Talk:Group 3 element

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[edit] Definition of group 3

Poking around the web: group 3 does not seem to be well defined, due to the Lanthanides and Actinides. Some tables list Lanthanum and Actinium as members of group 3, while others list Lutetium and Lawrencium. Another I found left all of these off. Does anyone know the IUPAC standard? -- hike395 14:16, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I went with the Wikipedia standards found in the periodic table entry. If someone knows the IUPAC authoritatively, they should update here but AFAIK the current (Dec 3, 03) version should be correct. fvincent 20:03, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)
The IUPAC table is at http://www.iupac.org/reports/periodic_table/index.html. I'm not sure if this helps or not. Eric119 01:34, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

Sc, Y, La and Ac are group 3 elements, but lanthanides and actnides aren't. In the article Periodic table group it's said: A periodic table group is a vertical column in the periodic table of the elements. Lanthanides and actinides aren't in that vertical column.

Unfortunately, IUPAC appears to dodge the problem. Physchim62 (talk) 17:04, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

(See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Group 3) Femto 17:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jan 18 edits

I have serious doubts that the article appreciated the 'asskicking' (this revision), as you put it, and thus reverted to the old version.

>> In current IUPAC nomenclature, the elements in group 3 of the periodic table are scandium (Sc), yttrium (Y), lutetium (Lu) and lawrencium (Lr).

You can provide a cite where IUPAC says lutetium and lawrancium are in group 3, I assume?

>> These are the transition metals (or "d block elements"), with a groundstate outer electron configuration of d3.

What is that supposed to mean?

>> The Lanthanide Series elements, although similar to these metals in many respects, are generally considered as a separate series, as they exhibit additional properties associated with their partially-filled 4f shell.

"Generally considered", cite? What about non-generally? Lutetium generally is a lanthanide according to that link, it's separate from its own series? Ytterbium's 4f is filled, may we include it then? But this describes a series, not this group, which is not necessarily the same, anyway.

Femto 17:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the whole periodic table bit imploded on my edits before I've run out time to fix it right now.

The article should reflect IUPAC guidelines, if it reflects anything... As it stands it is seriously flawed, since it implies that it is sensible to consider (for instance) elements in the middle of the actinides together with scandium as being part of the same chemical "group". This is bogus, as they have precious few similarities either in chemical behaviour or underlying electronic properties. --feline1 17:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

"Precious few similarities"!? The most noteworthy difference in their configurations is the filling up of the f-shell. They're all silverish metals. That's more than one can say about the carbon group. For crying out loud. Femto 22:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It also talks nonsense about these elements being "rare" earths (they're not rare in abundance). --feline1 17:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I won't object to the removal of information like this which is not immediately relevant to the article. I'd like to point out however that the term "rare earth metals" reflects IUPAC guidelines (Chap3-3.04.pdf) and it groups Sc, Y, and the lanthanoids together. Not a far stretch and by no means bogus to assume a similarity between this and group 3, analogous to other groupings such as the noble gases respectively group 18. Femto 22:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Group 3 is most tidily thought of a Sc, Y, Lu, Lr because these are d-block elements (d0) with no partially filled f-shells... that's what IUPAC have been recommending. See also discussion on the boards at http://www.webelements.com (University of Sheffield) if you dig around. --feline1 17:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Again I ask you to come forth with any clear IUPAC recommendations regarding the definition of their group 3. Coherent common-use examples are one thing, but it is not the place of an encyclopedia to simply select one definition because it's most 'tidy', present it as definite and uncontroversial, and disregard all other interpretations. Femto 22:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


Further problems with the article Femto reverted to include egregious pidgeon Engrlish sentence structures such as "A Group 3 element is the series of elements in group 3 of the periodic table" and "All of these elements are classed in Group 3 because their outer electron shells hold three electrons", and the daft "However it seems that IUPAC does not include the Lanthanides and the Actinides in group 3." (so the final authority on chemical nomenclature disagrees with the article?!? Or "seems" to? wah?). As for Femto's linguistic quibbling with "generally considered", this is intended in the sense that Groups *ARE* generalizations about chemical behaviour! That's the whole point. You can talk about all these elements in the same breath because they show many GENERAL similarities (although there are always exceptions in the details). I see no good reason to revert my revision (before it was even half finished), the old article sucks!--feline1 19:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

We know it sucks. I'm open to any form of linguistic improvement, provided that those edits don't completely turn the whole meaning of the article inside out again. If there also would be some references for any of said meaning in the first place, the better. Femto 22:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


Femto, with all due disrespect, you are wildly misunderstanding/misrepresenting what I've been writing. You would perhaps do better to, say, go to the library and read a graduate level chemistry textbook. For instance, above, when I say it makes no sense to consider scandium as being the the same group as elements in the middle of the actinide series, you claim that despite their wholly different electronic configuration that they are "both silvery metals". I find myself laughing out loud - do you know how many "silvery metals" there are in the period table?!? LOL Wheras electronic configurations (spectroscopy, bonding, magnetochemistry...) are key. Rather than have you vandalize any more of my work on the article, perhaps you can improve it yourself? --feline1 22:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
If I misunderstand, other people will misunderstand too. An encyclopedic article must be clear not only to those who have first read a chemistry textbook. For the third time, I ask you to provide any form of authoritative reference for your interpretation of the topic, and for the reasoning behind presenting it as definite in this article as your revision did.
Unless you care to define what you mean by "wholly different", I remain that, yes, they're all between the well-defined groups 2 and 4, and they're all more or less silvery metals. Hilarious that one could consider them as a distinct group, isn't it?
Regarding the last personal comment, see your talk page. Femto 15:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


Femto, perhaps you could provide an authoritative reference for YOUR interpretation of the topic? I doubt you will be able to, as you just plain wrong in most of what you say. As such, I'd thank you to let people with some knowledge in the discipline get on and improve the article, which I was doing before you reverted me in mid-sentance. I have a chemistry degree from Oxford University, what are your credentials? --feline1 15:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The whole point is that I don't have one interpretation, I cannot give you a reference for that. Please show, which of what I said is wrong, and why? I did not revert you mid-sentence, but two hours after you left an article with broken coding and no explanation of why the entire meaning changed. The table at IUPAC either does not put Lu & Lr into group 3, or all of 57-71 & 89-103, depending on how one reads it. The old article was at least consistent with the latter. My credentials are as irrelevant to this article as are yours, if you can't use them to provide it with the required neutrality and verifiability as per Wikipedia's policies, even when repeatedly asked to. Femto 19:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Two hours isn't much when the article's been crap for many months... I just got sidetracked at work. I would have gone back to it. The article was changed because it was factually wrong and gramatically wrong. Mistakes include the idea that the "rare earths" are rare, that they include the actinides, and that it makes any kind of sense to consider the actinides sharing similar chemical/structural/bonding/spectroscopic/magnetic... behaviour as scandium. All of which I've told you about 3 times already.--feline1 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


Here's a page for Femto: http://www.iupac.org/didac/Didac%20Eng/Didac01/Content/S29.htm --feline1 10:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It groups Sc, Y, La to Lu, and Ac to Lr into group 3. …? Femto 12:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Another reference (which I haven't checked myself but I take it on good recommendation: J. Chem Ed. (1982) 59 634-636 --feline1 10:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is not the lack of particular references. Or the undisputed factual inaccuracies in this article, just go ahead and fix those. The problem is the introduction of a definition as sole encyclopedic fact which is not backed as such by an authority or by common usage. A Sc+Y+Lu+Lr convention makes very much sense and, considering it, might even be more easy than Sc+Y+La+Ac to adopt Wikipedia-wide for the purpose of consistent examples. The article has to describe, not define. You told me your opinion, but that alone can't determine the content, especially if the fact doesn't change that it still would be non-neutral and inconsistent with several other sources and interpretations. Femto 12:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Femto, it is not my "opinion" that, (in so much as the orbital approximation has any kind of validity by the your get to Lr!) that Sc > Y > Lu > Lr are "d block" in terms of electronic configuration and consequence chemical/structural/bonding/spectroscopic/magnetic... behaviour. And thus make probably the best candidate for a "Group 3", if we must pick one. Obviously the article can mention other alternative schemes, but it's really of little consequence, it is only a naming convention. What matters is understanding the behaviour of the elements, and their electronic configuration generally provides the best model for interpreting that.

[edit] Wikipedia should not follow the webelements.com convention

I've changed the article to represent current opinion (or, more precisely, current lack of opinion). It's OK for an encylcopedia to reflect the reality of organizational ambiguity among authoritative folks in the world. J. Chem. Ed. (1982) 59 634-636 says that it is better to place Lu and Lr in group 3 than to place La and Ac there if one looks at chemical properties. Webelements.com uses this article to explain its table, but the article does not compare the placement of Lu and Lr in this column to the placement of none-of-the-above/all-of-the-above by asterisks, which is what IUPAC tables look like now. Even though, as was pointed out, IUPAC doesn't express an opinion about what group 3 should be. For a very long, and very silly discussion about this, see http://forums.webelements.info/viewtopic.php?t=2334&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=. (Hi again feline1!) The discussion ends when a webelements administrator writes: "We could certainly argue that my WebElements home page (and a lot of books) is a bit loose in that I have labelled the first row of the f-block as lanthanoid without making it clear that Lu is one as well. I'll find a way to clarify that..." but webelements continues to be more misleading than it should be. Wikipedia doesn't have to be so loose. One thing we should certainly not do is pretend that IUPAC has a convention that some elements are ungrouped just because it doesn't have a convention that rigorously groups them. I am recommending that the ungrouped elements article be deleted. Live with ambiguity. Don't read too much into it. Flying Jazz 01:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I.e. you mean this version appropriately represents the IUPAC view? (Perhaps except the link to ungrouped elements.) Nothing would be easier. --Eddi (Talk) 02:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
That table is factually incorrect because Lu is a lanthanide and Lr is an actinide. Those two are d-block elements (while the others in the series are f-block). If their colors were changed, that would be one of several possible alternatives that fall within IUPAC recommendations. Three options (all within IUPAC recommendations) are on my userpage because I changed the wikipedia table from La/Ac above to the current version last year (before I knew about that great element template!). Flying Jazz 02:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
(Template:Element isn't table-related, you didn't mean to link Template:Element_cell?)
Yes, I suppose I did mean that! Flying Jazz 21:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Nicely neutrally-descriptive rewrite and more elaborate than I could ever have done in a lifetime. my hero Anybody feel free to re-include the fixes to the remaining inaccuracies re:rare-earth-abundance (or altogether remove this part, it's not really relevant to the article anyway). See further Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements#Group number convention. Femto 15:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


Well so help me god, but I have re-worked Flying Jazz's edits further. I believe this gives the best description of the nomenclature yet. I would point out that the article still says virtuallY NOTHING about the damn CHEMISTRY of Group 3, which is a slightly more glaring omission!!!! But at least we seem to have gotten beyond this rather daft primacy-of-nomenclature angle which if I'm not mistaken simply came from Hong Kong high-school student Deryck's rather effusive pen some time last year, with its attendent misnomers about "ungrouped elements"--feline1 16:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
If you are one of two editors working on an article at the same moment, please have the courtesy to examine the changes made while you were working before erasing them. Flying Jazz 16:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
arrrrrrrggh! --feline1 16:59, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please coordinate with Group number of lanthanides and actinides article

Please coordinate future changes to this article with the group number of lanthanides and actinides article so we have a self-consistent pair of articles that don't contradict each other even though they might say similar things twice and repeat themselves. Flying Jazz 21:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

We don't even NEED an article about that, the entire thing just spun out of young Deryck's fevered brow! It's like having an article about how that one time I put on the wrong pair of socks--feline1 21:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Well sure, we don't NEED one. Hell, we don't NEED an article about group 3 either. I don't even need wikipedia. Or the internet! I just need emeralds. Oh yes. Emeralds. Also, See Socks#Socks_in_popular_culture. I think the group number of lanthanides and actinides article is useful because it gives the link-loving template-users someplace to link to with their lanthanoid/actinoid articles. Should Wikipedia be content with the "n/a" under Uranium and just let it go at that with no further explanation? No I say! It might also be a better place for this discussion and other ones like it. It focuses the mind. Focuses the discussion. Pinpoints the differences and distinctions. Still, maybe you have a point. Let's leave it there for now with that name for a while, and see what other wikipedia folks have to say about it. Flying Jazz 21:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes but there's actually a danger of it going out the other side of "just not being very interesting" into actually "solidifying an validating and entirely false premise when we should never be thinking about things in that way in the first place". By which I mean: schoolkids should never forget the primacy of empirical observation of chemical properties over trying to force-fit things into arbitrary models for the sake of nomenclature fetishes. There is no pre-existing physical entity of a "group" of elements: we've simply noticed that some elements have similar periodicities in properties, and so can be put in "groups". Elements which DON'T fir that scheme not only don't belong in groups: they should make us question the usefulness of the concept of "groups" in the first place. Yes?--feline1 22:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Emphatically. In fact, I stole a sentence or two from you and added it to the introduction to the Group number of lanthanides and actinides article. Good copy there. Flying Jazz 23:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] arrrrrgh

(actually, forget it - amoungst the deluge of other edits, I see you did preserve the spirit of the comment I was just complaining was deleted. I'm going to lie down now :)--feline1 21:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

heh. I did delete that comment about Lr, and then realized one bit of it really had to be in there, and but that part back in. Happy nappy. Flying Jazz 21:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient representation of new revision

After walking through the various periodic tables I see that periodic table (block) is kind of a compromise between some of the views expressed here. I have to look at it in more detail when I'm awake, though. --Eddi (Talk) 06:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)