Talk:Atomic radius

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Can somebody check to make sure this article is correct in saying metalic and covalent radii are other names for certain types of atomic radii?

I think at least 'covalent radius' is described correctly (in the way my teacher has used it, and he should know - he used to be a professor). Is this what you mean? sodium

How could the Mo be smaller in radius than Ca & more electronegative although it has 20 more electrons than Ca?

the atomic radius is also related to shielding

I realize there is a strong correlation between atomic radius and electronegativity, but might it be better to have the chart list the atomic radii?

I agree. It is misleading to title the page & section "Radius" while listing electronegativities in the periodic table. BeefGood 12:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I also agree -- it took me quite a while to work out what the first table is. How about we move the electronegativity table to the bottom, and label it more clearly? atakdoug 05:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] A note of appreciation

To all the wonderful editors who have added to this article, thank you! It's been a great help. This article was created in 2002 and back then it looked pretty bad. Now it's a fine article indeed. Thanks! Goyston talk, contribs, play 15:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Saint Petersburg

Besides being a silly way to say that two things are far apart, the sentence about Saint Petersburg(s) is technically incorrect. Even ignoring the fact that an electron anywhere near these two places would become entangled in the matter surrounding it, there is a finite distance that an electron can travel from a nucleus before the atom is considered ionized. In calculating the stable states for any atom, the wavefunction becomes zero with increasing distance, it does not asymptotically approach zero. It is OK to say that the border of the atomic radius is "fuzzy" since the actual point where the wavefunction becomes zero will likely be somewhere past the distance accepted as the common atomic radius.

[edit] Reference

I believe the following reference:

E. Clementi, D.L.Raimondi, and W.P. Reinhardt, J. Chem. Phys. 1967, 47, 1300.

is actually:

Clementi, E.; Raimondi, D. L.; Reinhardt, W. P. (1967). "Atomic Screening Constants from SCF Functions. II. Atoms with 37 to 86 Electrons". Journal of Chemical Physics 47: 1300-1307. 

So it only appears to cover a subset of the periodic table. There was also a reference:

Clementi, E.; Raimondi, D. L. (1963). "Atomic Screening Constants from SCF Functions.". Journal of Chemical Physics 38: 2686-2689. 

that may cover elements 2-36 (but I don't have access to check.) Even with that, however, the page is still missing references for elements 88-217.—RJH (talk) 21:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] bond lengths/van der Waals radii

The values given in this chart look suspiciously like bond lengths to me. Personally I would think that van der Waals radii would be more accurate. Em3ryguy (talk) 03:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)