User talk:Дрейгорич

I might not immediately respond to your inquiry. I get notified if you leave a message on my talk page, but please keep in mind that I have a life outside of Wikipedia. It might take a few days or a few weeks even to get a response from me. Apologies in advance.

Дрейгорич is currently experiencing mental health issues, which may affect his Wikipedia editing in various ways. He may have difficulty with:

altered perception when making editorial judgements, determining consensus, or reading Wikipedia discussions addressed to him;
reduced availability on Wikipedia during times when he experiences issues;
limited capacity to respond to other Wikipedians via talk page or email messages in a timely fashion, to participate in conflict resolution, or to complete his usual workload of Wikipedia tasks.

Thank you for your understanding.

I've been experiencing depressive episodes of increasing severity in response to what has been going on in real life. As a result I am taking a Wikibreak of indeterminate length.

I will still check messages from time to time, but do not expect that I will respond in a timely manner, if at all. Thank you for your understanding. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:47, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Feeling a bit better, but I don't expect this feeling to last. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 23:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2: Worsening again. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:34, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update 3: Some recovery, especially after today. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 01:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update 4: I will be taking a Wikibreak of indefinite length. I do not know when or even if I will return. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:14, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update 5: Due to my mental health worsening, I will return to an indefinite Wikibreak. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 21:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Hello, Dreigorich, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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April 2018

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a message letting you know that one or more of your recent edits to Swaziland has been undone by an automated computer program called ClueBot NG.

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S/2011 J 1

Hi, Why did you put this moon in the Carme group? Can you please point me to the source? Thanks Golan's mom (talk) 08:12, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The users Double sharp and Exoplanetaryscience, who work with me, agree to use the colorings of https://sites.google.com/carnegiescience.edu/sheppard/moons/jupitermoons as our main source. It is the last entry on the page. Dreigorich (talk) 14:04, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I will use this source in Hebrew Wikipedia as well. Golan's mom (talk) 17:42, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No prob. As the site is run by one of the discoverers of these many moons, it makes sense to use him as an authority on the topic. Dreigorich (talk) 17:44, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Moons of Jupiter

hi, I've been trying to make un updated table in Hebrew wikipedia based on the English one. However, I see in Scott Sheppard's site that Helike is much farther out than what is written in Wikipedia see here. What do you think? Golan's mom (talk) 10:45, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

also Orthosie (moon) orbital parameters are also different (inclination, orbital period) Golan's mom (talk) 10:49, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The irregular satellites tend to have more irregular orbital parameters, of course. Some satellites have orbits that have been measured so poorly (only observed for a few days/weeks/months) that we don't really know where they'll be a few years/decades from now. Some have already been lost. Also, the Sun tends to influence the orbital elements of these moons, especially the outermost ones like S/2003 J 2. This is why various sources tend to give different orbital elements, usually reported from different times. A satellite's orbit in 2001, when it was just discovered, may be reported differently than that same satellite in 2018, when it was repeatedly observed for years and whose orbit may have been influenced by the Sun a bit. What we have on Wikipedia is our best available guess. Dreigorich (talk) 14:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

hi, but if the table of moons + article has the previous elements, and the Scott Sheppard site lists Helike as more farther out, should we trust that site and update? or can you suggest other source to check? Golan's mom (talk) 05:57, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. I would go with multiple sources, including this one: https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/NatSats/NaturalSatellites.html. I suspect the site is currently down at the moment, but they are the central hub for the ephemerides, so I'd say that they are the most reliable source. Scott sometimes doesn't update the outer moons as often as he should I suspect. Dreigorich (talk) 06:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, The link shows that Orthosie (moon) is much more farther out and with longer period than listed in the Moons of Jupiter article ... retrieving from here Golan's mom (talk) 08:32, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There will always be some sort of error - different sources can't agree on the order of the outer moons as well. Is Megaclite the outermost named moon, as Wikipedia says? Or are other named moons farther away than Megaclite? Again, I suspect different sources and/or different times. Dreigorich (talk) 15:01, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your answer and your patience... Golan's mom (talk) 15:11, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No prob. Dreigorich (talk) 15:12, 13 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Username change.

Past here, I am Дрейгорич and sign accordingly. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 03:45, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your thread has been archived

Hi Дрейгорич! You created a thread called Policy on deleting controversial wording that leads to edit war. at Wikipedia:Teahouse, but it has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please create a new thread.

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...Seriously?

This bot posted twice. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 00:16, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A page you started (2019 AQ3) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating 2019 AQ3.

I have just reviewed the page, as a part of our page curation process and note that:

Please add your sources.

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Boleyn (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Boleyn: I have attempted to cite using the MPC and JPL's citation for the orbit. I cannot find a source for the diameter yet. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 20:22, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for adding those. Boleyn (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Boleyn: It is also possible to make the 3 at the end of the title in subscript? Categories should be "Apohele asteroids". ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 20:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your thread has been archived

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Revert

I undid these revisions because, as you pointed out, the UN's site still uses "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I am an idiot. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 20:52, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

new Saturn moons

Just informing you that I know about them already. ^_^ I'm not sure exactly when I have the time to update list of natural satellites and Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons but it's on my to-do list already. (Unless someone gets to it first! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 06:28, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Don't exactly have the time this week. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:30, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discovery timeline is updated, although I was too impatient to copy over all twenty cites from the articles. (Maybe I will do that later if no one beats me to it.) The big list will take a while longer, I fear... Double sharp (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Diagram on lunar orbits

I figure since you seem to be pretty well versed in the subject, I should run this by you for critique before uploading to wikimedia.

https://i.imgur.com/Qn2emhP.png

The bottom-most chart includes every known outer moon (and their nominal orbits), graphed by inclination, perichron, and apochron. Identified groups and unusual/large bodies are labeled. The middle chart zooms in somewhat, showing the middle moons (as well as Saturn and its ring system) but still the innermost moons are mostly too close in to resolve The topmost chart fully zooms in to show the inner moons, as well as showing the structure of the rings.

exoplanetaryscience (talk) 00:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I like it. It would be better if it were more readable at lower scales, though. Maybe increasing the size of the lines? I'd also like a plot for Jupiter and maybe Uranus and Neptune. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 00:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That might be pretty difficult to do, as the lines are pretty dense as it is. For instance there are 5 different moons all with an inclination around 162-163 degrees, which are already squished together on the lower chart and hard to distinguish. I still haven't found a way around that, unfortunately... exoplanetaryscience (talk) 00:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'd likely encourage users to zoom in, then. Not a serious issue, but just pointing it out. Great work on the diagram, though! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 00:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) @Exoplanetaryscience: Wow! This is really beautiful! I'd echo what Dreigorich said about a similar plot for Jupiter: that would be fantastic! Double sharp (talk) 21:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm considering doing it later this week depending on availability. Judging by the work I've done so far on Saturn's moons, it looks like any other moon system will be comparatively trivial. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 03:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please do! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Graphics_Lab/Illustration_workshop#Update_needed_on_illustration.

hi, if all tasks are done please close your request und trigger automatic archiving with {{section resolved|1=~~~~}}, thx --Mrmw (talk) 06:50, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:52, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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oops

Hi,

No problems re 90-90. Someone usually makes the same mistake about once a year, so you are not the first person to be confused. Murray Langton (talk) 07:50, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More explanations of my Lu table choice

Since you haven't been active in the megathread recently, I guess I should mention that I have started to gather my approach in one place. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 16:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting read. Point 16 really did it for me - you mention that not all 15 elements should go under yttrium, which contradicts what I learned. Great point. And yes, I have seen a real Hg thermometer. Informed the instructor, who wondered why that was out for the students and then removed it. This really hammers in that Sc-Y-Lu-Lr is "correct", at least for me. One question. Why is 172 colored as a noble gas when oganesson is predicted to be a metal? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:38, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now that you've mentioned that it occurs to me that I should probably add a sentence or two explaining it, since otherwise it looks really strange. ^_^ There's a serious reason and a not-so-serious reason.

The serious reason is that E172 has a "normal" octet outside and seems to have an ionisation energy similar to Xe. Since it seems like E157-E172 are more or less what you'd expect for non-relativistic congeners of Y-Xe, it seems plausible that it is actually not that much more metallic. Rn even with relativistic metallisation effects (6p_3/2 destabilisation) is still a noble gas, after all, just one that has some cationic tendencies; so it seems quite probable that E172 should behave more or less like what Rn behaves like in chemistry-textbook-periodicity-exercise fantasy land (usually At is invoked here, in which what comes out is totally wrong, but it may well be not so wrong for E171). So I'd expect E172 to behave something like a more active Xe, not only forming stable oxides and fluorides but also chlorides, and being quite happy in the usual oxidation states going to E172O₃ and E172O₄. E171 would by this logic possibly be something like a metallised halogen: an iodine-like lustre and with real metal-like conductivity instead of being a semiconductor, but still forming a (E171)₂ gas when boiled (it would probably be a rather weak metal, nota bene Sn and Sb) and being rather happy in the +5 and +7 oxidation states even. That is, more or less like what chemistry-textbook-periodicity-exercise fantasy land predicts for astatine. ^_^ You can sort of get an idea what the 8p elements should be like by looking at the 5p elements and going a little bit further down the extrapolation rather than to the reality that is 6p. (Actually, I'll copy and paste this over there.)

As for the not-so-serious reason: we can note that there is an "inert quartet" effect going on in 7p and 8p, with 8s8p_1/2 falling strongly into the core like 7s7p_1/2 does increasingly for Mc-Og (for Mc and Lv the 7p_1/2 can come out of it, for Ts and Og it is almost pure 7p_3/2). Extrapolating the pattern we see that the metal-nonmetal line seems to go two elements to the right from 4p onwards: Ga-Ge, Sb-Te, At-Rn, (cut off), and by this logic if we drew everything the Madelung way it seems plausible that it should be E171-E172 with four elements sticking out after E168. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:14, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I'd love to know more about the elements near the end of the table where chemistry breaks. For example, I was taught that Po was a metal, then a metalloid, then a metal, and that At was a metalloid, then a nonmetal, then a metalloid, then a metal... let's just synthesize some astatine and find out. I also like post-Rg, also known as unun-whatever-ium when I was 8 years old. Copernicium and ununq- argh, flerovium (this is how old I am), are in my opinion some of the more interesting ones. Come to think of it, have we determined the expected states of matter for Cn-Ts? I know that everything from Ra-Rg is solid or expected to be solid, and Og's an expected solid, but what about Cn-Ts? Haven't heard anything on those. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cn should be barely a liquid (melting at 10 ± 11 °C and boiling at 67 ± 10 °C) at room temperature and pressure, according to latest calculations (see our article on it). It ought to be reasonably sure that Nh and Mc-Ts should be solids, since they don't have closed-shell configurations. Fl should be interesting: some measurements suggest that it's a gas, but given calculations for Cn, this may well not be so (as Droog Andrey remarked, Cn and Fl are too heavy to plausibly be gases at STP; he was right about Cn being only barely more volatile than Hg, so maybe Fl is also a liquid, if even more near the edge). Anyway, either way, it is massively unexpected for the heavier congener of lead! ^_^ Chemistry of Po points more or less to being a metal (it actually hilariously seems to be more metallic than Bi); calculations for At (and, to some extent, experiments) predict the same for it. Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Metallic astatine? Wow, I was horribly wrong about it back in 2014, following the "halogen extrapolation" rule. So all of period 7 is solid, save for the near-miss Cn, Fr, and Fl, which may be on the border between liquid and gas. Cool. TIL. (Today I Learned) ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the extrapolation may be not so bad for E171. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. You make a good point. Oh the simpler times when relativism didn't need to be accounted for as much for the new elements! Back when I was a child, we only went up to meitnerium- sorry, "unnilennium". Officially, it was already meitnerium, but my first exposure to the periodic table was an old one probably from ten years before I was born. I made up a name for 110, looked up element 110 online, and was disappointed that it was already named darmstadtium. And then roentgenium. Copernicium was still ununbium, though. But only for about another year. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 21:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

singing a made up song

Where are those old trends I know?

Relativity - oh no!

It invaded at the end.

Then it took away my friends.

Trying to teach me a lesson.

No noble gas Oganesson.

Not a gas, a solid instead.

Metallic gas? I would be dead

If that thing was ever seen.

Mister one hundred fourteen.

Ununquadium you were.

Now Flerovium... I must concur.

Moscovium - the wrong spot.

Nihonium - you are not

The heavier cousin of Thallium.

My brain melts cold, like Gallium

On a warm old summer day.

Has the table gone astray?

Tenessine and Astatine

Iodine's heavier friends - I haven't seen.

Copper's red and Gold is yellow,

Just like Caesium, the other fellow.

All the metals - solids they be.

Well, unless you're Mercury.

Hydrogen floats all alone.

All the order I have known -

Where did it go?

I don't know.

Please tell me - where th- argument sounds

LUTETIUM! LANTHANUM! STOP IT THIS INSTANT!

The table's patterns are quite neat,

But still, that picture's incomplete.

Exceptions to the rules exist -

Way too many on the list.

Neon looks up to the sky.

He sees Helium go by.

Or was he on the other side?

The periodic table... has our teacher lied?

+1 Adorable! I love it! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 22:42, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I tried. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 23:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not only has more stuff been added, but I added your username to my acknowledgements list. ;) Double sharp (talk) 15:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No prob, bud. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

I should add that if you find anything in there that you feel is not explained well enough, or is just plain wrong, you can ask me and I'll do something about it. With speed depending on how busy I am IRL. ;) Double sharp (talk) 15:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm not the most well-educated when it comes to chemistry, so I'll leave that up to you. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:46, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also an amateur in that field, so. ;) The reason why I asked this is actually because you said my arguments about Lu "really did it" for you (point 16), so I was wondering how you felt about my arguments for helium in group 2. Since the latter is not often taken seriously I end up spending less time fighting it, even if a few serious chemists are and have been for it, and so that section is much shorter and less detailed. So I was wondering if you felt I needed to address something there. Double sharp (talk) 16:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For He in group 2, I'm sticking more with the fact that it tends to be really unreactive. You mentioned that when it does bond it does show some group 2 behavior, which is typical for s atoms - all of group 2 has something s2. However, helium has a complete outer shell (it's impossible to get any more electrons in that shell), while none of the other group 2 elements do - you can always insert six more (or lose two). Hence why helium typically behaves so differently than the other group 2 members, and hence why I argue it shouldn't be classified as such. There's so much noble gas behavior that if you don't know about the blocks (s, p, d, f) and only focus on the chemistry, helium is strongly a member of group 18. This may be part of the theory that pure electron configuration ignores. As for hydrogen, I'd argue it doesn't fit well in any group for similar reasons. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 21:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some stuff to explain how I think of helium.

Simply put: when we're in the s-block, the rest of the period stretching before us, we have everything else as a valence orbital. In H and He, we only have 1s. In Li and Be, we have 2s2p; in Na and Mg, we have 3s3p; in K and Ca, we have 4s3d4p. (Yes, there is seriously 3d involvement in Ca compounds!) Therefore I claim that electron configurations gives the right idea that if we count valence electrons plus vacancies (like Jensen), we get He 2+0; Be 2+6; Mg 2+6; Ca 2+16. And they all make a difference whenever we change this. Helium is then expected to be a stunning anomaly, just like hydrogen, because not only do we have a first-row anomaly but we also have a change in this count. That's how I address your objection that while He and Be are both s², that means something different for both of them. Well, it means something different going from Mg to Ca as well, but they're in the same group.

Furthermore, we have real chemical consequences coming from this. If we say that helium is in group 18, it becomes difficult to explain the following:

Helium is not the most electronegative noble gas; neon is. In fact helium seems to be less electronegative than oxygen! (Again, there is less repulsion coming from the less filled 1s shell than the more filed 2p shell.)
Helium is not the least reactive noble gas; neon is. (Again, this is because 1s is not so jam-packed with electrons, so once you mess with the electron density a little it actually becomes quite reactive.)
The 1s core of helium shields much better than any other noble gas; this is why Li is "too electropositive" for its position in the table.
Meanwhile, most people have no problem putting hydrogen in group 1, so I claim that if you buy this (which I do) it's not so much of a stretch to put helium in group 2 as well. ;)

Especially the first two strongly convinced me that helium is in the wrong place, as odd as that sounds.

So that's more or less my case: I acknowledge that He is overwhelmingly a noble gas chemically, but the theory expects the first element to be unusual. He over Ne is not unusual; He over Be, a thousand times yes, just like H over Li which is standard. Moreover they're unusual in the normal way, exactly the way in which to a lesser extent B-Ne are unusual compared to Al-Ar, or Sc-Zn are unusual compared to Y-Cd. The trend strangeness is the same standard qualitative strangeness in all cases, with s >> p > d > f. He over Ne is either boringly similar at the macro level, or unusual in the wrong way at the micro level.

This shows that hydrogen is not the only strange one, and in fact that helium is actually pretty odd for similar reasons as why hydrogen is odd. There is more to groups than chemical resemblance, or else Be and Mg must move to go over Zn as they are closer to it than Ca. Double sharp (talk) 23:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Boringly similar at the macro level, yet stunningly different at the micro level. This explains a lot of things about chemistry actually. Maybe you're thinking more at the micro level while I'm thinking more at the macro level? For an introduction to chemistry, we're definitely going to be focusing on the macro level. However, as we move into the theory behind things, the micro takes over to explain anomalies in the macro, like hydrogen. The micro also reveals some anomalies that seem irrelevant in the macro, like helium. Hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen seems to fit in the micro, but not the macro, and helium seems to fit in the macro, but not the micro. Hydrogen by the way it bonds in the micro is undoubtedly group 1, but on the macro level it doesn't seem to fit with the other group 1 members at all, being the only nonmetal on the "wrong" side. Helium in the macro screams group 18, but in the micro displays group 2 properties that theoretically could warrant membership of that group. I like your approach to this. Things that seem one way aren't necessarily true, but we still shouldn't confuse the struggling chemistry student who maybe only knows the basics. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 23:51, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, maybe there is some difference in philosophy here. Myself, I prefer to have a really solid theoretical basis for the periodic table from electron configurations. Because if you just look at chemical properties, you can get into some serious difficulties. For instance, Be and Mg are very often closer to Zn chemically than Ca, and many people placed them there before WWII. Well, the trend is just like B-Al-Ga-In-Tl, nihil obstat without looking also at the aufbau. Not only that, but if you only look at chemical properties, you'll find it impossible to decide the group 3 question. Well, Sc-Y-La is a legitimate trend, so is Sc-Y-Lu. You can't really say anything in favour of why group 3 should follow the d-block trend until you use blocks to understand how the periodic table is really being built up. So I claim that in fact, He over Be should not be too confusing for the struggling chemistry student, because s/he is likely being taught the Madelung rule anyway at about the time s/he first sees a periodic table formally in class, and that chemical properties are informed by electron configurations. Yes, we start with ground-state configurations, but that's totally OK for s and p elements, and those are the ones we start teaching.

Helium over beryllium then provides hydrogen a partner as a second nonmetal on the "wrong" side. And already here you can see the difference between a shell that is 1s vs. 2s2p or 3s3p (duet rule vs. octet rule). So if chemistry students seem to be faring well with a seemingly oddly placed hydrogen, I think they would fare pretty well with a similarly oddly placed helium. Once atomic properties are plotted, maybe the penny will drop as to why H and He have such an odd placement; aha, it's just like how B-Ne are the weird headers of their groups as a first-row anomaly! Double sharp (talk) 01:17, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ahahahaha. But when is electron configuration ever taught except in an advanced class? Students have enough trouble with balancing chemical equations, determining the structure of molecules based on just their chemical formulae, and the number of valence electrons (okay, here helium might be group 2 because it has 2 valence electrons, but then students will be bonding it to a group 16 element! OH NO!) and all of that. Throw in 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 and the fact that astatine is [Xe] 6s2 4f14 5d10 6p5 and many of the non-technical students think you're speaking broken computer code and WHY DON'T I JUST STUDY ART INSTEAD. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 01:26, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I had the basic configurations (i.e. 2.8.6 for sulfur etc.) in my first year of chemistry. ;) Which makes sense since otherwise you can't make much sense of valency and draw the pretty diagrams for octets. You just have to keep in mind that the first few are really forming duets, but I think that if people can do it with H, they can do it with He. After all, it still goes 1, 2, 2.1 through 2.8, 2.8.1 through 2.8.8, and so you already see the difference at the beginning.

P.S. If they try to bond He to O, they are not totally wrong. ;) Double sharp (talk) 10:23, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I will admit that I was taught a simplified first commandment "THOU SHALT NOT BOND A NOBLE GAS TO ANYTHING" type of thing. Even though that's wrong (cough cough xenon tetrafluoride cough cough). Has neon ever been bonded to anything? As far as I know everything's been bonded except helium (unless cheating counts) and neon. Ignoring the super-duper heavies for obvious reasons. Perhaps we were better students than most of our classmates, who only took chemistry because it was required. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC I was told something like that, with a warning that it is a simplification for present purposes and actually they can bond, but that we would wait until later to learn that (it's just like octet-breaking hypervalent compouds like SF₆).

So far, helium and neon are the only elements that have no true compounds. However, in support of He-Be, I should note that the trend in the noble gases is, as you would expect, that the lighter noble gases (which have their electrons closer to the nucleus) are more reluctant to form bonds. Except that helium seems to be a bit more reactive than neon: from what I understand, theoretically Ne seems to be completely barren, but He seems to have some prospects for bonding in which it rather mimics Be. ;) Double sharp (talk) 17:58, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quite interesting. IIRC, someone bonded He to H by replacing an electron with a muon. It would be interesting to see a true compound of either Ne or He. When He bonds, I'll consider it group 2. I can dream. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 18:12, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And as it turns out, we have an entire page on neon compounds. Who knew? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk

I guess that I should have mentioned that I'm implicitly considering only neutral compounds, i.e. stuff that you could in principle bottle in something (maybe at some hilariously low temperature only), without excited states unreachable by purely chemical means, so the compounds listed do not really count (I'm not even sure I'd count the one where Ne substitutes CO in a group 6 hexacarbonyl, since the electron density shift, if it is like as described in metal carbonyl, would be coming mostly from the metal). You might like Grochala's paper on the helium in group 2 question (he supports that change), BTW. Double sharp (talk) 18:52, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Although now it's getting a bit too technical and jargon-filled on my side... ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 18:54, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more about helium over beryllium (and also hydrogen's placement)

I've tried to change my focus slightly for that one, because, well, you can't escape the fact that referring to helium compounds (which are expected to be analogous to beryllium) as an argument is quite weak. The problem with helium compounds is that:

we don't even know any;
they'd be extremely unstable even if you made them;
and it won't change the fact that the characteristic behaviour of helium is to not engage in chemistry in the first place, which looks more or less like neon.

Perhaps we can still admit the prediction that helium should be slightly less unwilling to engage in chemistry than neon. But, it is still weak since we don't know that and this is a bit academic (look at what argon chemistry really is, you'll see that this is really hair-splitting). So I think it may be better to argue this instead from:

Atomic properties, in which you can see the trends (graphed in Grochala's article and here), where He-Ne fits quite badly but He-Be fits sensibly as a first-row anomaly (as well, if you graph the noble gas trend, Ne-Ar looks like the stereotypical first-row anomaly, and not He-Ne).
The knock-on effects on the following elements. The He-Ne difference actually explains why Li, despite being not exactly the most reactive alkali metal (translation: it's the least reactive one), is actually the most electropositive one, because 1s shields so well from the nucleus to a level that 2p-6p cannot manage.
The first four elements (H through Be) are all s elements; if we are serious about blocks as a guiding principle, we have to consider He-Be primary periodicity and He-Ne secondary periodicity, like H-Li vs. H-F, because H-Li and He-Be are pairs from the same blocks and H-F and He-Ne are not. Yes, it's true, we don't teach the blocks from the start, but we still use them as our guide to how to place elements despite that and I think making an exception for helium is not right. It smacks of special pleading and immediately opens questions for B-Al-Sc-Y-La, Ti-Zr-Ce-Th, Be-Mg-Zn-Cd-Hg, Ca-Sr-Yb, and other wonderful denizens of Pandora's box. I would rather keep the box shut with the lid of consistency, even if chemically strange-looking He over Be is the price for that.
Helium stands in relation to beryllium more or less as hydrogen stands in relation to lithium, and the latter is more or less standard by now. So if you think the latter is all right, with a nonmetal heading group 1 with some incipient metallic properties, than the former doesn't look quite so strange anymore. Though I freely admit that incipient metallic properties of helium are even weaker than those of hydrogen, but at the very least the huge first-row anomaly it represents now looks like something regular rather than saying "hydrogen is our weirdo". I dislike having to cut off hydrogen (and maybe helium) from the periodic law. If it is supposed to be absolute, and we make an exception right at the very beginning, it smacks of special pleading again. OK, maybe we have some exceptional cases at the beginning, but they should form some part of the normal trend and just represent a coincidence of various different groups. You can think of it as something like an exceptional isomorphism going on here, if you know some group theory. ^_^ (Or if you don't: it is something like how taking every other vertex of a cube gives you a regular tetrahedron. In higher dimensions this coincidence from the hypercube to the simplex does not happen. So in some sense you can think of the "fusion" of groups 1+17 and 2+18 for hydrogen and helium to be a coincidence because the first row only has one 1s subshell active and there is no room to do anything new. When we go further down, we have more and more breathing room to do new things, so we can have further separations like groups 2+12 and groups 3+13 defining themselves as separate things by the fourth period.)
The regularity is then that as we progress down an s-block group, our valence set expands. In 1s it's out of 2 electrons; in 2s and 3s it's out of 8; in 4s and 5s it's out of 18; and in 6s and (probably) 7s it's out of 32. So in some sense we should expect He-Be as something not too different in nature from Mg-Ca (where Ca starts showing some serious d involvement), even if it is obviously of a once-in-the-entire-table scale (because when else do you have a first-row anomaly in an odd period, therefore implying that there's no homologous period after it without the first-row anomaly)?

Maybe this is a bit more convincing. But I'd like to know what you think. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey. Those are all very interesting points. I'll try to address them as a non-major in chemistry, heh. Don't cite me on anything. This is just internal ramblings.

Helium compounds - yes, none are known unless you cheat. And even then, they're expected to be unstable like neon and argon, hinting that at least on the physical side of things, helium does have properties like them. Perhaps the trends might fit better with group 2 once they're isolated... if at all. I agree that helium just doesn't want anything to do with the other elements. Typical group 18 behavior, which is at least in my opinion, cements helium firmly above neon.

Trends between groups fit really well with both He-Be and He-Ne, depending on what you're observing. Boiling point for example is solid He-Ne, while electron configuration is more He-Be.

The knock on effects on the next few elements. I actually mostly view the table as sort of like... splitting as you go down. I see eight fundamental groups (we'll just call them I-VII and 0), corresponding to Li-Ne, Na-Ar. On period 4, the groups split into 2, so while Ca would be IIA, Sc would be IIIB. Two different types of group III, now called group 3 and 13. Hey, I'm old. So what's under Al? Sc or Ga? I'd say both in different ways. I visualize it sort of as a loop. Sc-Mn in groups III-VII, then Fe-Ni as the table sort of loops on itself, and then Cu-Kr. Sort of like the OG Mendeleev style. Of course, A and B are more similar in terms of oxidation numbers than physical properties. Mn and Br are nothing alike physically, with Br having an exposed valence shell and Mn an exposed inner shell that's harder to get to, making it more inert. Chemically active outer shell = A, inner shell = B. Thus I'd argue for Mg-Ca over Mg-Zn.

Moving down, IIIB splits into the lanthanides and actinides, making it seem like Sc-Y-La-Ac and Sc-Y-Lu-Lr are both valid. Here, I just follow Aufbau and declare a holy Y-Lu crusade. Moving up, things get interesting. The eight groups become less defined and start merging with each other. Going backward, if Be is II and Li is I, then He should logically be 0 (which chemically fits) and H be VII. Although H is a nonmetal and has some VII properties, it's less reactive than F, which makes this placement problematic. It's typically a positive cation in compounds, suggesting it should go in group I, and this is the logic Mendeleev used. However, physically, H doesn't really fit among the other alkali metals, so I'd argue that the best group for H is sort of... all groups and no groups at the same time. It also has a lot of intermediate properties like electronegativity and chemical reactivity (less than F, more than Li). I saw someone argue for a floating placement above B and C with this logic. Usually, when writing chemical compounds, H is listed between N and O (NH3, but H2O), suggesting a group order of Li-Be-B-C-N-H-O-F. Ultimately, hydrogen's going to be a poor fit somehow no matter where you try at jam it in.

ARGUMENTS FOR HYDROGEN IN/ABOVE:

I: One electron in the outer shell, Aufbau places it here, Mendeleev does. Tends to form +1 ions. Traditional. However, hydrogen's physical properties suggest it's a poor fit, as it doesn't really resemble the alkali metals in this regard. The melting point for example is far too low compared with the others in this group and it breaks a trend. Chemically, this is probably the best fit for hydrogen, even if it causes confusion among students.

Well, it does look kind of like the melting points of N, O, and F compared to the next elements of their groups, doesn't it? ;) Like I said, it's totally normal that the first element is unusual in a group. In fact part of my beef with helium over neon is that it's not unusual there! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

II: Probably the most nonsensical placement.

III/IV: Intermediate properties between I and VII, like electronegativity and chemical reactivity. Hydrogen is halfway done filling the outer shell, like IV.

V/VI: The usual order of chemical elements in compounds is from left to right, with H between N and O. This would be a good fit in terms of physical properties, as hydrogen's next to two transparent gases that resemble it the most physically. Chemically, this wouldn't really make sense, though. Hydrogen doesn't form multiple bonds, having only 1 bond to another atom in all circumstances, unlike these groups (and indeed of all groups except I and VII).

VII: Hydrogen is one electron short of filling its outer shell, like these guys, making -1 ions. However, hydrogen is less reactive than fluorine, which poses problems for trends in the halogen series. Also hydrogen doesn't usually form negative ions in compounds (it can, but the common ones introduced first are all positive).

0: Nonsensical. But it's a gas!

In the middle of the periodic table, floating above the transition metals somewhere: Acknowledging that hydrogen is hard to place without breaking periodic trends somewhere. Also known as "I give up. You're special."

As for helium, theoretically it's in II with two outer electrons in the s shell. Yet being so inert, it's effectively a solid group 0 element unless you're dealing with theoretical chemistry or inventing weird periodic tables.

It's pretty clear. I'm more of a stubborn traditionalist and less of a theoretical guy. ;-). ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you want to think of group splitting, then it seems to me that H should by this logic be in a sort of combined I+VII and He in a combined II+0. We already have 8 groups in periods 2-3 splitting to 18 groups in periods 4-5 splitting to 32 groups in periods 6-7, so it seems reasonable that those 8 groups have themselves split from 2 groups in period 1. The splitting happens every time you have a block insertion: in period 6, we have Y-La (secondary) and Y-Lu (primary) because an f block has appeared; in period 4, we have Al-Sc (secondary) and Al-Ga (primary) because a d block has appeared; and so it stands to reason that in period 2, we should have H-F and He-Ne (secondary) and H-Li and He-Be (primary) because a p block has appeared. So, something like Zmaczyński and Bayley's periodic table.

The primary linkage is by definition the one that follows the blocks, the secondary linkage is the one that keeps the same distance from a noble gas counting the other way), and a tertiary linkage would be something that fits neither but still shows up as a distinct chemical similarity (e.g. Pt and Au to groups 16 and 17, because Hg has a "pseudo-noble-gas" configuration). So since we always draw the primary linkage everywhere else in the standard 18-column table, while acknowledging all the other secondary linkages in class, it stands to reason that we ought to draw He-Be in that form. ;)

I prefer to make breakages of periodic trends consistent: always the first element, for a consistent first-row anomaly across the table that we know so well for the 2p, 3d, and 4f elements. It stands to reason that the 1s elements should show the most magnificent first-row anomaly of all, and He over Be seems to do that a lot better than He over Ne. (Although I suppose this argument sounds dangerously close to saying "this placement is right because it is wrong"... ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 11:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. Zmaczynski's table is pretty close to how I actually see it in my head, although I have more of the things lining up above each other thing across columns. Sort of like the helical periodic table/"telluric screw" and Zmaczynski together. The internal logic is pretty much the same. Your thoughts on a primary and secondary breakage make sense (especially in regards to the well known La/Lu and Sc/Ga controversies), and alluding to how N and O are a bit weird like H (gases) also makes sense, suggesting H over Li, and also as you say, He over Be. I completely agree with H being I+VII and He being II+0, so periodic table drawers have to choose. Because introductory chemistry focuses more on basic chemical and physical properties, helium's inertness groups it with 0, and hydrogen is usually seen as I+VII/none of the groups. In a more advanced theoretical class, I could see the I and II positions being dominant, explaining why these two elements are so weird compared to the periods below. The class might talk about how helium should "really" be in II, yet it has inert properties that are typical of 0. Why does helium have stronger 0 properties than hydrogen has VII properties? What makes hydrogen more "ambiguous" than helium in the mind of a beginner and hard to place in a group? Perhaps these questions can be explored in that class. I'd love to see your argument for why hydrogen shows more "problematic" behavior when it comes to trends vs. helium, especially in the eyes of the beginner. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:06, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's just that hydrogen 1s¹ is literally one electron away from a stable configuration on both sides, which is not quite something you see anywhere. Elements equally far away from being satisfied both ways: yes, there are plenty, just look at groups 9 or 14. But for none are both so close (and thus favoured) and yet so problematic. Well, hydrogen does not have to go crazy like C⁴⁺ would have to be, but it's so small that already forming a H⁺ cation is a bit of a problem (because the ionic radius of a naked proton is tiny on chemical scales). But it's also so small that forming a H⁻ anion is a bigger problem (because the poor nucleus is then trying to drag around twice as much charge as it itself has). It ends up being biased towards the cationic side, but its cationic credentials are also really weird (only for hydrogen is such a low state as +1 mostly covalent, because Fajans' rules). So you've essentially gotten yourself an exceptional situation because we are dealing with such a small case that so many trends have coincided that normally stay apart. Don't get me wrong, all of it comes straight from the trend that you expect with a first-row anomaly because 1s has zero shielding, but the combination looks quite bizarre. Whereas, helium 1s² is reasonably happy by itself. Yes, it's two electrons away from a stable-ish configuration, but not only does that mean an even more ridiculous ratio of charge to atomic size for He²⁺ than for H⁺, there's also no reason to do it because it's already at one. So in terms of average chemical behaviour helium is happy to stay as it is, while hydrogen manifests more clearly the weirdness, simply because helium is already at a stable position and hydrogen is not. Helium doesn't really "see" for the most part that it has an uncharacteristic profusion of stable configurations near it because it's already at one, but hydrogen is torn. That's why the trends that favour He-Be are mostly atomic properties and where the s vs. p difference matters (mostly for the next element, Li vs. Na).

This is all part of a normal trend, of course. H and He are 1+1 and 2+0; Li/Na and Be/Mg are 1+7 and 2+6; K/Rb and Ca/Sr are 1+17 and 2+16; Cs/Fr and Ba/Ra are 1+31 and 2+30 (all respectively, numbers mean "number of valence electrons + number of valence vacancies"). It's just that for H and He, the more relevant and smaller number is not the first one: for H they are equal, for He the most relevant one is the 0.

P.S. In the first periodic table I got at school, H floated over the transition metals, and He was in group 0. Although, I had also seen tables with H in group I and He in group 0 (it's hard not to find them), and with both H and He floating (Greenwood and Earnshaw has such a table, and it was in the library), and even with H duplicated in groups I and VII and He in group 0. No, I have not yet seen a standard-ish basic chemistry textbook that has H in group I and He in group II (I had seen left-step tables, but no one uses them much). But maybe putting H over Li and (H) over F, together with (He) over Be and He over Ne, is a compromise that could make everyone happy, even if I would still prefer the primary position of He to be over Be rather than Ne... Double sharp (talk) 14:18, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be okay with that. Gotta keep the schoolkids a bit less confused. They just want to pass tests, not be bogged down in theoretical arguments by their teachers and end up confused. :-/. My first experience with H over F and He over Be was "huh what" and then I learned why - it's that +1/-1 thing. Admittedly He over Be is more shocking than H over F from a chemical standpoint. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 17:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I suppose we could explain H-Li + He-Be to the kids by just saying "we draw everything according to the Madelung rule", and then remind them that they're supposed to know that He is considered a noble gas despite being in group II, same with hydrogen being in group I but not an alkali metal. So "noble gas" splits across groups, but then again most categories should not really span the whole group. (Alkali metals excludes H, alkaline earth metals should by all rights exclude Be and Mg even if often they don't, and pnictogens, chalcogens, halogens, and noble gases should exclude Mc-Og and at least put question marks beside Bi-At.) Yes, strictly following Madelung will break once we get to period 8, but I'm sure that is easy to sweep under the rug. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:36, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I learned alkaline earths as Be-Ra (and they were defined as group 2). Feel free to hurt me. Also, how many times do you come across Bi as a beginner? Not much, really. If I had my way, we'd learn Groups I-VII and 0, and then the transition metals, lanthanides and actinides. Hydrogen of course would be its own thing, not assigned to a group. Then we'd cover exceptions, like thallium's +1 oxidation state despite it being in III, and many of the halogens taking +7 at times, even if they're normally -1. I think more in terms of oxidation states and similar elements through oxidation states. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Be and Mg surely make bad alkaline earth metals when they aren't alkaline in the first place! ^_^ Hilariously, I think I encountered astatine more often than bismuth in examination questions. ^_^ Of course, now we know that all the nonmetallic predictions that we were expected to give as answers were totally wrong... I would consider Tl +1 to not be an exception, but just a manifestation of a different regularity (inert pair effect, which affects heavier elements). Cl, Br, and I should be considered to have all odd-numbered states from −1 to +7 as normal things.

And I prefer to avoid axiomatic profligacy. "The advantages of the method of postulation are great; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil." – Bertrand Russell. ^_^ That's why I prefer to start from the real aufbau as my basis consistently (to be able to distinguish primary periodicities) and see how everything else comes from it. If it gives a chemically sound table but with He over Be, well, I can hold my nose for one element and look for a few little gems on the seashore that whisper how it isn't total nonsense! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:44, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we just use different principles? I know you're a stronger chemistry student than I am. I personally prefer "easy to learn, easy to teach" for the start of things, and then cover exceptions. The basic principle of the periodic table is chemical regularity over certain elements, keeping trends intact, and I do like to retain as much of that as possible, even if I have to make a few sacrifices. I'd rather oversimplify the table for the sake of beginners, but I don't want to lose high-level theoretical accuracy (like departing from Aufbau). One exception: if the reason for an element being somewhere would not be easily understood by a beginner, like H and He. Most beginners aren't going to do the 1s2 2s2 stuff, and instead they'll ask "why is helium in group 2 when clearly it's a noble gas?!" For this, I'd put He in the noble gases, and H in the difficult position of "non-group" or above the alkalis with its +1 oxidation state. However, H should be understood as not a true alkali, as its physical properties are very different from the other members of its group, and it breaks some trends. Hence, I'm hesitant to fully assign H to its traditional place. Also, other students are just going to forget chemistry and focus on math or art. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:55, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, chemistry is not my main thing, I just still remember most of the stuff. So maybe you can say that my somewhat more formalist approach is biased by mathematics as that is my main thing. ;) I would, FWIW, be totally OK with having H and He put in chemically more obvious positions (floating/I and 0 respectively) for beginners, but have them move to groups I and II in the advanced class. Maybe even once subshells and Madelung are introduced! Pedagogic reasons are a good reason to mess around with the placement of these very basic elements at the beginning, whereas I don't see a good reason to mess around with the placement of Lu away from Aufbau. ^_^

Does that mean H/Li and He/Be would have been the thing you'd have wondered most about in your first chemistry class, in a hypothetical world where Grochala and Bent won this fight and your first table was a pure Aufbau one like on my userpage? ;) Double sharp (talk) 15:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I pilfered my comments from above to rewrite my He-Be case on my page. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:46, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For H/He, pretty much. For me, He was always above Ne. I didn't see any variants of He until I saw the block grouping and I wondered... what is He doing there? Same with left step. H above Li was traditional, but I've always felt a bit uneasy about it as it was "a nonmetal on the wrong side". As someone more well-versed, I understand the logic now, but show me He above Be as a kid, and I would have absolutely insisted that it go over Ne because NOBLE GASES AND TRENDS SHALL NOT BE BROKEN. Heh. This is just my view of things as someone with a less formal education in chemistry, built more around the properties of related elements compared to a formal block approach that would have been taught later. Hopefully you understand. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:05, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I do. The important thing is first to persuade everybody to drop the needless breaking apart of the d-block and adopt the Lu table, and then we can start fighting for the more radical placement of helium. ;) Double sharp (talk) 07:14, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hashtag Team_Lutetium. Sorry lanthanum. You had your run. Time for the big guy lutetium to claim his rightful spot. ;-). You too lawrenc- wait, where did he go? Why is mendelevium in the room? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:18, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Something I thought I might run by you that seems relevant to your previous comment:

I think part of the reason He over Be feels so strange (i.e. the average knee-jerk reaction should be immediate rejection as chemical nonsense, as indeed was mine) is because we are thinking of helium gas and beryllium metal, and seeing a rather huge lack of relationship. But partly, this may come down to whether you think of the PT in terms of simple substances (i.e. really elementary substances, i.e. hydrogen gas, helium gas, lithium metal, beryllium metal, etc.) or in terms of the elements as some sort of abstractions that are still present in their compounds. If you interpret it that way, then the knee-jerk reaction against He-Be becomes not so much "how can a nonmetallic gas be on that side of the PT", but "how can antisocial He be in the same family as those reactive alkaline earths"?

In that sense you can also think of the superheavies similarly as potentials. Well, no one has ever seen Lr metal. But we have seen Lr compounds like LrCl₃, well, little bits of them. An element like Lr or Ts or even E121 is still a perfectly reasonable potential: the difficulty of making it seems to be along the lines of making some horrible compound like NF₅. The fact that pretty soon you no longer have Lr in the room does not somehow make it have lesser citizenship on the table. Although maybe the analogy needs work since I think we would agree that even if we did make NF₅ it wouldn't really change that the general thing is that period 2 cannot go hypervalent...

So in that sense physical properties of the elementary substances are part of the story, but also physical properties of the compounds are important. Which is mostly relevant here as part of the case for Lu in group 3 ^_^, but maybe it helps somewhat to rationalise why I oddly want to double the problem of "nonmetals on the wrong side". ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:37, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. While we are anthropomorphising the elements, may I recommend you Element Girls 元素周期萌えて覚える化学の基本? (I have not yet actually read it, but I remembered that something like this existed, and some google-fu brought me to it. It's not even the only one, but this is the one after my own heart. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 07:40, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Manga mixed with elements. What could go wrong? And I think you're right - when we hear "helium", most of us think "nonreactive gas". So why should it be in group 2? Same with hydrogen, though this has been beaten to death. Compounds should play a role, but the physical elements themselves should support the patterns as well. After all, it's a periodic table. Both ideas should work to create THE periodic table. Or at least one version/interpretation of THE periodic table. Maybe there is one absolute no-doubt-about-it THE periodic table. But it's hard to draw 2-dimensionally, and so we have to use interpretations of it that suit our purpose, like map projections of THE periodic table in a format that's more easily accessible. ;-). ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:51, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing could ever go wrong with that combo. ^_^ Suddenly, Zmaczyński and Bayley's idea seems more and more like a candidate for an ideal one... ;-) Double sharp (talk) 07:57, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you there. Check out this site with a lot of periodic table variants, and even historical tables. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 08:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I already knew about it, but thanks for the link! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 08:08, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No prob. Thought that if you didn't already know about it, you'd enjoy it. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 08:19, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the same vein, you might enjoy this article by W. B. Jensen about the periodic table which considers Zmaczyński and Bayley's form quite heavily. (Julius Thomsen and Niels Bohr also drew similar figures and should also get credit for it, I see now!) ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 10:24, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

brief glance Family I, Family II, etc. - this is EXACTLY how I think of things! (although I place Cu-Rg in IB Mendeleev-style. I do support IIIC-VIIC for the inner transition metals.) Oxidation states, heh. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 10:29, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See the numbers in the column labels of my chemically active subshells periodic table back at User:Double sharp/Idealised electron configurations. ^_^

(s++)¹	(s++)²	(dsp)³	(dsp)⁴	(dsp)⁵	(dsp)⁶	(dsp)⁷	(dsp)⁸	(dsp)⁹	(dsp)¹⁰	(dsp)¹¹	(dsp)¹²	(sp)³	(sp)⁴	(sp)⁵	(sp)⁶	(sp)⁷	(sp)⁸
H	He																	1s
Li	Be											B	C	N	O	F	Ne	2s2p
Na	Mg											Al	Si	P	S	Cl	Ar	3s3p
K	Ca	Sc	Ti	V	Cr	Mn	Fe	Co	Ni	Cu	Zn	Ga	Ge	As	Se	Br	Kr	3d4s4p
Rb	Sr	Y	Zr	Nb	Mo	Tc	Ru	Rh	Pd	Ag	Cd	In	Sn	Sb	Te	I	Xe	4d5s5p
Cs	Ba	Lu	Hf	Ta	W	Re	Os	Ir	Pt	Au	Hg	Tl	Pb	Bi	Po	At	Rn	5d6s6p
Fr	Ra	Lr	Rf	Db	Sg	Bh	Hs	Mt	Ds	Rg	Cn	Nh	Fl	Mc	Lv	Ts	Og	6d(7→8)s7p (*)
119	120	157	158	159	160	161	162	163	164	165	166	167	168	169	170	171	172	7d(8→9)s(7→8→8/9)p (*)
(173)		(fdsp)³	(fdsp)⁴	(fdsp)⁵	(fdsp)⁶	(fdsp)⁷	(fdsp)⁸	(fdsp)⁹	(fdsp)¹⁰	(fdsp)¹¹	(fdsp)¹²	(fdsp)¹³	(fdsp)¹⁴	(fdsp)¹⁵	(fdsp)¹⁶
		La	Ce	Pr	Nd	Pm	Sm	Eu	Gd	Tb	Dy	Ho	Er	Tm	Yb			4f5d6s6p
		Ac	Th	Pa	U	Np	Pu	Am	Cm	Bk	Cf	Es	Fm	Md	No			5f6d7s7p
		143	144	145	146	147	148	149	150	151	152	153	154	155	156			6f7d(9s?)8p_1/2

(gfdsp)³	(gfdsp)⁴	(gfdsp)⁵	(gfdsp)⁶	(gfdsp)⁷	(gfdsp)⁸	(gfdsp)⁹	(gfdsp)¹⁰	(gfdsp)¹¹	(gfdsp)¹²	(gfdsp)¹³	(gfdsp)¹⁴	(gfdsp)¹⁵	(gfdsp)¹⁶	(gfdsp)¹⁷	(gfdsp)¹⁸	(gfdsp)¹⁹	(gfdsp)²⁰	(gfdsp)²¹	(gfdsp)²²	(gfdsp)²³	(gfdsp)²⁴
121	122	123	124	125	126	127	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139	140	141	142	5g6f7d8s8p_1/2

We may read anything above 8 as "transition group". ;) I admit, it is not quite so easy to see the II family with these labels, and the secondary relationships of H and He, but the rest are all there... Double sharp (talk) 11:54, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. For me, eight groups, with the eighth group really being the non-bonding/complicated group. Group 0/VIIIA and VIIIB. I'm a traditionalist. If I were to draw the periodic table from scratch, it would be cylindrical. H would be at the top in its glory of "no group", like the star on a Christmas tree, then below it in the zeroth column - He. The elements spiral down to Mn, with every eighth element aligning to get Li-Na-K, Be-Mg-Ca, etc. After Mn, there's a minor hiccup for Fe-Co-Ni, then Cu aligns next to K (being almost at the same place as K), Zn aligns next to Ca, and so on out to Sr. Y-Ba repeats the same pattern, and out to Ce and Pr before the table goes off the cylinder, turning in on itself creating a giant loop. Tm and Yb start curving in again to fit with group III, where Lu and La have almost the same placement. Hf follows Ce, and so on, another hiccup at Os-Ir-Pt as before, and then continuing on to Fr, Ra, the actinides following the same pattern, and then out to Og, Uue, Ubn. Ubu and Ubb start splitting off again, and really at this point the table does its own thing, the line extending into the darkness of the unknown, as the light fades and I'm unable to see anything anymore. That's how I see the table in my mind. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:06, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry by any chance? It has a similar-looking cylindrical table (albeit with H in group I, as far as I recall), with the standard 18-column form explained as flattening out the d loops and cutting out the f loops. Or perhaps the flower table or Benfey's table. To my mind, "8 groups" is partly real (nobody likes going over +8, though maybe it could happen for 6f), but partly also an accident that comes from how we favour the period 2 and 3 elements at the very start (treating H as an exception). It's really part of the 2-8-18-32 pattern as well.

I guess my way of showing secondary periodicities for the most part would be Jensen-like "electrons+vacancies" labels. So helium is 2+0, showing similarities to beryllium 2+2 and neon 8+0. Yttrium is 3+15, showing similarities to lutetium 3+15 but also to some extent lanthanum 3+29. My taste is still for a nice Aufbau-following rectangular grid as easier to draw and typeset, though I think a lot of these solutions would be enlightening to show as alternatives. My apologies that I still think the correct advanced placement is H over Li and He over Be even though I also agree that it may well be pedagogically unsound at the very beginning and lead to a lot of frustration as the teacher attempts to correct people who insist on forming He²⁺ salts. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Combine the flower table with Mendeleev's table here with IA and IB combined, etc. and that's pretty much exactly how I see it in my head. But in case that's hard to draw, the traditional table would be easier. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:20, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Categorisation

P.S. If you want to be picky about nonmetals on the wrong side, note that boron is the only nonmetal that has more vacancies than electrons in its octet. Apart from H, He, and B, everything up to group 13 is a metal. ^_^

(IMHO it is better to treat metalloids as nonmetals for the most part. Except antimony, which is more metallic than not, although just barely so. And astatine, which really is surprisingly metallic from what we now know about it!) Double sharp (talk) 06:54, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I call B, Si, Ge, As, Sb, Te, At the metalloids. I learned At as a metal, a metalloid, and a nonmetal depending on the reference! I suspect Ts is as well, maybe Og? Whoever calls Po and Al metalloids deserves a slap on the back. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:02, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, why those elements? ^_^ I generally find metalloids a bit too much of an overly big division: chemically these elements are most like nonmetals. OK, so they have some metal-like physical properties, but then we must ask questions about carbon, selenium, and iodine as well. Chemically it seems easier to consider most of them as nonmetals with their generally acidic oxides (OK, antimony is an exception, it just crosses over), since actually the couples like P/As and Se/Te are not so different (the bigger difference seems to happen in the next groups). In school they gave a stairstep at first and said that everything next to it was a metalloid, which is a bit too much in my opinion because you then include aluminium. (But they excluded beryllium IIRC, which is about equal in metallicity to Al!)

BTW, I have done some recolouring on my page. Big changes:

Group 12 are now transition metals (d contribution);
The f and g block categories have been unified, so that all transition metals become one big happy family (with subtypes)!

Now there are only nine categories and one is for the unknown g elements. That will make finding prettier colours so much easier. ;) Double sharp (talk) 07:41, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will admit I have no basis for this other than "this is what I learned". Calling Al a metalloid is kind of ridiculous in my opinion. I will admit that the further down you go on the staircase, the more metallic things appear, at least visually. B looks more nonmetallic than metallic, while Te is quite metallic. As is probably more nonmetallic, though. If I had to strictly divide it into metals and nonmetals, I'd assign B, Si, As to nonmetals and Ge, Sb, Te, and At to metals based on visual appearance. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, all the metalloids can look like shiny metals, though (for arsenic, you must pick the right allotrope). Even iodine and selenium do, the latter if you pick the right allotrope! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:56, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How does boron look like a metal?! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Beta-rhombohedral boron is shiny and silvery. ;) Double sharp (talk) 15:09, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of boron's black allotrope that resembles carbon's graphite form in some ways. Oops. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now down to seven categories on my page. Eight including doubly inner transition metals (= g elements). ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 08:02, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. The strong vs. weak metal thing is interesting. Same with the nonmetals. Why didn't I think of this? Oh yeah, because I go by groups and oxidation states... curious what coloring scheme Wikipedia might have used if we divided up the p block by icosagens, tetragens, pnictogens, chalcogens, halogens, and noble gases instead of using the metalloids? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If we were going to do that, then I'd simply advocate colouring blocks only: red for s, yellow for p, blue for d, green for f, violet for g, as usual. Double sharp (talk) 10:01, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I assume the groups thing is a terrible way to divide the elements into conceptual categories. At least physically. Chemically, it might help in determining oxides, etc. but then again, oxidation states tend to follow groups. Why do I focus on oxidation states so much? Oxidation states. Oxidation states. Oxidation doesn't feel like a word now. Then again, I think I was taught more formal chemistry by groups, like groups III and IV and V... maybe that's why it sticks with me... ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 10:04, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, element placement for sure is based on electronic structure, which controls oxidation state (sorry, I still insist on one more level of abstraction, or we'll never be able to make up our minds if Be and Mg go above Ca or above Zn). But when coming up with physically and chemically relevant categories, there are other things that are also affecting matters. Metallicity is one of them, for sure, and it's itself based on a whole lot of factors, both physical and chemical. Going by group is not a bad idea for sure, but you'll probably find yourself obliged to split the groups further, because trying to cover carbon and lead in the same lesson will surely not end very well. They're the start of periodicity, but not all of descriptive chemistry. ^_^

P.S. Note that every main group starts with nonmetal(s) and then gets metallised according to an approximate stairstep line. But only if helium goes in group 2, otherwise that group is all metals. This can be understood as first-row anomaly: 1s and 2p lack radial nodes and are very much smaller than you would expect, so the electrons suffer a huge amount of nuclear attraction, leading to high electronegativity (which tends to swing them towards being stronger nonmetals) and a refusal of hypervalence! So we see: the trends in the main groups III to VIII (B-Al, ..., Ne-Ar) show the biggest drops in electronegativity from 2p to 3p for this reason, and we'd expect similarly I and II in the s block to show the biggest drop from 1s to 2s. H-Li and He-Be show huge electronegativity drops, but H-F and He-Ne don't! I say: placement of elements is about electronic structure that explains chemistry, not about correlations in the final chemical behaviour that is a lot of steps removed from the origins but still related, or else we have trouble explaining carbon and lead in the same group. So far I think this is my strongest He in group 2 argument yet. ;)

surrenders Helium in group 2! everyone else: No don't do that Helium wherever you want it! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 10:48, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

*pauses* ...really? That's what did it? Can I ask then, what made this argument more convincing than my previous ones, for you? Double sharp (talk) 13:50, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"I say: placement of elements is about electronic structure that explains chemistry, not about correlations in the final chemical behaviour that is a lot of steps removed from the origins but still related, or else we have trouble explaining carbon and lead in the same group." ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:56, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. ^_^ (You know, maybe I should have said nitrogen and bismuth, to hammer the point home a little bit more with a gas and a metal. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That could be a better argument. Other than both being group V/15 elements (and thus being dominantly +5/-3 guys), nitrogen and bismuth don't have much in common. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And in fact, Bi is more of a +3 guy, due to the inert pair effect. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And perhaps this is why strict group categorizations are less common now. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:15, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you know it already, BTW, but I recommend this periodic table poster courtesy of Droog Andrey and one of his colleagues. Double sharp (talk) 14:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The periodic table AND in Russian? Cool, time to get out the dictionary and learn something! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:29, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My reaction to that table was basically love at first sight. Stunning visual design and amazing theory and predictions with the electronegativity scale. Only one thing I still think should perhaps change, and you know what it is. ^_^ In the archives of WT:ELEM, you can see Droog Andrey and I discussing a few points (he changed a few things from the 2018 edition as a result of that discussion, e.g. metallic At and oxidation state predictions for superheavies; not to mention that he also added electronegativities for noble gases and period 7 (although that was more of his own accord, IIRC). Double sharp (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I made one of my own back in 2016 here when I was still in school. Admittedly some of it is copyrighted, and I should probably redo it now. I don't have the original file anymore, as it was lost when transferring files to my new computer. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I made a PT poster as a kid, too. But it was made with paper, coloured pencils, and a ruler, and is long since lost without trace except in my memory. ;) Helium was over neon of course, but group 3 was Sc-Y-Lu already(!!). And period 7 had a lot of blanks. (I wanted to keep filling in the trivial names as they appeared, and of course I only did it once before losing it...) Double sharp (talk) 15:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In 2008, when I heard the now debunked news about unbibium being discovered, I placed it below thorium. I drew H-Rg (mislabelling Sr as St), Uub-Uuo (except Uus as it wasn't discovered yet) and Ubb. Later that year my teacher gave me a periodic table with H-Rg and Uub. It was my third periodic table ever (and has since been lost to who knows where). My first periodic table was one my father had that dated from the 1980s or 1990s when he was in school. It went from H-Rf, Ha, UNH-UNE (yes, CAPITALIZED), and no others. My second one went from H-Mt. Although Uun, Uuu, Uub were known, and maybe Uuq and Uuh, they were not drawn. As far as seven-year-old me was concerned, these elements never existed and would never exist. (Ds and Rg were already named a few years ago, but I was unaware.) Of course, a few years later, I found out about Ds and Rg, and not too long after that, Uub-Uuo and the undiscovered Uus. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think this one might be the analogous Belarusian version. It's got the same style, the same Sc-Y-Lu group 3, and has what looks like the same text about the periodic law. Although I don't know for sure if it is... Double sharp (talk) 16:17, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it based on the cognates I recognize from Russian. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And what didn't look like the Russian text sometimes looked like stuff I recognised from Polish (уласцівасці must be cognate to właściwości "properties"; I suppose злучэнне, which I see seems to mean "compound", must be somehow related to łączyć "to join or connect"), so I think we can say that yes, probably it is. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 02:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes, I wish we could go back to a simpler time when we only had 109 elements. But then again, I like the complete table of all 118 and knowing a lot about them. The first thing I learned about tennessine was "it's called ununseptium and it has never existed at all". This was back in 2008. Twelve years later, I can tell you that it's like astatine, probably a metal, probably solid, probably unlike the other halogens (more so than astatine probably), and that it really doesn't want to exist. It becomes more stuff that doesn't want to exist, which becomes more stuff that doesn't want to exist until you have a hodgepodge of heavy metals, exploding all at the same time. And something about Tennessee. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 03:17, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I want to see a 172-element table with everything filled in to row eight! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Will it ever happen? No one knows. We may have to cut the table off at the end of period 7. (Come on, we should use Roman numerals. Period VII it should be.) ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, on my page I have now got some hopeless speculation about period IX(!!!) in its own section! (It was already there, but now I've given it more prominence.) I've added period IX on the front table just to boldly go where no one has gone before, even without serious calculations, as a test of the periodic law. Let's almost double the number of elements we have!! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:46, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What next? Period X? Period XI? Period XII? Period XIII? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Much as I would like to know what happens in period X when 6h comes into the picture, unfortunately we only have predictions into early period IX (with E184), so that's as far as I think I'm willing to even speculate on for now... Double sharp (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's make a thousand-element periodic table. Because why not? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:30, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have boundaries. ^_^ When even doubly-magic ⁷⁹⁸274 should have an alpha half-life on the order of 10⁻²¹ s, you start thinking that the prospect of period X is hopeless, since with a half-life below 10⁻¹⁴ s you cannot do chemistry. So, so much for that beautiful dream of a h block. T_T Period IX has a fighting chance for survival with an alpha half-life of microseconds for doubly magic ⁶¹⁶210. (Fission half-lives should be longer, so it's the alpha half-lives that mostly control whether or not we can see them and do chemistry.) So, just period IX for me, which is already a tremendous distance away! (Because period VIII is already going to be extremely long; it's as long as periods I through V combined!) ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If we ignored relativity and real life, theoretically we could extend the periodic table forever. Ten thousand elements! One million elements! Nuclei so large they'd be visible to the human eye! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 17:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well...one might argue that those are neutron stars... Double sharp (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. An island of stability might exist after all, even if only in the Z = thousands range. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:17, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More like Z ≈ 10²¹... Double sharp (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oof. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:22, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Group labels

I guess you may enjoy my new group labels at the usual place. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 04:39, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy of my wikifriend Droog Andrey: chemically active subshells. ;) Double sharp (talk) 06:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 08:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And now for your comments too: the alphabet of Sc-Y-Lu arguments, now finally put together in one place (yes, there really are twenty-six of them). Feel free to scold me if you think I have not explained something well enough or if my logic looks faulty anywhere. ;) Double sharp (talk) 04:37, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely outside my field of expertise at this point. Nonetheless, make this the new alphabet song. ABCDEFG, Lu clearly trumps La. Wait, that doesn't rhyme. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 18:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I'll gamely write a simplified version. I'll just start with A-G first, and you can tell me if I've successfully simplified them. After all, when I start that RFC, I want to make sure everyone can understand how strong the case for Lu is. ^_^

A. Sc-Y-Lu is easier to teach than Sc-Y-La, because it essentially amounts to not caring about anomalous configurations that don't match the Madelung rule, and teaching less will never make anything harder. XD Whereas, Sc-Y-La kind of forces you to care about them because it is entirely based on one such example: that La is [Xe]4f⁰5d¹6s² and Ac is [Rn]5f⁰6d¹7s². It also requires you to do some wriggling out of the contradiction inherent in saying that that configuration of Ac prohibits it from joining the f block, but the fact that Th is [Rn]5f⁰6d²7s² doesn't prohibit it after all.

B. Sc-Y-Lu makes the vertical trends in the d-block more consistent. Atomic radius drops from Zr-Hf, Nb-Ta, Mo-W, Tc-Re, Ru-Os. They do that with Y-Lu, but not with Y-La. Melting point rises from Zr-Hf, Nb-Ta, Mo-W, Tc-Re, Ru-Os, Rh-Ir, Pd-Pt. They do that with Y-Lu, but not with Y-La. And there are tons more such examples.

C. Sc-Y-Lu makes the horizontal trends in d-block more consistent. That's simply because lutetium acts far more like the d metals than lanthanum does. Chemically speaking, it is a softer cation, and its coordination ability is better (which better fits the d than the f block). In fact it's basically a mini-yttrium, and yttrium is of course an uncontroversial d-block element, so of course letting Lu in is no big deal. Letting in lanthanum, on the other hand, widens the range of behaviour of the d block elements. (And actinium makes it even worse.) And physically speaking, we can just look at properties:

property	La	Lu	Hf	Ta	W	Re	Os	Ir	Pt	Au	Hg
m.p. (K)	1193	1925	2506	3290	3695	3459	3306	2719	2041.4	1337.33	234.43
b.p. (K)	3737	3675	4876	5731	5828	5869	5285	4701	4098	3129	629.88
specific heat capacity (J/(g*K))	.195	.154	.144	.14	.132	.137	.13	.131	.133	.129	.14
EN (Pauling)	1.1	1.27	1.3	1.5	2.36	1.9	2.2	2.2	2.28	2.54	2.0
EN (Kulsha-Kolevich)	1.11	1.31	1.38	1.46	1.54	1.55	1.67	1.75	1.84	1.93	1.81
Density	6.145	9.84	13.31	16.654	19.25	21.02	22.61	22.56	21.46	19.282	13.5336
Young's modulus	36.6	68.6	78	186	411	463	???	528	168	78	???
Bulk modulus	27.9	47.6	110	200	310	370	462	320	230	180	25
Resistivity (nΩm, close to r.t.)	615	582	331	131	52.8	193	81	47.1	105	22.14	960
Brinell hardness (MPa)	350-400	893-1300	1450-2100	441-3430	2000-4000	1320-2500	3920-4000	1670	310-500	188-245	???
Heat of fusion (kJ/mol)	6.20	22	27.2	36.57	52.31	60.43	57.85	41.12	22.17	12.55	2.29

Lu clearly fits better.

(Forgive me for not doing this with Ac and Lr-Cn. I plead the obvious excuse that there there are mostly just predictions, and not enough to fill the table this well. But if we believe the predictions, the situation is actually even worse: if Lu fits better, Lr fits extremely better. The chemical argument is the same, and just look at the few physical properties we have predictions for:)

property	Ac	Lr	Rf	Db	Sg	Bh	Hs	Mt	Ds	Rg	Cn
m.p. (K)	1323	1900	2400	???	???	???	???	???	???	???	283
EN (Kulsha-Kolevich)	0.97	1.29	1.34	1.41	1.49	1.59	1.72	1.83	1.92	1.99	1.91
Density	10.07	15.6	23.2	29.3	35.0	37.1	40.7	37.4	34.8	28.7	14.0

D. The electron configuration pattern fits so much better with Lu in the d block. In passing Zr-Hf, Nb-Ta, Mo-W, ..., Cd-Hg, we always add a filled 4f subshell. And that happens with Y-Lu, but not with Y-La.

In fact, this is a regular thing: if you peruse any table showing configurations, you'll notice that outside the s block, every block seems to gain a new core subshell at each even row. It would be very weird if group 3 did otherwise.

E. This point rather supports A: with a Lu table, you better understand the point that Madelung anomalies don't matter one bit for chemistry, because the Lu table ignores them. That's because an atom that is sitting alone minding its own business (the configurations usually quoted) is in a very different situation from one involved in chemical bonding (the relevant configurations – they change according to exactly what else is involved), and chemistry is understandably enough concerned mostly with the second case.

For a funny case study, compare samarium [Xe]4f⁶6s² with plutonium [Rn]5f⁶7s². Total match in configurations; hilarious mismatch in chemistry. (Sm prefers the +3 state and has a reasonably common +2 state; Pu generally prefers +3 and +4, and can go as high as +7.) Then compare nickel [Ar]3d⁸4s² with palladium [Kr]4d¹⁰5s⁰. Hilarious mismatch in configurations; and yet total match in chemistry, with both preferring the +2 state and having a less common +4 state. (OK, nickel also has +3, but the point is that they behave generally closely.)

For an even funnier case study, look at the configuration of the lanthanides. If you'd been told that 4f is usually stuck in the core, you'd see their usual [Xe]4fⁿ6s² configuration, and predict that they would usually be divalent. Wrong! They are usually trivalent! Ashamed, one might then suspect that since the actinides follow the lanthanides, also being mostly [Rn]5fⁿ7s², they should usually be trivalent. Also wrong! (Early actinides much prefer to go above +3; late ones increasingly prefer to go below +3.) So I think that sums up why you cannot just naïvely look at gas-phase configurations.

This, in fact, is also why I find all those arguments hinging on the weird configuration of Lr [Rn]5f¹⁴6d⁰7s²7p¹ just plain silly. Because according to knowledge and predictions, Lr behaves just like Lu!

(In actuality, if you want to predict oxidation states, you have to go whole hog and draw an energy cycle. You must consider not only the ionisation energies involved, but also the lattice energies, meaning how much energy you get out of crystallising your compound. And then you must consider disproportionation possibilities: the reason MgCl does not form, for instance, is not because it is not exothermic to form it; it is. It's because it would prefer to react with itself and form Mg and MgCl₂ instead. By very carefully doing this kind of thing for the lanthanides you can predict their constant +3 state. But this is far beyond what you should expect to do from the periodic table!)

A Lu table consistently ignores these things, and dispatches the case of Ac vs Th reasonably enough: no, neither have an f electron when sitting alone minding their own business, but at least both can have one when chemically bonded. A La table simply sweeps this contradiction under the rug, saying "nothing to see here".

F. This also leads in to the next point: La has f occupancy in chemical environments. Charge fluctuations can cause it to appear in the metal, and in LaF₃ for example La has 0.34 of an f electron on it. Admittedly 4f rarely involves itself directly in the bonding (it's too close to the core for it to ever be the major contributor for any lanthanide), but guess what: La and Ce have the maximum 4f involvements of the lanthanides. If you think about it, this makes some sense: it should be easier to use the f orbital when it's further from the nucleus. Well, for La it is really quite far as it hasn't finished collapsing down in energy yet. As you go across the Ln series, the nucleus gets more charge, but the electronic structure is still about the same, so 4f ends up sinking deeper into the core. So, the fact that La and Ce at the beginning of the series have the most 4f usage makes perfect sense. So, La seems to be a perfectly normal f element, just with a funny configuration. Does anyone doubt that 5s is involved for palladium? Or 5f in thorium, which is exactly the same boat that 4f in lanthanum finds itself in? ^_^

Meanwhile, lutetium has basically zilch involvement of the f orbitals in any compound. That, in fact, perfectly matches hafnium through radon.

G. And that's a lead in to this point: surely we expect f elements to use their f orbitals? It's in the name, after all.

I'll rewrite or continue depending on what you think of this simplification attempt. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, this is really helpful in explaining things for the amateur with a non-professional understanding of how electron shells and stuff work. (I know the basics of s, p, d, f, but this really helps explain your points. Do continue as we sing the song: "Lu trumps La I see, HIJKLMNOP. QRS and TUV, W and XYZ...") ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, fun fact. My first exposure to the periodic table saw the numbers mysteriously skip from 57 to 72 (I was maybe five years old and I had no idea why they did that - I just thought chemists couldn't count!), but in elementary school I was taught using a periodic table that had a blank space under Y and the entire bottom section was La-Lu/Ac-Lr (Group 3 had no elements in periods 6 or 7, and I was taught that all 15 elements that were left out fit in that one space). It wasn't until middle school that I saw an Lu/Lr table. It was only in high school where it was suggested to me that Lu and Lr is correct, and everyone else is wrong. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! My first table was Sc-Y-La, though it did have the lanthanides on it. And in school it was also (although now that I think about it, it might have had * and ** in the same columns as La and Ac, therefore becoming a masterful equivocation). But I saw Sc-Y-Lu surprisingly early, and when I made a hand-drawn periodic table poster I used it because it just looked more regular. The first article I saw strongly supporting Sc-Y-Lu was Jensen; since then I have spent several years trying to find the right answer and battling bad arguments. First I went after the bad Sc-Y-Lu arguments, and then I knew more and had to go after the bad Sc-Y-La arguments too. Now, I think I have something. I think I may end up going through this cycle for helium too, but let's fight one battle at a time. XD

I'll continue from H soon. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 04:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Take your time. I'm in no rush. My thoughts on H and He placement: as for He, it is this mix of group 2 with 18, but I take the majority stance and place it with group 18. For H, I've accepted that there is no solution that is at least somewhat problematic when teaching chemistry. I know you don't see H and He as exceptions, but these two elements defy the "basic" chemical rules that are taught in so many respects that it's easier to treat them like exceptions for the novice student. I usually explain He as generally a chemically inert element that acts like the lighter cousin to neon, despite its inner shell only having 2 electrons and "breaking" the rule that there are p electrons in the noble gases. Nonetheless, its outer shell is "maxed out" and so it doesn't show the typical reactive behavior of group 2 metals. (I'm not going into Mg-Ca vs. Mg-Zn.) It's physically and chemically so much like neon that placing it in group 2 would cause a lot of confusion. As for H, it's an s1 element like group 1, but also one electron short of being "maxed out" like group 17. Hydrogen forms +1 ions when it reacts with nonmetals, but some of its physical properties (like freakishly low melting point) are more consistent with the nonmetals. Hydrogen is a hybrid of groups and properties, which makes H difficult to place on the table without the potential for starting some misconceptions in the beginner's mind. After some thought, I have ended up giving up and placing H on its own, its properties to be learned separately. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:32, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer to stick to my rules even when they look really strange for 1s. And maybe I would argue that they are not so strange, looking at oxygen over sulfur, and comparing the properties of H₂O with H₂S. But you already know that. ^_^ The reason I do it is to hold myself to a standard of consistency, so no one can pounce and say "you're willing to compromise for chemistry for He, so why can't you do it for La"? Now, obviously this is rather bogus, since La and Lu are not so dissimilar as Be and Ne, but I want to avoid having this come up in the first place with simplicity: one criterion everywhere. Of course my approach still keeps getting considered as overly complex at WT:ELEM despite this simplicity, but at this point I've just about given up on convincing Sandbh. I've already asked him over there (see the last section) if his Sc-Y-La stance is even falsifiable. So far I've not gotten any answer suggesting that it is, but I'm still holding out some hope.

Now, maybe there is a fundamental principle that will lead to He-Ne also while not even causing this small level of jeopardy for Sc-Y-Lu. But I prefer to fight the battle that can be won right now, than bundle it with something that is more preliminary (He-Be), will put the whole thing into a knee-jerk disrepute (because wow, that looks so weird), and that I am not so sure about. Because, as you know, my attitude for He-Be is "I think this is better, but I'm still examining the evidence"; whereas my attitude for Sc-Y-Lu is "Sc-Y-La delenda est". XD Double sharp (talk) 05:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think of this, the more I realize that I'm thinking about this from an instructor's perspective - what would cause the least confusion and the fewest misconceptions for people new to chemistry? The theoretician may disagree - clearly it's He above Be! And no one cares about what goes under Y unless they're probably second- or third-year chemistry students. Or nerds. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, like I've been saying, from the perspective of a first-year chemistry student the group 3 issue is really not going to be on the radar. (Unless one reads way beyond that level.) Just look at the descriptive chemistry: well, no one can complain about Y-La on that basis, especially when the table already has things like Sn-Pb or Sb-Bi on it. And no one can complain about Y-Lu either. Or Y-Gd. Or Y-Ho. (Which is where the whole idea of 15 elements under Y probably came from, forgetting what happens in the actinides.) This is why I find referring to textbooks to argue for Sc-Y-La being dominant silly, especially if they are beginners' textbooks. At the very least, textbooks should not be considered unless they actually treat the f elements significantly, because otherwise they will have nothing to say about the controversy: it would require about zero effort to rewrite them to satisfy the other side (just some redrawing of figures). The important sources are the ones who actually focus on the matter at hand.

In fact, the most hilarious sort of textbook is the sort that displays a La table, and then promptly gives the standard Madelung rule which supports Lu under Y (i.e. 6s, 4f, 5d, 6p). I don't know if you ever spotted this self-contradiction, or if your books had it, but I did, and that's where my interest in this paper war started. And I also mention this because this is something I note late in the alphabet regarding pedagogy. ^_^

Oh, and for completeness' sake: I think the first He-Be table I saw was Janet's left-step form. I thought it was nonsensical back then. Now I think it is not quite so nonsensical after all: there is something in it. I am just not sure if it is the best way yet (even if I am leaning towards yes at the moment). Double sharp (talk) 06:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Janet was the first time I saw He above Be as well. I did notice that Madelung orders Lu below Y in school, and that was what led me to wonder whether that was the correct form. In fact, my textbooks all had a gap below Y and the fifteen elements from La-Lu listed below, or the Sc-Y-La table. The only time an Sc-Y-Lu table came up was when dealing with electron configurations, but they may have just listed all of them in a table. I am angry at my chemistry textbooks now. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's past midnight - why am I still awake? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Don't let me keep you! Have a good night's sleep, and we can continue from H tomorrow. ;) Double sharp (talk) 06:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sandbh alerted me to the intermetallic compounds of the elements in question on WT:ELEM, and I realised that it actually makes a 27th argument. So I have added it there under the "27th letter" Þ. So, I guess if I need to go up further than that, we will be following the Icelandic alphabet. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:02, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But what if we run out of Icelandic letters? Then what? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:18, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. As it stands I don't think I've missed any now (since most of the physical-properties arguments are done already and this does one), and I've still got Æ and Ö to use. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Might I recommend going traditional and using the Greek alphabet? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the trouble with that is that I used capital letters, and capital alpha looks just like A. I also don't anticipate going further than Þ, so as long as it's just one extra letter I think it makes sense as a little joke. (Maybe & would also be OK.) If we need more points, I'll think of something. Maybe even the ultra-boring AA, BB, ..., since the On Beyond Zebra letters aren't in Unicode...

Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What I was taught in school.

@Double sharp: For your reference, this is more or less the structure of the table as I learned it in school (the short eight-column form) and how it got encoded into my brain. I mentally go off of this when doing stuff with chemical formulae and building molecules and all of that. It's more complicated, but consider this like a "rule of thumb" that I use. Surely I've memorized some of the rarer oxidation states incorrectly, but ah well. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 23:49, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

H

H was taught as separate from the groups, and extrapolating trends is dangerous with H generally. We were taught that it's generally +1 like Group I, but can be -1 like Group VII.

GROUP 0 (0)	GROUP I (+1)	GROUP II (+2)	GROUP III (+3) (+1)	GROUP IV (±4) (+2)	GROUP V (+5/-3) (+3)	GROUP VI (+6/-2)	GROUP VII (+7/-1) (+1, +3, +5)	GROUP VIII (0) (+8)
	(H)	(He)					(H)	He
He	Li	Be	B	C	N	O	F	Ne
Ne	Na	Mg	Al	Si	P	S	Cl	Ar
Ar	K	Ca	Sc	Ti	V	Cr	Mn	Fe Co Ni
	Cu	Zn	Ga	Ge	As	Se	Br	Kr
Kr	Rb	Sr	Y	Zr	Nb	Mo	Tc	Ru Rh Pd
	Ag	Cd	In	Sn	Sb	Te	I	Xe
Xe	Cs	Ba	Lu	Hf	Ta	W	Re	Os Ir Pt
	Au	Hg	Tl	Pb	Bi	Po	At	Rn
Rn	Fr	Ra	Lr	Rf	Db	Sg	Bh	Hs Mt Uun
	Uuu	Uub	?	Uuq (?)	?	Uuh (?)	?	?

The lanthanoids and actinoids are generally +3, although the early lanthanoids tend to follow +4, +5, etc. and the actinoids into +7.

La	Ce	Pr	Nd	Pm	Sm	Eu	Gd	Tb	Dy	Ho	Er	Tm	Yb
Ac	Th	Pa	U	Np	Pu	Am	Cm	Bk	Cf	Es	Fm	Md	No

Elements beyond 109 were reported as unnamed or undiscovered at the time. Despite this, Ds and Rg had already been named. Cn was in the process of being named, and in fact every element from 1-118 except 117 had already been discovered. The textbook was slightly outdated. And also, I don't think it had Lu under Y (almost certain it didn't), but heck, in my mind, it's Lu under Y now.

Yeah, that's not a bad rule of thumb, indeed (it's basically following the Mendeleev-style 8-column table).

A little tidbit you might want as a very useful thing to make this approximation really good: there is a difference between even- and odd-period elements, outside the s-block. If you look at the Madelung rule you can see why:

1s
2s       2p
3s       3p
4s    3d 4p
5s    4d 5p
6s 4f 5d 6p
7s 5f 6d 7p

Then you can note the important factor:

The first orbital of each type is always "smaller than it should be", looking at the trend of the sizes of the larger ones. (There are mathematical reasons for this; you can just think of it as "there's not any other orbitals of the same type that it has to avoid being close to".)

So, look at the p-block. The 2p elements are the smallest and most electronegative; the 3p ones are less so. But the 4p ones are somewhat more electronegative than the 3p ones again because of the 3d contraction (that's the first d orbital); the 5p ones get to expand normally again (because now we're comparing like with like again; both the 4th and 5th rows have a d block), but the 6p ones suffer both relativistic effects (which contract s and one p orbital) and a double-whammy 4f plus 5d contraction. So you get the pattern that in odd periods, the higher oxidation states are more stable, and in even periods, they are less.

And you can, I suppose, see why the s-block is exceptional. You do see 1s vs 2s (huge difference), and 2s vs 3s (incomplete shielding), but after that there stops being much of a difference. (And this is also an anti-La-Ac argument: that would mean that the 4f started filling only after one 5d electron came in, and that one 5d electron kept hanging up. I trust we agree that this is not what we see with any real set of configurations. ^_^)

In the sixth and seventh rows you have to be a bit careful using this because of relativity. The general rule of thumb to use there is:

Relativity expands d, f, and g orbitals and contracts s orbitals. As for the three p orbitals, it expands two and contracts the other one.

So, for example: 7s is a bit less reactive than 6s, for instance; and the 5d elements do not actually "backslide" from the 4d ones like the 4p ones do from the 3p ones much. (The size increase is almost completely cancelled out, but they still prefer the higher oxidation states because relativity expands the d orbitals.) But it is mostly accurate until we get to the weird 7p elements. And, even then: you can probably figure out why from the rule of thumb. (Because the p-shell gets "split" in this way, which is why Fl "thinks" it has reached the closed shell already, and Og "thinks" it is four elements above it.)

I recommend Droog Andrey's 2004 article (in Russian again). ^_^

There are some other generalisations, like "double-periodicity": you can break each block into half (well, maybe not the s-block, what would that mean there?), and the patterns will split into two roughly equal halves, with special situations at the half- and fully-filled shells. That's because of Hund's rule: electrons prefer to be unpaired until they can't do so any longer. And, as a bonus, it also serves as an excellent anti-La-Ac argument as well: if you plot physical properties of the 3d and 4f elements, the elements that show up analogously to Mn and Zn are always Eu and Yb, never Gd and Lu. I know Sandbh has claimed that the tranches will move around, which is true if you do things like plot different ionisation energies, but that makes about as much sense as plotting 2nd ionisation energies everywhere and concluding that the periods must split between groups 1 and 2; the important thing to look for is which ones fit the physical properties. Double sharp (talk) 03:14, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great paper in Russian (I Google Translated it to English). It gives me more of an appreciation of the fundamental underlying structure of the table, and the different properties similar elements have between groups. In particular, I'm starting to see how groups III-VII become increasingly metallic as you move down, although III is mostly metallic and VII is mostly nonmetallic. I legitimately had no idea that the lanthanoid/actinoid differences in chemistry also existed elsewhere. The even periods of the 18-column table tend to be "boring" and generally follow the rules (stuff like nitrogen and zinc), while the odd periods of the 18-column table tend to be more chemically interesting and exceptional, from hydrogen to oganesson. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I rather think the even periods (+ 1) are objectively the exceptional ones because of the no-radial-nodes effect. It's just that we happen to be based mostly on them and are hence biased. XD Double sharp (talk) 04:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Personally I like the unusual transition metals - you think you know their rules, and then you don't! Seems that the rules change with each element, but there are broad strokes and tendencies that similar elements engage in. Iridium's my favorite due to its rarity, toughness, and its +9 oxidation state, the only one on the table. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I never thought that much of the iridium +9. Mostly because there is no actual uncharged compound with it. How would you get an anion that wouldn't be oxidised by it, anyway?! Well, maybe SbF₆⁻ might do the trick, but I don't think it has been tried yet. So if you allow such things, it seems a small step to allowing uranium +92 (perfectly achievable physically, if not chemically...) XD

The transitions do have some regularity. In each, you start with elements increasingly happy to go up in oxidation states, and then you get a drop down to +2 at the end. So in general, it's not too hard to understand the first half of the d-block; it's the second half where it gets trickier, maybe. In fact, to some extent 3d/4d are similar to 4d/5d. In 4d the climb is steeper and the fall is steeper too, which is actually quite like what happens in the actinides. As for 5d, it has a steep climb but a slow fall, and 6d seems to be similar to 5d.

My favourite element – this is a hard question. Can I just love them all equally? XD Fine, maybe right now I will pick beautiful shiny palladium as a nose-tweak to everyone who focuses too much on Madelung anomalies that mean nothing for chemistry. ^_^

And here is another article from Droog Andrey (also in Russian) about the extension to period 8! (Although the article is old, and now we know that Z > 173 is not really a problem from the point of view of the electrons. It is more of a problem from the point of view of the nucleus, probably. XD) Double sharp (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that it's the second half, especially Group VIII that trips me up. My rule of thumb for these is generally +3 +3 +2, although exceptions exist (e.g. FeO).

Palladium's nice. And annoying at times - why must you have an empty fifth shell and eighteen valance electrons?!

Reading the article, it appears that he argues Rg is more like At than Au, Cn is like Rn, Nh is more like Ga than Tl, Fl-Lv align with Hg-Pb and not Pb-Po, Ts is an analogue of Tl, and Og is said to be similar to Si. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I would argue that Ni, Pd, Pt, and Ds all have ten valence electrons that can enter the (n-1)d, ns, and np subshells (p-subshell is mostly used for low-oxidation state d-element complexes), and that we really have to get rid of the idea "outermost shell = valence electron" for the transition elements. Not that it's worthless (the poor bonding of the 3d elements with stretched bonds to the ligands is because 3d has a similar radius to 3p and has a hard time getting out of the core), but as an idea it hurts more than it helps.

Current understanding AFAIK is that Rg is an OK homologue of Au (but this is maybe because relativistic effects are so strong at Hg that Au already has some At-like behaviour with the auride anion), and things start going crazy after that. (Well, the article is a little bit old.) Cn and Fl pretend to be noble gases (some similarities to Hg and Rn), and Nh seems to be more of an At analogue (it is in a really unique hydrogen-like position XD). Mc and Lv are something like Tl and Pb (except that Mc +3 should be more stable than Tl +3), Ts and Og are something like Ga and Sn. As for what happens afterwards, the article so far matches current knowledge still (although there have not actually been any more complete calculations after E123, so who knows what the future will hold). E119 and E120 would indeed probably be rather weak for alkali and alkaline earth metals; and then have a Madelung-ish pattern of "s, g, f, d, p", except that we're not even really sure how the 5g elements should act. Because at the start there is not only the "first orbital of its kind" effect for 5g but also relativistic expansion, so the two principles I told you above work against each other. Best guess seems to be 121-138 "superlanthanides" with an approximately common oxidation state (but higher than +3, maybe +4 to +6 or so) followed by 139-156 "superactinides" with chances for really really high states. Then 157-172 should be heavy twins of yttrium through xenon. But we really don't know and the placement is preliminary until we do more calculations. I once again reiterate my wish to see a fully filled in periodic table with eight rows. XD Double sharp (talk) 06:16, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting. The only thing we can say for sure is "We don't know what happens after 138". Also, why am I awake? It's past 1. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:22, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Go to bed already! XD ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 06:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Colouring tweaking

One little change: "noble gas" became "noble nonmetals", since at standard conditions E172 should be a solid or liquid (it's too heavy to be a gas).

Considered also colouring copernicium as one. Not completely sure though since chemically it uses 6d as a normal TM once you coax it into doing anything, probably. Oxidation states differ by one (+2, +3, +4) probably, so more transition-like than how xenon uses 5p. So I left it alone for now. Then again, as I told you the 7th period looks a lot more chemically sensible if it goes ...-Mt-Ds-Rg-Fl-Ts-Og-Mc-Lv-Nh-Cn(!).

I honestly do not know if I should continue trying to tweak this colouring, or just go for blocks. Depending on circumstances the boundary line changes significantly. Boron, silicon, and selenium as metals makes sense in organometallic chemistry, likewise lead as a nonmetal makes sense for some comparisons involving the p-block. spdfg colouring is at least unarguable. Well, I will think about it more later. Double sharp (talk) 14:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Not much to say, honestly. Metals vs. nonmetals do become harder in period 7. Maybe it's time to end the "stairstep line"? I was taught that astatine was a metal, metalloid, and a nonmetal! Oh chemistry textbook(s), how inconsistent you be! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:59, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is very much a continuum, and any attempt to create one classification for all situations will fail horribly. Just look at what Droog Andrey said about strength of iodine vs nitrogen and sulfur: "In terms of electronegativity it is weaker. In terms of oxidizing power it is about the same. In terms of electron affinity it is stronger. In terms of metal-nonmetal dichotomy it is closer to metals, probably in the same boat with selenium and carbon." On astatine, depending on what you are trying to emphasise, all three may be valid classifications. ^_^

I think I will in fact delete the colouring and replace it with blocks. When I have the time, of course. What I have there is a sort of OK-ish classification that works as what you first teach the kids, but I would prefer to say "there is a continuum, elements become less metallic as you go up and to the right; there are metallic and nonmetallic properties, elements can mix them in various ways, viz. antimony, rhenium". Double sharp (talk) 13:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are clear metals, metalloids, and nonmetals. The boundaries are blurred, though. Selenium I feel is about as metallic as a nonmetal can get without it becoming a metalloid (and some people call it a metalloid!), while aluminium is the reverse situation. Polonium is distinctly a metal, while astatine is horribly unknown. I personally think of astatine as an embarrassing gap. I wonder if we know more about the superheavy elements than astatine! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well...what makes a metal, in your opinion? ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 02:57, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally, metals are taught as shiny, reflective solid elements (cough cough mercury mercury) that don't shatter on impact. They are relatively malleable, can conduct electricity, and generally form positive cations, like +1, +2, +3, etc. depending on the element. Nonmetals are the inverse, and metalloids are intermediate. Having seen silicon in real life, I can definitely agree that it is completely metalloid-ic in nature. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:33, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tungsten's positive aqueous cations have less reality than antimony's and it's also brittle. Iodine is a shiny reflective (though volatile) brittle solid that is a semiconductor and can form positive cations with pyridine as a "solvating" ligand. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. Then why is iodine usually classified as a nonmetal? I suspect its tendency to be -1 in its usual iodide form, especially in things like NaI and KI. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:31, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe that people mostly think of iodine as the violet gas rather than the shiny solid? Iodine +5 is also common as iodates, like for most metalloids and nonmetals down this far. BTW, gray tin is a not very shiny brittle semiconductor. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chemistry isn't very intuitive at times, is it? Maybe "metalloid" varies depending on what criteria you use to classify them. I think of iodine as the semi-shiny solid that vaporizes into a violet gas. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...now that I think about it, what do you think arsenic, antimony, and bismuth are? ;) Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not too educated in their chemistry directly, but from appearance, arsenic is a more nonmetallic metalloid, antimony is a metallic metalloid, and bismuth is a metal. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I should ask you how you'd colour in the whole p-block at this point. ^_^ My beef really with all this is just that As-Sb-Bi is pretty clearly a continuum and not even a complete one. Even at Bi there are still rather nonmetallic properties and at As there are still rather metallic properties. I just dislike drawing a line and saying "this is one way" when sooner or later we will have to say "OK but for comparison we are going to include some others on the wrong side", really. Double sharp (talk) 13:33, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, color strictly by groups, lol. Group III (13), Group IV (14), Group V (15)... But as for metalloids, I usually go with B, Si, Ge, As, Sb, Te, At, following the standard taught in most textbooks. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 13:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think my current minimalistic colouring of blocks alone may well make you happy! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Yes it does. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nonmetals moonlighting as metals by forming cations with sort-of solvating ligands: phosphorus! sulfur! Even radon (our article, Rn²⁺ in halogen fluoride media)! RnF₂ may be an ionic compound! Double sharp (talk) 12:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spot the big change on my userpage. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 08:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

singing Blocks, blocks, blocks being taught by Sir Jeff. Blocks, blocks, blocks being s, p, d, f. Blocks, blocks, blocks, and the next one is g. Blocks are fun and I hope you agree! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe closer to the ideal is drawing blocks, and then putting up electronegativity values so that people can immediately see where the elements lie going from "strong metal" to "strong nonmetal" like I do (using Droog Andrey and his colleague's values) further down on the page. ^_^

Is	IIs		IIId	IVd	Vd	VId	VIId	VIIId	IXd	Xd	XId	XIId	IIIp	IVp	Vp	VIp	VIIp	VIIIp
H 2.20	He 3.20
Li 1.00	Be 1.50												B 2.00	C 2.50	N 3.00	O 3.50	F 4.00	Ne 4.50
Na 0.90	Mg 1.30												Al 1.70	Si 1.90	P 2.24	S 2.64	Cl 3.06	Ar 2.94
K 0.80	Ca 1.10		Sc 1.33	Ti 1.40	V 1.48	Cr 1.56	Mn 1.52	Fe 1.60	Co 1.64	Ni 1.69	Cu 1.77	Zn 1.71	Ga 1.80	Ge 1.96	As 2.22	Se 2.52	Br 2.86	Kr 2.70
Rb 0.77	Sr 1.05		Y 1.28	Zr 1.35	Nb 1.44	Mo 1.53	Tc 1.51	Ru 1.62	Rh 1.68	Pd 1.73	Ag 1.79	Cd 1.66	In 1.74	Sn 1.86	Sb 2.04	Te 2.28	I 2.58	Xe 2.39
Cs 0.70	Ba 0.92	*	Lu 1.31	Hf 1.38	Ta 1.46	W 1.54	Re 1.55	Os 1.67	Ir 1.75	Pt 1.84	Au 1.93	Hg 1.81	Tl 1.78	Pb 1.82	Bi 1.88	Po 1.98	At 2.09	Rn 1.94
Fr 0.72	Ra 0.85	**	Lr 1.29	Rf 1.34	Db 1.41	Sg 1.49	Bh 1.59	Hs 1.72	Mt 1.83	Ds 1.92	Rg 1.99	Cn 1.91	Nh 1.87	Fl 1.85	Mc 1.57	Lv 1.65	Ts 1.76	Og 1.61

			IIIf	IVf	Vf	VIf	VIIf	VIIIf	IXf	Xf	XIf	XIIf	XIIIf	XIVf	XVf	XVIf
		*	La 1.11	Ce 1.13	Pr 1.14	Nd 1.15	Pm 1.16	Sm 1.17	Eu 1.09	Gd 1.20	Tb 1.21	Dy 1.23	Ho 1.24	Er 1.25	Tm 1.26	Yb 1.19
		**	Ac 0.97	Th 1.01	Pa 1.04	U 1.06	Np 1.08	Pu 1.12	Am 1.07	Cm 1.18	Bk 1.22	Cf 1.27	Es 1.32	Fm 1.36	Md 1.39	No 1.37

Just an idea to throw out: perhaps splitting the EN range every 0.4 makes something reasonable. I decided on half-open intervals (a,b]. ^_^

Extremely metallic: EN ≤ 1.0 (alkali metals, barium, radium, actinium)
Strongly metallic: 1.0 < EN ≤ 1.4 (rare earths and actinides, Mg, Ca, Sr, and group 4)
Swinging metallic: 1.4 ≤ EN ≤ 1.8 (most d elements, except late 5d and 6d; Al-Ga-In-Tl, Mc-Lv-Ts-Og; beryllium is here also)
Intermediate: 1.8 < EN ≤ 2.2 (contains the very weak metals Pt-Au-Hg, Mt-Ds-Rg-Cn-Nh-Fl, and those terrible post-transition metals Sn-Sb, Pb-Bi-Po-At; howevver also contains metalloids B, Si and Ge, noble gas Rn, and at the very top the really intermediate H)
Swinging nonmetallic: 2.2 < EN ≤ 2.6 (the nonmetals that are not so extremist: P and As, Se and Te, I and Xe, carbon)
Strongly nonmetallic: 2.6 < EN ≤ 3.0 (now these guys have power: sulfur, krypton, bromine, argon)
Extremely nonmetallic: 3.0 ≤ EN ≤ 3.4 (nitrogen, chlorine, helium; yes, nitrogen as well, did you know titanium burns in nitrogen? it is only kinetically hindered by the triple bond, otherwise it acts more like oxygen)
Oxygen (EN = 3.5, not much to say)
Fluorine (EN = 4.0, run away; oxidises oxygen itself)
Neon (EN = 4.5, no need to run away since it's always happy by itself; but in case it is ever not happy, presumably stay away)

I think O, F, and Ne are to some extent "off the main scale". The reason is that mostly we think of oxides and oxoacids a whole lot. Oxygen, fluorine, and neon are thus something off the scale because they either are already oxygen (O) or they will oxidise oxo groups attached to them (F, Ne). You can also see how O and F cannot get to the group states whereas nitrogen can. So singling these late 2p elements out makes sense.

If you believe in a "metalloids" category, then note that they are mostly either "intermediate" (silicon, germanium, antimony, boron, astatine) or "swinging nonmetallic" (arsenic, tellurium). Oganesson, as a semiconductor, is "swinging metallic" probably. Radon and copernicium are in the same "intermediate" category. Double sharp (talk) 04:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting, Double sharp. Now all it needs is color. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:47, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think I would want to colour it with a gradient from caesium to neon. Of course then the little problem is that most of the colour variation gets wasted on the three "off the chart" elements O, F, and Ne... Double sharp (talk) 04:50, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like metals are roughly <2, while nonmetals are roughly >2. Elements of around 1.9-2.3 seem to be the strongest metalloids. However, this leads to odd placements. Darmstadtium is more of a nonmetal than silicon? Hydrogen is a metalloid? Radon?! Roentgenium?!?! On a strict basis, phosphorus and arsenic are about equal in nonmetallicity here, yet one is clearly nonmetallic. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Colour Activation! (Courtesy of Excel and HSV-to-RGB conversion.) Double sharp (talk) 05:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coolio. A few elements stand out now, like moscovium, europium, and neon. Goddammit neon, hope your noble gas kingdom never declares war on humanity. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Neon: the Yukari of elements? With great power comes great laziness? Double sharp (talk) 05:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notice two excellent (calling them that in a tongue-in-cheek way) reasons for my weird placements:

Helium over beryllium. Well, just look at 2p vs 3p, we have a huge first-row anomaly that makes the colours look not like a gradient but a total shift near the end. Now compare 1s vs 2s, of course it makes sense. Helium over neon is going the wrong way round...point being, H and He over Li and Be stand out, that's true, but look at the way B-Ne stand out over Al-Ar. Especially the last four.
Lutetium and lawrencium in group 3. Well, just look how much La and Ac will stand out in the d-block. It's true, Sc-Y are intermediate between Ca-Sr and Ti-Zr (but more towards their d-block counterparts), but La swings far more to group 2, Lu to group 4. Double sharp (talk) 06:31, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Another pro-Lu argument (the letter... Ø?), as well as one for He-Be. I am starting to see why you color the table the way you do. Er, sorry, I mean colour. Color? Colour? Colo(u)r. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Do you mean this colour gradient, the block-only colouring, or the one I used to show?)

TBH, I think the biggest of all the arguments for keeping to strict blocks is simply "there are so many secondary relationships that if you say it's better to break a block for one of them, you will inevitably end up with either a double standard or a mess". Case studies: Be-Mg-Zn, Sc-Y-La, Ti-Zr-Ce, Ca-Sr-Yb, B-Al-Sc, C-Si-Ti, H-F-Cl, He-Ne-Ar, all of which can be justified. But it's very difficult to justify one and not give an argument that consistently also suggests another, which is why I strongly dislike Sc-Y-La now. All the other arguments are basically just confirmations that the "strict blocks table" gives reasonable and consistent trends. Double sharp (talk) 06:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(As a logician) Yes. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How rude! *waves fan* Double sharp (talk) 06:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is	IIs	IIIf	IVf	Vf	VIf	VIIf	VIIIf	IXf	Xf	XIf	XIIf	XIIIf	XIVf	XVf	XVIf	IIId	IVd	Vd	VId	VIId	VIIId	IXd	Xd	XId	XIId	IIIp	IVp	Vp	VIp	VIIp	VIIIp
H 2.20	He 3.20
Li 1.00	Be 1.50																									B 2.00	C 2.50	N 3.00	O 3.50	F 4.00	Ne 4.50
Na 0.90	Mg 1.30																									Al 1.70	Si 1.90	P 2.24	S 2.64	Cl 3.06	Ar 2.94
K 0.80	Ca 1.10															Sc 1.33	Ti 1.40	V 1.48	Cr 1.56	Mn 1.52	Fe 1.60	Co 1.64	Ni 1.69	Cu 1.77	Zn 1.71	Ga 1.80	Ge 1.96	As 2.22	Se 2.52	Br 2.86	Kr 2.70
Rb 0.77	Sr 1.05															Y 1.28	Zr 1.35	Nb 1.44	Mo 1.53	Tc 1.51	Ru 1.62	Rh 1.68	Pd 1.73	Ag 1.79	Cd 1.66	In 1.74	Sn 1.86	Sb 2.04	Te 2.28	I 2.58	Xe 2.39
Cs 0.70	Ba 0.92	La 1.11	Ce 1.13	Pr 1.14	Nd 1.15	Pm 1.16	Sm 1.17	Eu 1.09	Gd 1.20	Tb 1.21	Dy 1.23	Ho 1.24	Er 1.25	Tm 1.26	Yb 1.19	Lu 1.31	Hf 1.38	Ta 1.46	W 1.54	Re 1.55	Os 1.67	Ir 1.75	Pt 1.84	Au 1.93	Hg 1.81	Tl 1.78	Pb 1.82	Bi 1.88	Po 1.98	At 2.09	Rn 1.94
Fr 0.72	Ra 0.85	Ac 0.97	Th 1.01	Pa 1.04	U 1.06	Np 1.08	Pu 1.12	Am 1.07	Cm 1.18	Bk 1.22	Cf 1.27	Es 1.32	Fm 1.36	Md 1.39	No 1.37	Lr 1.29	Rf 1.34	Db 1.41	Sg 1.49	Bh 1.59	Hs 1.72	Mt 1.83	Ds 1.92	Rg 1.99	Cn 1.91	Nh 1.87	Fl 1.85	Mc 1.57	Lv 1.65	Ts 1.76	Og 1.61

32-column. Compare with what we have now:

Is	IIs	IIId	IVf	Vf	VIf	VIIf	VIIIf	IXf	Xf	XIf	XIIf	XIIIf	XIVf	XVf	XVIf	XVIIf	IVd	Vd	VId	VIId	VIIId	IXd	Xd	XId	XIId	IIIp	IVp	Vp	VIp	VIIp	VIIIp
H 2.20																															He 3.20
Li 1.00	Be 1.50																									B 2.00	C 2.50	N 3.00	O 3.50	F 4.00	Ne 4.50
Na 0.90	Mg 1.30																									Al 1.70	Si 1.90	P 2.24	S 2.64	Cl 3.06	Ar 2.94
K 0.80	Ca 1.10	Sc 1.33															Ti 1.40	V 1.48	Cr 1.56	Mn 1.52	Fe 1.60	Co 1.64	Ni 1.69	Cu 1.77	Zn 1.71	Ga 1.80	Ge 1.96	As 2.22	Se 2.52	Br 2.86	Kr 2.70
Rb 0.77	Sr 1.05	Y 1.28															Zr 1.35	Nb 1.44	Mo 1.53	Tc 1.51	Ru 1.62	Rh 1.68	Pd 1.73	Ag 1.79	Cd 1.66	In 1.74	Sn 1.86	Sb 2.04	Te 2.28	I 2.58	Xe 2.39
Cs 0.70	Ba 0.92	La 1.11	Ce 1.13	Pr 1.14	Nd 1.15	Pm 1.16	Sm 1.17	Eu 1.09	Gd 1.20	Tb 1.21	Dy 1.23	Ho 1.24	Er 1.25	Tm 1.26	Yb 1.19	Lu 1.31	Hf 1.38	Ta 1.46	W 1.54	Re 1.55	Os 1.67	Ir 1.75	Pt 1.84	Au 1.93	Hg 1.81	Tl 1.78	Pb 1.82	Bi 1.88	Po 1.98	At 2.09	Rn 1.94
Fr 0.72	Ra 0.85	Ac 0.97	Th 1.01	Pa 1.04	U 1.06	Np 1.08	Pu 1.12	Am 1.07	Cm 1.18	Bk 1.22	Cf 1.27	Es 1.32	Fm 1.36	Md 1.39	No 1.37	Lr 1.29	Rf 1.34	Db 1.41	Sg 1.49	Bh 1.59	Hs 1.72	Mt 1.83	Ds 1.92	Rg 1.99	Cn 1.91	Nh 1.87	Fl 1.85	Mc 1.57	Lv 1.65	Ts 1.76	Og 1.61

Not only is the noble gas trend weird, but we can see Sc-Y-Lu-Lr is far more homogeneous than Sc-Y-La-Ac. We haved also, in the latter, shoved Sc and Y off to the neighbours they are further away from in EN value, not closer. Double sharp (talk) 06:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very much so. I could tell He-Ne was a bit weird by this standard. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Neon compound (charged [B₁₂(CN)₁₁Ne]⁻, but maybe a Na⁺ salt will come)

Oh my: [1] Double sharp (talk) 04:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG ALL KNOWN ELEMENTS HAVE AT LEAST ONE KNOWN CHEMICAL COMPOUND NOW. (Helium was kind of cheating - I think they substituted a muon for one of helium's electrons, disguising it as hydrogen. But hey, technically worked.) ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

also, just moved a chess piece, just onnnne move pleeeeease? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moved. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does not move, for I am bad at chess and I would instantly lose. Also it's past midnight. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good night! And I'm sure you're not so bad. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Element 119 is coming!

JINR should be starting in late 2020, if the Bk comes on time. Of course RIKEN is already going for it. I will be ready to paint it on under Fr. Although I need an EN value...probably ~0.83? And probably ~0.96 for E120? Double sharp (talk) 06:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

42! not factorial, just an exclamation mark How's that for an EN value? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:49, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the joke was lost due to an edit conflict... :-(.

Yeah, sorry. I made one from interpolating the predicted Pauling ones we had. ^_^

The most important argument is that an EN value too high will make my hue values wrap around back to red, obviously. Well, seriously, I kind of doubt any element can beat the 2p ones for high electronegativity. And I think caesium will remain the most electropositive element until we discover element 173. You may remind me to fix my colour scheme then to keep its value on the chart (maybe 0.50 or below?). ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 06:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Future news article. "Electronegativity of ex-Ununennium Measured, Discovered to Actually be 42. This is the Meaning of Human Existence." ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to think about its compounds if that somehow is the case. (Also, I think you should probably go to sleep! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 06:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

02:00! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Secondary relationships

I think you may like this (from Droog Andrey):

Double sharp (talk) 09:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I remember seeing it before... ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 16:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, this maybe gives my simplest argument for He-Be and Sc-Y-Lu: "there are so many secondary relationships that if you propose moving the elements to reflect one of them, you open a can of worms with all of the others". A useful exercise is to work through Sc-Y-La arguments whenever you see any and see if they do not also support one of B-Al-Sc, Be-Mg-Zn, or thorium in the d-block. That probably serves as the most useful inoculation against that form. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is	IIs	IIIf	IVf	Vf	VIf	VIIf	VIIIf	IXf	Xf	XIf	XIIf	XIIIf	XIVf	XVf	XVIf	IIId	IVd	Vd	VId	VIId	VIIId	IXd	Xd	XId	XIId	IIIp	IVp	Vp	VIp	VIIp	VIIIp
H 2.20	He 3.20																													(H)	(He)
Li 1.00	Be 1.50	(B)														(B)	(C)								(Be)	B 2.00	C 2.50	N 3.00	O 3.50	F 4.00	Ne 4.50
Na 0.90	Mg 1.30	(Al)	(Si)													(Al)	(Si)	(P)	(S)	(Cl)					(Mg)	Al 1.70	Si 1.90	P 2.24	S 2.64	Cl 3.06	Ar 2.94
K 0.80	Ca 1.10	(Sc)	(Ti)	(V)											(Ca)	Sc 1.33	Ti 1.40	V 1.48	Cr 1.56	Mn 1.52	Fe 1.60	Co 1.64	Ni 1.69	Cu 1.77	Zn 1.71	Ga 1.80	Ge 1.96	As 2.22	Se 2.52	Br 2.86	Kr 2.70
Rb 0.77	Sr 1.05	(Y)	(Zr)	(Nb)	(Mo)										(Sr)	Y 1.28	Zr 1.35	Nb 1.44	Mo 1.53	Tc 1.51	Ru 1.62	Rh 1.68	Pd 1.73	Ag 1.79	Cd 1.66	In 1.74	Sn 1.86	Sb 2.04	Te 2.28	I 2.58	Xe 2.39
Cs 0.70	Ba 0.92	La 1.11	Ce 1.13	Pr 1.14	Nd 1.15	Pm 1.16	Sm 1.17	Eu 1.09	Gd 1.20	Tb 1.21	Dy 1.23	Ho 1.24	Er 1.25	Tm 1.26	Yb 1.19	Lu 1.31	Hf 1.38	Ta 1.46	W 1.54	Re 1.55	Os 1.67	Ir 1.75	Pt 1.84	Au 1.93	Hg 1.81	Tl 1.78	Pb 1.82	Bi 1.88	Po 1.98	At 2.09	Rn 1.94
Fr 0.72	Ra 0.85	Ac 0.97	Th 1.01	Pa 1.04	U 1.06	Np 1.08	Pu 1.12	Am 1.07	Cm 1.18	Bk 1.22	Cf 1.27	Es 1.32	Fm 1.36	Md 1.39	No 1.37	Lr 1.29	Rf 1.34	Db 1.41	Sg 1.49	Bh 1.59	Hs 1.72	Mt 1.83	Ds 1.92	Rg 1.99	Cn 1.91	Nh 1.87	Fl 1.85	Mc 1.57	Lv 1.65	Ts 1.76	Og 1.61

32-column, electronegativity coloured, secondary relationships parenthesised. I think we can see that the secondary relationships are never much better than the primary ones here (and often they're worse). Double sharp (talk) 06:49, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely worse. Sometimes the secondary relationships are kind of sensible by electronegativity, other times, it's weird. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:30, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Which ones are the most sensible, in your opinion?

(BTW: maybe this also illustrates how electronegativity means a lot, but not everything. Be-Mg-Zn and B-Al-Sc are not quite as weird as these suggest: there are some ways in which Al is more like Sc than Ga. But mostly Al-Ga is the better classification. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 12:03, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the most sensible option of the secondaries would be Y-La just by electronegativities (it's mostly only when you see the other relationships where this breaks down), and also to some extent Zr-Ce, and even lesser with Mg-Zn and Al-Sc. He-Ne might initially make sense when you consider its strong electronegative value comparable to N, Cl, and O, but less so when you realize He breaks the noble gas trend here. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

First-row anomaly again

Ionisation energies (eV):

H	He
13.6	24.6
Li	Be	B	C	N	O	F	Ne
5.39	9.32	8.30	11.3	14.5	13.6	17.4	21.6
Na	Mg	Al	Si	P	S	Cl	Ar
5.14	7.65	5.99	8.15	10.5	10.4	13.0	15.8
K	Ca	Ga	Ge	As	Se	Br	Kr
4.34	6.11	6.00	7.90	9.79	9.75	11.8	14.0

The trend is that the biggest drop happens from the first to the second element. But that only works with He over Be, not over Ne. Double sharp (talk) 04:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

He-Ne supporters: But it's a decrease! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But not the biggest one anymore! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

True. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 19:21, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has become one of my favourite helium-over-beryllium arguments... Double sharp (talk) 12:43, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting. Also I went down the internet rabbit hole into "the land where time goes to die". Is there a support group for this? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 17:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Must...not...link...TV...Tropes... Double sharp (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There...is...a...TV...Trope...for...this... ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking...

@Double sharp: Do you know if there's some sort of scale for reactivity of all of the elements? I know there's electronegativity, but I was thinking more in terms of a total reactivity scale, where for example both Cs and F show very high numbers (as they are the most reactive metal and nonmetal), while metals like Ir and Au are low, while He and Ne would have near-zero numbers. Just wondering if some sort of at least semi-objective scale exists. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 01:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting question. But doesn't it depend on what you're reacting things with? Titanium burns in pure nitrogen, you know. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 06:23, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, true. I was thinking of the metallic reactivity scale (like K is above Na which is above Ca which is above Pb which is above Au for example) and wondering if it could be unified with a nonmetallic reactivity scale to produce an objective order. Or if such a question is futile. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But they're reactive in different ways and I'm not sure it makes sense to compare potassium to chlorine, say. Double sharp (talk) 06:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. Maybe we could... er... I don't know, average electropositivity and electronegativity and boom, we have something? This is probably a major "je suis un idiot" moment of this conversation. Well, I tried. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't electropositivity, well, the opposite of electronegativity? ^_^

Anyway, reactivity is not only just for elemental substances. Behold ClF₃ (oh boy). Double sharp (talk) 07:46, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oi. Scary impressive. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 17:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikibreak

Have a good break! Hopefully you come back refreshed. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 13:25, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The situation in both real life and with my mental health has worsened considerably. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Prevalence of La

A great amusement about the basicity argument, incidentally, is that understanding when increasing basicity does and doesn't work immediately leads to a general understanding of the tapestry of chemical relationships via the contractions, which leads back to the Madelung rule and the Lu table. Compare the p, d, and f blocks, the pattern immediately shows up based on exactly what orbitals have been filled beforehand. Al-Ga has the basicity increase wiped out and even reversed by the 3d contraction, same thing happens for Y-Lu. This is pretty much, however, a given about La arguments at this point: whenever they don't work, and you correct them, they usually end up supporting Lu quite elegantly. XD Double sharp (talk) 05:44, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"But... but... I like La! Heresy!" said no one ever. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 06:00, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I also seem to recall that within the first ten or so periodic tables that I saw, I encountered in quick succession all three forms. Not exactly a massive consensus.

Speaking of textbooks, I'm curious: I'm sure you've heard of molecules like PCl₅, SF₆, and XeF₄ that go past the stable octet, yes? How were they explained in your textbooks (if they were at all)? Invoking d orbitals to expand the octet, or partial ionic character in the bonding? Double sharp (talk) 08:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I learned these as P as +5, and Cl as -1, resulting in 0. Also S as +6 and F as -1, resulting in 0. And XeF₄ was never mentioned as it was assumed nobles were always 0 (oversimplification). ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:08, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's leave the xenon one aside then. Let's take PCl₅ for definiteness. Was it raised at all that the phosphorus seems to have gotten itself ten valence electrons? Double sharp (talk) 10:00, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think by then a few patterns had emerged and the octet rule was no longer strictly useful in that sense. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:05, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, so they didn't even attempt to explain the seeming contradiction with the octet rule at all? o_O Double sharp (talk) 12:34, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

By then, it was clear that O often made two bonds, C was four, F was one, stuff like that. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 17:18, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. So the octet violation by the phosphorus was left completely dangling. I admit I did not expect this.

Anyway, there are two common explanations of this kind of thing. One is that (1) P is in the third row, it can expand its octet by using 3d orbitals. This has been proved to be nonsense, yet it still appears in many textbooks. The other idea is that (2) the bonding has significant ionic character and that is how the octet rule is not violated. This is correct, and good luck finding it in textbooks.

This is why I find that the idea that the La form must be accepted because textbooks typically use it (never mind their ambiguous tables which can easily be interpreted as * forms) pretty strange.

Double sharp (talk) 02:59, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think of PCl₅ as being ionic as well. Maybe that's how I think of this. Perhaps as a generalized form of the octet rule where you have to match +'s and -'s to get 0 for ionic compounds? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:12, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For me it's basically just "always form octets for main-group elements; if it looks like we've gone beyond, the bonding is electron-deficient".

On the upcoming RFC

Maybe I can ask for your help with something, incidentally. As this has demonstrated like nothing else that further discussion on the project page is pointless, I'm planning to start the RFC quite soon (within the next days). However, this also means explaining the whole thing from scratch so that outsiders to this topic can actually contribute something.

I started writing such an introduction in the form of a FAQ/dialogue at User:Double sharp/RFC. However, it occurs to me that since I have been considering this topic on and off since last Christmas, maybe I am not the best person to figure out what exactly should be asked to make this understandable to the layman who has just been summoned to the RFC by a bot to generate consensus. And also maybe if such a scheme is a good way to bring this across without making people's eyes water too much. Please also suggest things that you think ought to be cut, as well as added, if you can. (I guess the Sailor Moon reference is not strictly necessary. XD)

Although you may like to know that even at the WT:ELEM discussion switching to Lu now has even a 2/3 supermajority. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 13:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My advice would be to start out (and maybe only have?) with the arguments that a beginner to chemistry would have. For example, how would you explain the issue to maybe a bored high school student who's interested, but maybe didn't pay too much attention in chemistry class. Further discussion like the actual math behind the periodic table structure could be saved for later or mentioned in passing , but importantly - why should someone care about it? Imagine every point you make is rebutted with "So what? Explain like I'm five!" or something. Dunno. Best to make it accessible to a non-technical audience. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 20:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's just it though: I am not sure it is possible to explain the thing at all without at least getting up to spdf orbitals and electron configurations. So maybe I should simply try to give all the arguments, give a warning sign that says "OK, from here on it gets a bit hairy", and therefore be able to convince people who rely on logic. The laymen can read one bit, the chemists can read a bit more. ^_^

Although I think perhaps the most powerful argument for an intelligent person who doesn't know much about the issue but accepts logic would be to show him or her the first five rows of the PT, and ask how s/he'd expect the next two rows to look. I haven't really tried it, but I would find it astonishing if people actually predicted the d-block gap the La table asks for en masse.

P.S. Obligatory xkcd! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Might be a good warning to give. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:06, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feeling a bit better.

Still a bit out of it, though. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:18, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great to hear! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 10:13, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RFC cancellation

Well, in order to get things going in a way that I hope everyone in the end will find reasonable, I have withdrawn the RFC for now. I will write a new one with Sandbh, once he publishes his article, to make a statement that neither of us will object to. Double sharp (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RIP. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:16, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, I've decided to withdraw the idea altogether of a future RFC at this moment. The situation will not have changed much, and setting my personal opinion aside, it is true that the fact that most textbooks still discuss Sc, Y, and La in one chapter is probably definitive for what WP should show at the moment. That's just WP:V honestly. So, I will be satisfied with just some notes in the relevant places saying "yes, there's a dispute, here's some neutral writing why there is one", like what I did for helium wrt those who think it should go in group 2. After all, I have never gotten unduly upset that Wikipedia shows and will probably continue to show He over Ne for a while, even if since last year I think that He over Be is significantly better. So, I may use Lu under Y externally, but not here. Just like how I handle He over Be.

I still disagree with Sandbh and am not convinced much by his arguments, but I will keep it respectful. To that end I have written to him apologising for my behaviour here. So, we will not have an RFC, until and unless IUPAC declares its preference for Lu under Y. In that case I think we would agree that an RFC will be justified. Double sharp (talk) 09:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, okay. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My userpage periodic table

After thinking this much about periodicity I am extremely convinced to follow blocks, so I gave my userpage periodic table a bit of dressing up and a better short summary. So now it says my current view on group 3 and helium; since I have thought way too much about periodicity over the last few months, I have confidence that this will stay put for a while.

I decided to mark off nonmetals with italicisation. This one may go back and forth a little bit in the future. For now I put the nonmetals as {H, He, B, C, N, O, F, Ne, Si, P, S, Cl, Ar, Ge, As, Se, Br, Kr, Te, I, Xe, Rn, Cn, Og}. Maybe Sb will come back, maybe it will not. It is a really tough one to categorise, maybe right on the boundary as Droog Andrey put it. Double sharp (talk) 13:23, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Cn and Og are interesting cases no matter what. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:15, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Returning to a Wikibreak.

That is all. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 19:44, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Periodic table".The discussion is about the topic Periodic table.

Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

--Double sharp (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re the 7-1

That one needs some clarity, I think. It was a 7-1 for Sandbh's arguments not being convincing, but only a 5-1 for the actual change. I recall DePiep expressed no opinion, and R8R opposed the change but for other reasons (the literature thing). ;) Double sharp (talk) 10:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 11:37, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, and I should add: I don't consider * under Y unacceptable for WP. It's a compromise and I'm willing to accept it. Of course I do not like it, but I would prefer it to keeping La under Y. Double sharp (talk) 12:43, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Group names

You might like what Polish does: pl:litowce, pl:berylowce, pl:skandowce, ..., pl:helowce. OTOH pl:lantanowce and pl:aktynowce mean Ln and An respectively. Double sharp (talk) 13:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Sort of what I had in mind! ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 15:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also: Polish Wikipedia seems to show Sc-Y-Lu in 32-column form, but Sc-Y-* in 18-column form. Just like the IUPAC 1990 Red Book! ;) Double sharp (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also interesting. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:26, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For fun I decided to look at the Nowa encyklopedia powszechna PWN of 1997. It seems quite sure about group 3: "skandowce, pierwiastki chemiczne tworzące 3. grupę układu okresowego pierwiastków chemicznych: skand Sc, itr Y, lutet Lu i lorens Lr (dawniej do skandowców zaliczano skand, itr, lantan La i aktyn Ac, często także tzw. pierwiastki f-elektronowe: lantanowce i aktynowce); metale aktywne chemicznie; w związkach przyjmują III stopień utlenienia; należą do pierwiastków przejściowych; niekiedy, zwłaszcza dawniej, nazywane pierwiastkami ziem rzadkich." (Couldn't get the whole text of Google Books, so got the last bit from the Internet edition.) ^_^

(By the way, just curious about getting more datapoints for mutual intelligibility: how much can you understand of that from tracing cognates from Russian?) Double sharp (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A bit rusty now (haven't used Russian in quite some time - also I'm a non-native user of Russian). It seems that I'm struggling to understand this apart from more international cognates. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see. So, that matches my experience: my Polish is pretty rusty and non-native anyway, and I similarly have trouble understanding Russian. XD I guess the gist of what they say group 3 is is clear, though. ^_^ That being said: I always did like the short and sweet Polish names of the elements.

Also, thanks for showing up at the dispute resolution! I hope things will get resolved somehow with a consensus none of us can dispute. Even if it doesn't go the way we would like. Double sharp (talk) 12:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Most are similar to Russian. The only ones that shock me are węgiel (углерод in Russian, some cognate thing there?), tlen (кислород), sód and potas (Russian uses Latin натрий and калий), glin (Russian has алюминий), siarka (сера, some resemblance?), wapń (кальций - what the hell, Polish?!), and cyna (Russian uses олово, which is cognate to ołów! - Russian uses свинец for lead). The "unique" ancient metals are all cognate to Russian save for the weird Sn and Pb. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 18:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You got me curious...

węgiel apparently comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óngʷl̥ "charcoal". The Russian cognate is уголь "coal". The Polish word can indeed mean "coal" as well as the element.
tlen comes from tleć "to smoulder" (just like a meaning of Russian тлеть). Russian тлен apparently means "dust" according to Wiktionary. There is also an earlier Polish name kwasoród which is definitely more like Russian (it's a calque of oxygen)...
sód is from Latin soda (like the English name).
potas is likewise from Dutch potas (like the English name).
glin seems to come from glina "clay".
Indeed, siarka and сера are cognates. Both come from Proto-Slavic sěra.
wapń seems to come from wapień "limestone".
The Sn-Pb confusion seems an old one, see Lead#Confusion_with_tin_and_antimony. Apparently cyna is an old German loanword into Polish.

I liked them for how the "-ium" suffix disappears and creates very short names, if you're curious. Chinese has even shorter ones. ;) Double sharp (talk) 01:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese has monosyllabic names, like... I don't have a Chinese keyboard. You might like this song. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 04:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Not bad, although not my style. ^_^
- Now that you got me thinking about the Chinese names for the elements: you know, maybe the Chinese character for copernicium is wrong. It probably should really have the "water" radical that bromine has to reflect its probable liquidity. XD Double sharp (talk) 03:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - You could also argue that astatine's character is now wrong. It should use the metal radical. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 14:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Eh, doesn't matter too much to me. For me metallicity is about the simple substance (a sort of "compound of one element"), not the element per se. So in some sense you could argue that the radicals don't really matter. This is more or less why I favour the spdfg block colouring alone. Right, back to Wikibreaking for me too. Double sharp (talk) 07:01, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - And me as well. Wishing you the best. As for group 3, the conclusion between us ended up being largely "agree to disagree" and keep the status quo while waiting for IUPAC. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 12:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        You too!
        
        Now I just wait for IUPAC in the background. Double sharp (talk) 07:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, NOW I'm back to Wikibreaking.

Time to relax without Wikipedia. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 05:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

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More explanations of my Lu table choice

A bit more about helium over beryllium (and also hydrogen's placement)

Categorisation

Group labels

What I was taught in school.

Colouring tweaking

Neon compound (charged [B12(CN)11Ne]−, but maybe a Na+ salt will come)

Element 119 is coming!

Secondary relationships

First-row anomaly again

Thinking...

Wikibreak

Prevalence of La

On the upcoming RFC

Feeling a bit better.

RFC cancellation

My userpage periodic table

Returning to a Wikibreak.

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion

Re the 7-1

Group names

Okay, NOW I'm back to Wikibreaking.

Neon compound (charged [B₁₂(CN)₁₁Ne]⁻, but maybe a Na⁺ salt will come)