Talk:Chemical elements

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Revision as of 04:38, 15 June 2009 by imported>Paul Wormer (Talk:Elements moved to Talk:Chemical elements: Better name)
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 Definition In one sense, refers to species or types of atoms, each species/type distinguished by the number of protons in the nuclei of the atoms belonging to the species/type, each species/type having a unique number of nuclear protons; in another sense, refers to substances, or pieces of matter, each composed of multiple atoms solely of a single species/type. [d] [e]
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 Workgroup categories Chemistry and Physics [Please add or review categories]
 Talk Archive 1  English language variant American English

If this is just to be an alphabetical list of elements, it looks more or less complete to me --Larry Sanger 09:52, 17 March 2007 (CDT)

I would prefer to prefix the atomic number and to see three columns (of lengths of about 37 entries): from Actinium to Gallium, from Germanium to Potassium and from Praseodymium to Zirconium (or close to this division). Is there somebody who can do this easily? --Paul Wormer 08:06, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

I put in a new HTML table (kept and commented out the old one). --Paul Wormer 09:12, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

  • I removed the old list that I commented out earlier and added a list sorted on atomic number.--Paul Wormer 10:29, 9 November 2007 (CST)

Molecules

The sentence:

All matter around us (solids, liquids, and gases) are made up of atoms, either of one species (an element) or a combination of species (e.g., molecules, alloys).

strongly suggests that a molecule necessarily consists of different elements. This is not true, of course, H2, N2, O2 are counterexamples.

Also I'm not certain that I agree with the definition "an element is a substance". The term "substance" implies a form of stability. However, when we speak of "elemental hydrogen" we don't mean H2, but atomic hydrogen, which is highly unstable. Personally I would not call elemental hydrogen a "substance".--Paul Wormer 05:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)