Talk:Timeline of chemistry

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[edit] Comment

Isn’t a chemistry timeline already in Wikipedia somewhere? Anyway, here’s a couple of other related timelines/history sections that I have either written or worked on, that might be helpful:

• History of thermodynamics#Short history
• Timeline of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and random processes
• History of quantum mechanics#Timeline
• History of the molecule

Talk later: --Sadi Carnot 16:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

If anyone has a problem with the following "early years" part:

• c. 3000 BCE: Egyptians formulated the theory of the Ogdoad the “primordial forces”, from which all was formed; these were the elements of chaos, numbered in eight, that existed before the creation of the sun.

It can be noted that both Isaac Newton, in his Chronology, and Michael Maier, as well as others, were using these Egyptian theories in the 1680s to formulate the chronological order of how the elements were formed as based on the descendents of the Ogdoad, such Ham, Misraim, Phut, Canaan, etc., each being associated with a different element. --Sadi Carnot 18:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revered by User:Jayron32

User Jayron32 revered this change (which I made):

• 1758: Joseph Black - formulates concept of latent heat to explain the thermochemistry of phase changes.

To this (which he thinks is correct):

• 1750: Joseph Black - formulates concept of latent heat to explain the thermodynamics of phase changes.

Per the comment: “changed latent heat entry back to Thermodynamics. Though he never used the word, his discovery clearly belong in THAT field, not thermochemistry, something else entirely.” Jayron is clearly wrong in this matter. The science of thermodynamics did not begin until 1824. I will revert back with an added a source to justify the correct version. If Jayron has further issues with this semantics detail I will seek out further references. If this fails, I will seek out “request for comment” at the various WikiProject pages and with interested Users. I hope this will not be the case. --Sadi Carnot 04:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No need to get testy. Its rather soon to jump to an RfC, would you not say? Let's discuss this on the talk page like civilized people do, not simply threaten litigation over what amounts to the MOST minor of semantic differences. And "clearly wrong" is a bit harsh. Thermochemistry is merely the more specific term for thermodynamics of chemical processes. It's like me saying "This is a dog" and you saying "No, you are clearly wrong, its a cocker spaniel". We are both right, you are merely more specific. Thermodynamics is the study of the movement of energy; thermochemistry is the study of the movement of energy during a chemical process. There can be much debate over whether a phase change is in fact a chemical process, or, since no actual intra-molecular bonds are broken, merely a physical one. Also, merely because you find a source that uses the word "Thermochemistry" does not make "Thermodynamics" incorrect for the same reasons outlined above. Black probably used NEITHER term in his own work; yet the concept of latent heat clearly belongs within the realm of both. Though Carnot may be the "father" of thermodynamics, the entire discipline did not spring forth from his head fully formed like Athena from Zeus. Like ALL SCIENTISTS EVER, he clearly had the work of others to build from. Still, since a) you REALLY care alot and b) me not so much, you can win. I just want you to recognize that thermochemistry is merely a derivative field of thermodynamics and not some completely different discipline. --Jayron32 05:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The world’s first ice-calorimeter, used in the winter of 1782-83, by Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace, to determine the heat evolved in various chemical changes; calculations which were based on Joseph Black’s prior discovery of latent heat. These experiments mark the foundation of thermochemistry.

Yes, sorry for getting hot-headed, but it would have been nicer if you had first jotted a note on the talk page, rather than abruptly reverting me. I happen to be presently reading Lavoisier’s Elements of Chemistry, where Black’s theories were first utilized. On February 15, for example, I uploaded the adjacent image (caption sourced out of Partington’s History of Chemistry).

Moreover, I am the main editor for the thermochemistry, chemical thermodynamics, thermodynamics, and heat articles. These are my favorites. I personally own more than 120 thermodynamics, thermal physics, thermochemistry, etc., related books. I understand they have overlap, but they are also each distinctly their own and have long and elaborate histories marked by certain discoveries. --Sadi Carnot 12:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, your date on this one entry is off by eight years? This leads me to question the rest of the dates on this page, which you started. Are you ball-parking dates by decades? --Sadi Carnot 05:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope. It was a typo. Based on the article Joseph Black in wikipedia, I had meant to state 1759 (which is the date that article gives) but if you notice, the 0 is next to the 9. Such things do happen, even among the best meaning of editors. Thank you for correcting it. --Jayron32 05:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for providing references. It was my intention to build the list first and then backfill my references later. This has been a big process, and it is still a very new article. The more references the better, and once I get this to some semblance of completion, I was planning to fill in more references. Thanks again for adding yours, and any more you can add would be MOST helpful. --Jayron32 05:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Periodization

What is the basis for the division between the "industrial era" and the "early modern" era? Is this in common use, or based on a published work? And more importantly, is this relevant to the history of chemistry? In my opinion, no, as there was no major revolution in chemistry around 1850. If I had to divide the history of chemistry from the renaissance to today into periods, I would place one split around the time of Lavoisier or Dalton, and another around the time of Rutherford and Lewis (both of which curiously almost exactly match the centuries!). I'm also happy if the entire time after renaissance is treated as one period. But the current division seems arbitrary to me. Itub 08:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to something just as arbitrary, but more equitably so. How does this look? We need some sort of breaks for readability anyways. --Jayron32 02:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course, all periodizations are arbitrary to some extent. :) Anyway, I like the new one better. Centuries may be arbitrary, but at least they are clear and everyone can agree where they begin and end (give or take one year ;-). --Itub 08:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discoveries

Some of the entries in the list (including several that I added) could be considered inventions or theoretical developments rather than discoveries. I think these are perfectly fine and useful and I don't think they should be deleted, but maybe we could mention in the introduction that "discovery" is being used loosely and also includes some inventions and theoretical developments? --Itub 09:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, that struck me too. I will move the page so as the title is more consistent. "Timeline of chemistry" is probably appropriate, eh? --Jayron32 17:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do we really need references here?

Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think this article really needs references, except perhaps for controversial entries. Every entry here links both to the article about the scientist and an article about the topic, places where references either exist already or would be very welcome. But to duplicate those references here when they are just one click away will make this page twice as long (and unnecessarily IMO). Omitting references when only mentioning (and linking to) another article is common practice for "summary style" articles and is encouraged by the scientific citation guidelines in some cases. --Itub 09:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I can understand the sentiment above, and I agree with it myself. However, my opinion on the matter is moot. This article is nearly ready for nomination as a featured list, IMHO, and what is needed to get it ready for feature status is referencing. To quote WP:WIAFL, the relevent criteria for featured lists, criteria #1(a) states, and I quote, "The list is a timeline of important events on a notable topic, the inclusion of which can be objectively sourced."(empasis mine) and criteria #1(c) states "Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations." Again, while I feel that the level of referencing I am doing is overkill, having sat in on Featured Article discussions, one of the biggest impediments (other than NPOV) is proper referencing. Common sense may dictate that WP:SCG is a better guideline, but consensus during featuring debates clearly shows otherwise... --Jayron32 19:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

References are good; however, we should use a mixture and try to source the original publication, if possible. For example, 20 present references go to Chemical Achievers, which weakens our article a bit; not that I don’t like the Chemical Achievers website, but rather a variety of sources is better. --Sadi Carnot 12:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. If you have any references to add, that would be great. While original publications can be cool, it should be noted the policy WP:ATT, which has replaced the keystone policies of WP:V and WP:OR, deprecates the use of primary sources (i.e. original resources as published by the original reseatrcher) in favor of secondary sources. To quote the relevent policy: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." By secondary, they mean article, books, journals, etc. that summararize and provide context for important ideas like the discoveries in this timeline. Simply put, the primary source, like the works that first published the research we are putting together in this timeline, can establish the existence of said research, but cannot establish the importance of said research. In order for an idea to be notable, someone BESIDES the people that published it must say so. We need to reference THOSE people when building a timeline like this. To put it another way, since we are saying in this article "This discovery by this chemist is important" we need to find a source that says THAT, not merely that reports the said discovery. Therefore, the prefered reference are not the original publications, but rather reliable sources that say "These are the most important ideas in chemistry, and this is who and when they were discovered." Chemical Achievers is merely one website that I found that does a decent job of providing that reference. For the record, I agree with you on the idea of a variety of sources. I would LOVE to see more references, and welcome and invite you and everyone else to add more. I am pretty sure I have mined Chemical Achievers for all that is there, I fully plan to cite more websites and books as I find stuff. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jayron32 (talk • contribs) 02:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

I disagree. The single most important reference for a (modern) chemical discovery is the original publication. An additional reference about the importance of the discovery is nice, but less essential IMO because it is just someone else's opinion and you have many opinions to choose from, as opposed to the unique original publication, which is completely objective. Yes, what to add to this list will be a bit subjective, but so it is with everything we add to Wikipedia. I don't adhere to the view that Wikipedia editors are robots that shouldn't be allowed to decide what to add. In addition, to convincingly prove the importance of every entry in this list would require several references per entry, which is again excessive IMO, and the reason I advocate deferring the references to the more specific articles. I tend to see timelines as quick lists that organize and link to other articles chronologically for convenience (basically, an index), and not as a formal scholarly work in their own right. --Itub 09:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, I agree with you. However, my opinion is not important, and neither is yours. The question is, does Wikipedia agree with you and I. It does not. The relevent policy, WP:ATT clearly deprecates the use of primary sources explicitly because they do not provide context. If I say, in an article, that Joseph Preistly discovered oxygen on XXXX date, that is one thing, and could perhaps cite the paper he wrote first describing it. However, what a list like this does is say "The fact that Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen is an important event and worthy of note." It is impossible to establish importance and worth from Priestly's own article. We should reference those people who came after Priestly and THEMSELVES have stated that his discovery is important. Otherwise, it is simply my own ORIGINAL OPINION that his discovery is worthy of inclusion, and thus, it is original research, which is verboten under policies like WP:ATT. It seems a simple disctinction, but without it, we could populate this article with every novel discovery in JACS or any other Journal and simply claim that since JACS (as the primary source) establishes when the discovery was made, it is worthy of inclusion. Such an idea is clearly silly, and thus we need MORE than the original publication. We need secondary sources to provide context and import and worthiness of inclusion in the list. --Jayron32 23:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you are following the rules overzealously, but maybe that's because you want to get the list featured. I guess I can't complain since you are doing all the work, and I frankly don't care about articles getting featured or not, but only about usefulness and practicality. I guess references don't hurt, so keep up the good work. --Itub 10:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let's leave this discussion behind. A good source you can use to justify the importance of some of the discoveries in the late 19th and 20th centuries is http://nobelprize.org (in the case of discoveries that were rewarded with a Nobel Prize, of course). --Itub 11:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing push, almost done

We have a few more entries to reference, certainly not more than a few dozen. Any more help would be appreciated. I plan to nominate this list for Featured status as soon as the referencing is complete. Thanks again for everyone's help so far... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potential inconsistancy needs addressing

We now have two entries for the first chemistry textbook, by Beguin in 1615 and by Lavoisier in 1789. Should we:

1. eliminate the word "first" from each, and replace with "early".
2. elminate the word "first" from Lavoisier, and leave it in Beguin
3. add "one of the..." to each entry
4. leave it as-is

Well, what do y'all think? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit subjective, because it depends on the definition of "chemistry" and "textbook". ;-) The entry for Lavoisier does say "modern chemistry", which is a bit more specific. I think most people would agree that "modern" chemistry began around the time of Lavoisier, or Boyle at the earliest, which excludes Beguin's textbook from being "modern chemistry". Therefore the current entries are arguably not contradicting each other. My preference would be to call Beguin's "an early" or "one of the earliest" textbooks, and Lavoisier's "widely regarded as the first modern chemistry textbook" (although some might object to "widely regarded" as being weasely...). --Itub 08:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course, a quick search of Google books shows that indeed many authors talk of Lavoisier's book as the "first modern chemistry textbook" [1]. There are also a few relevant results about Begin [2], but not as many as for Lavoisier, and they don't seem to say "modern". --Itub 08:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll add the reference for Lavoisier. Beguins might be better as "Early"... I'll change that too. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link spam listed

User:KyraVixen removed a URL that was part of a reference to the first item in the "Early years" section. I tried to revert this as it was not an external link, but a reference to a source. I was prevented from doing this since that link appears to be spam listed. What goes? --Bduke 05:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The references has been replaced by KyraVixen by a new reference that works just as well. The issue is part of a larger problem with how the spam-blacklist is maintened and operates. The Village Pump has a section dealing with this if it interets you. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Close-Packed Spheron Model

I must confess that I had never heard of the Close-Packed Spheron Model. Apparently there's no wikipedia article about it yet. And the reference given (the Nobel website) doesn't seem to mention it either. Is it notable enough for this timeline? I haven't found anything yet to justify it, but I'd be happy to see some references (but even if it is notable, one could argue that it is a topic in nuclear physics). --Itub 13:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I must confess that I got it from the Wikipedia article on Linus Pauling, and would agree that a) its not that popular a model and b) probably not that significant of an event and should be removed. I will be doing so presently. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Left to do

Referencing is pretty much done to the end ot the 19th century. Left to do:

*Reference the 20th century stuff *Clean up all entries for consistent format and grammar

• • Pick a style and stick to it
  • Pick a tense and stick to it

**Some entries have awkward prose, need to clean up a few*Maybe more pictures? Not sure we need them, looks good now. *Nominate for Featured List when done all of above. Any other ideas anyone? Looking good so far! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • all done, ready for featured list nomination --Jayron32|talk|contribs 20:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured List Nominee

I have nominated this article for inclusion as a featured list. Please compare this article to the criteria listed at WP:WIAFL and make comments on this articles nomination at WP:FLC --Jayron32|talk|contribs 20:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)