Talk:Beryllium

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Article changed over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 14:32, 23 Jun 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 02:03, 18 Jun 2005).

Contents

[edit] Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Beryllium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Beryllium Statistics and Information. Other information was obtained from the sources listed on the main page but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

[edit] Talk

Talk associated with element table development has been moved to Talk:WikiProject Elements

What's the source for this information? Obviously, the information itself isn't copyrighted. But does that mean that entire factbooks can be copied wholesale? An interesting question.

(Not a legal opinion): To date, facts or collections of facts can't be copyrighted, although there are pernicious efforts to change this. However, the presentation of the facts can be. A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted. People have copyrighted facsimile copies of out of copyright books, on the basis of the slight changes that reprinting introduces, but I don't know how successful such attempts are.

"A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted." In that case, I have a concern that the present Beryllium and other similar-formatted articles are copyrighted.

A more educated legal opinion: the governing authority is USSC Feist v. Rural, a case of one phone directory copying numbers from another. In that case, the court affirmed the doctrine that data itself is beyond copyright and dismissed the case. What copyright covers, they said, is the act of creativity, which can be expressed in terms of selecting which data to express, organizing the data a certain way, or wording it a certain way. In the case of phone book entries, it was ruled that an alphabetical list was about as uncreative as it gets, and so no copyright applied. But in the instant case here, I think we may want to come up with a format of our own (which can't be any worse than the one there any way) and just plug the data into it. This could be done programmatically, though, from the existing text. It's OK to *use* copyrighted material to produce non-infringing material.

Yeah, I think this isn't that hard to deal with. We can make some modifications to this to be extra-safe.

What is the original source? Perhaps someone can go to another source and confirm the information and add a few more tidbits.

It's just facts, and if someone wants to sue us over something like this, then it will just be good publicity for us and bad publicity for them. (And, by the way, since it is my money at stake, I'm the only one who gets to decide about these risks.)  ;-) --Jimbo Wales

I've added in some slightly edited berylliosis info taken from the CDC web site. Their copyright notice basically says that if you don't need to login or use a password to see apage, than you're free to use what's on the page. As its a US government site, I assume that means there are no copyright problems about this. Revert the page if I'm wrong -- Malcolm Farmer

Looks fine to me. Thanks for the addition! You needn't worry about the copyright issue - I plan on integrating some OSHA stuff in the same section, which requires me to simplify and rewrite the CDC info anyway -- besides, it probably is public domain and even if it wasn't it would be difficult to defend a copyright on such a small amount of text (especially since it almost certainly was paid for by Joe and Jane Public). Cheers! --User:maveric149

[edit] Mega-annum

Cosmogenic Be-10 thereby accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.5 million years -- Ma) permits a long residence time before decaying to Be-9.

What does "Ma" mean in this context? I'm assuming not mother, which is where I just redirected ma...

At one time just the Ma was there without the "million years" bit. Ma is shorthand for mega-annum which is Latin for million year. You might also come across Ga which is short for giga-annum. --mav


[edit] Berylliosis

I'm quite curious; is there a basic mechanism for berylliosis that is relatively easy to understand or explain, like the mechanism for CO poisoning (subsitution of CO for O2 in respiration), that is relatively easy to explain?--McDogm 03:25, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cost

I heard every element has a cost. Anybody know how much Beryllium costs? (68.205.59.91)

Added. Femto 15:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Beryllium-8

Cost: $530/100 grams


[edit] Featured article

I am impressed with this article and suggest we should promote it as a FAC. Any comments?--Light current 11:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] jewelry bit removed from article

Removed from article:

Beryllium ore, mined in the west desert of Utah, is prized by jewelry makers for its unique patterning. Also known as "opal flourite," the material can be worked into purple (and other color patterned) jewelry. The ore is known also by the jewelry and gem community as "tiffany stone," a name that references the colorful brecciated patterns that occur in the material. The material is difficult to come by as mining companies not sell it for jewelry purposes but crush the ore into powder.

Seems this doesn't fit here. Should maybe be placed in one of the beryllium mineral pages - whichever one it is referring to, chrysoberyl? ... opal fluorite and tiffany stone don't mean anything to me. Vsmith 01:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 10Be deposition

I don't know where the information regarding deposition of 10Be through it's solubility in rainwater comes from , but as far as I know, the main route for 10Be (and 7Be) to be extracted from the atmosphere is through scavenging by sulfate aerosols - predominantly in the stratosphere (not much rain there!). (Lal and Peters, 1967). Sulfate aerosols are also soluble and wet deposition (through clouds and rain) is a dominant mechanism for sulfate removal, but there is a significant component of dry deposition - particularly in very dry conditions (ice sheets etc.).

I was about to mention that normal rainfall has a pH of 5.3. Most rainwater does not have a pH of 5.0 or less, so the statement of "... and most rainwater has a pH less than 5 ..." that is currently in the article is incorrect.
Outside of the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and eastern China, there are very few places that see rain with a pH of 5.0 or less. Even in the United States, most of the landmass receives rain that is above a pH of 5. (A map of the lower 48 states: http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/isopleths/maps2006/2006Maps.pdf.) In Europe, the area that sees pH of 5.0 or less is roughly a triangular area that is bounded by Britain, Southern Sweden, Austria, and Northern Italy.

[edit] Beryllium: Fictional references

Wondering of a small section on popular fiction references to Beryllium, accurate or not, should be made. I can think of two off the top of my head: In the 1996 Doctor Who movie, the Doctor needs to retrieve a beryllium atomic clock, and in the movie Galaxy Quest, the ship is fueled by beryllium spheres (as a parody of Star Trek's dilithium crystals).67.169.63.116 10:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No - especially the accurate or not bit. There exists an article for such trivia - fictional uses of real materials or some such. Vsmith 11:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Added fictional applications of real materials to the see also section. Femto 11:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah applications' - thanks, Vsmith 12:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] great site

thanks this helped so so much with my science report on beryllium—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.77.242.144 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Elimination

I do not see anything here which indicates if Beryllium eliminated over time, is it? Jokem 05:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Be-10 decays to... what?

Is 10Be a neutron emitter or beta emitter (decaying to 10B)? Dajwilkinson 23:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Beta-minus. [1] Georgewilliamherbert 00:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this right? Quoting from the article: "Cosmogenic 10Be thereby accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.51 million years) permits a long residence time before decaying to 10Be ." 10Be decays to 10Be? I'm no chemist, or nuclear physicist, just a student. But that sounds wrong. Imperpay (talk) 04:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It does not say what you wrote: "10Be decays to 10Be" . It says "10Be decays to 10B" . The "B" rather than "Be" at the end of the sentence refers to Boron. The Boron nucleus has one more unit of nuclear charge than that of Beryllium. In the decay, a neutron changes to a proton, an electron and an electron-antineutrino (to distinguish it from a tau-antineutrino I used the prefix "electron.") The latter two particles exit (the electron or beta-particle and the anti-neutrino). The decay is slow because it is mediated by the weak force and the energy is relatively small.Carrionluggage (talk) 05:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speed of sound

There are two seemingly equal conditions for speed of sound measurements, yet there are two distinct results. What gives? Slidersv 20:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea. I could reference the 12870 m/sec figure (wow, mach 37.5, faster than Earth escape v), so I deleted the other, which seems to be corrupted somehow. What does the "n" mean? [2] SBHarris 02:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protected for a month

Due to the nearly daily IP address vandalism, I have applied semi-protection to the article for a month. If this is causing you problems or you object, feel free to discuss here or on my talk page, or bring it up with any other Wikipedia administrator for review. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

chlorine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.152.195 (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Have a question

Where does Beryllium get its name from????????/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.130.185 (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

See List of chemical element name etymologies. --Itub (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Beryllium falls slower in a vacuum?

In 1999, my chemistry professor told me that Beryllium falls slower in a vacuum than other elements. I found this interesting and over the years have tried to find more information on this. Has anyone have any further information pro or con?Septagram (talk) 03:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)