps the current intro paragraph of this article ought to be moved after the ToC and replaced by a more general introduction. --Eric Forste (talk) 23:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I added some material regarding alchemy which seemed to be lacking. The alchemy article provided by Wikipedia does not seem to be written for the purpose of providing a context for the growth of Chemistry. It appears to exist in its own little world. I add a few paragraphs about that. In addition, atomism, while it also goes back a long way and has its own entry, there must be enough of it in this article to provide a context for chemistry. Same for metallurgy. I don't feel that by reading the disparate articles in different parts of Wikipedia, that one would ever get a sense of evolution, and of how science evolved from the more primitive arts and mysticism, and I feel it is unfair to the reader to expect them to piece it together. As writers of "the history of chemistry", that should be our job. It is even more unfair that most of these pre-chemistry topics are not even referenced in the article, or in some cases even mentioned. By the way, a similar text I wrote for chemistry will be shortened considerably later this week. Pking123 02:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Layout

I wished I could see the page with many different resolutions. I am using 800 X 600 resolution and a 13 inch monitor. Will someone who has a larger monitor and resolution report on how the page layout looks? Jaberwocky6669 21:08, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted GA

Nobody seems to of actually reviwed this article, which they should of, because there are not enough references to qualify as "well-referenced", and the history of Chemistry is quite a long one, there's no way this article is broad enough in coverage to adequatly explain the entire thing. I know some of the sections are from other articles so that's why their short, but there's not enough of these sections, Chemistry has had a very complicated and detailed history which an article this short couldn't possibly be broad enough to encompass the subject. Also, re-word the intro, "may be said" doesn't tell the reader anything, and once again, for the entire History of Chemistry, this will have to be a very well-written summary, because it's gonna be long folks. Homestarmy 14:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two beginnings?

I find in the article that Chemistry "may be said" to begin with two different people, working in two centuries: Boyle in the seventeenth, and Lavoisier in the eighteenth. I don't mind being left somewhat in the dark on this affair, but I think the article might be well served to have some clarification on the matter. Thanks for taking the time to read my comment. :) Geuiwogbil 02:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Discrepancy resolved. Thanks for pointing it out. --Blainster 21:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)