Talk:Hydride

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[edit] Contradiction

This article contradicts itself. It begins by defining a hydride as a compound of hydrogen with more electropositive elements. It later lists ammonia and water (amongst others) as hydrides, yet these are compounds of hydrogen with more electronegative elements.

As far as Greenwood and Earnshaw is concerned, hydrides are all the binary compounds of hydrogen with another element, of the general form AxHy. I think the introduction of this article should be rewritten accordingly.

Ben 20:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

Hydride is the name give to the negative ion of hydrogen, H−. It is also used as a more general term to describe compounds of hydrogen with other elements, particularly those of groups 1–16, whether or not they actually contain hydride ions. Protide, deuteride and tritide are used in the same way to describe ions or compounds which contain enriched hydrogen-1, deuterium or tritium respectively.

Physchim62 (talk) 02:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

According to my dictionary, a hydride is a binary compound formed by hydrogen and another, usually more electropositive, element or group, as sodium hydride, NaH, or methyl hydride.... Moreover, that definition is more in keeping with the use of the word in the article itself, as well as in articles linking to this one. Why not state so outright, instead of saying it's "applied to describe" them, while being "the name given to" something else entirely -- "the negative ion of hydrogen"? Referring to "hydride" as a thing or substance conflicts semantically with discussing the hydrides as a family, a concept which probably predates the use of the word to refer to an ion. D021317c (talk) 13:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh your comments are appropriate, but the chemistry community/tradition does not always follow the rules of dictionaries. And we would all like to state the situation "outright" as you say, but term hydride is used more subtly. Hydride refers to hydrogen atoms that are fairly basic (resulting from their attachment to electropositive elements or groups) but methyl-H is not hydridic, usually. I wished that the chemical word and the world of nomenclature were more perfectly alligned, but they are not and this and other articles defers to reality in the flask vs the rules of language. At least that's my view.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)