Talk:Timeline of chemical element discoveries

June 15, 2008

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lead and tin[edit]

I took this out :Lead was first purified and clearly differentiated from tin by medieval [[Alchemy and chemistry in Islam|Middle Eastern chemists]]<ref name=El-Eswed>{{Cite journal|title=Lead and Tin in Arabic Alchemy|first=Bassam I.|last=El-Eswed|journal=Arabic Sciences and Philosophy|year=2002|volume=12|pages=139–53|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|doi=10.1017/S0957423902002060}}</ref> as lead and tin were purified and clearly differentiated from at least Mesopotamian times. J8079s (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a cite Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence By Peter Roger Stuart Moorey Published by EISENBRAUNS, 1999 ISBN 1575060426 J8079s (talk) 03:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What is this supposed to mean ?[edit]

"The elements are listed generally in the order in which each was first defined as the pure element, as the exact date of discovery of most elements cannot be accurately defined."

What is this misconceived sentence supposed to mean? What does "defined as the pure element" mean ?? There is a problem with the word "defined". You can infer the existence of, discover, extract, measure, determine the properties of a chemical element, but you cannot "define" it. And what is a "pure element" ? All elements are "pure". Is the sentence intended to mean, the preparation of a sample of the element which is not mixed or compounded with any other element ? To what degree of purity ? For many elements, preparation of "pure" ( uncontaminated ) samples occured decades after the existence of the element was scientifically conclusive.Eregli bob (talk) 04:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Gold and Queen Zer[edit]

Queen Zer I suggest never existed. There are lots of websites that mention her and her gold or turquoise burial goods, but many are plainly humbug, for example many date her to 5500 BC. The earliest mummies are no earlier than about 3300 BC. I can find this reference [1] to a queen Zur, wife of an Athotis.

I suggest that Zer is a old variant of Djer(Aka Athothis), and hence not a queen. Gold was found associated with Djer, see [:File:CeremonialFlintKnife-Djer.png] for example. This site purports to have a picture of the gold and turqoise bracelet found on a human wrist at tomb O, identified as the tomb of Djer. I'll mark the article as "dubious".

"widely known"[edit]

In the "Recorded discoveries" table is a column headed "Isolation (widely known)". I have no clue what this means. What is it that is "widely known"? The element? The person who isolated it? The fact that it was isolated? 86.160.83.63 (talk) 20:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Smelting of iron / iron age[edit]

"The discovery of smelting around 3000 BC led to the start of the iron age around 1200 BC"

It needs to be clarified whether "discovery of smelting" refer to the smelting of iron or to the general technique. If the former, then why was there a 1800 year gap? If the latter, then it contradicts the statement earlier that "lead smelting began at least 9000 years ago". 86.181.201.159 (talk) 13:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible mistake[edit]

When referring to Carbon, "Samaritans" are mentioned. This might be a mistake. Perhaps, Sumerians are meant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.29.164 (talk) 10:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I have improved the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.29.164 (talk) 15:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Not a good entry title[edit]

"chemical elements discoveries" is not idiomatic English. I would say it requires an apostrophe ("chemical elements' discoveries", i.e. the discoveries of the elements) or, better, should be changed to "chemical element discoveries". 86.135.115.218 (talk) 10:57, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Platinum[edit]

Platinum was known to native Americans before Columbus; shouldn't it be placed in the first table with a note about European discovery? - Soerfm (talk) 14:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Bismuth[edit]

Why Bismuth is in the unrecorded list when it's clear steated that it was discovered in 1753?OTAVIO1981 (talk) 15:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. I've moved it under recorded discoveries. Skydiver (talk) 18:42, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Probably because of this. It was identified as a distinct element in 1753 but was known and used well before that. In that respect it is a bit like Zn. Double sharp (talk) 09:42, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 20:01, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Timeline of chemical elements discoveries → Timeline of chemical element discoveries – Per comment above, current title is not proper English. 86.146.106.166 (talk) 03:14, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Support – This should be a speedy move, in my opinion. --Article editor (talk) 04:14, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Support. I agree that this ought to be an uncontroversial speedy move. 168.12.253.66 (talk) 20:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Chromium[edit]

The current entry for 'chromium' under 'Unrecorded discoveries' is inconsistent with the Chromium article which states:

"Chromium oxide was used by the Chinese in the Qin dynasty over 2,000 years ago to coat metal weapons found with the Terracotta Army. Chromium was discovered as an element after it came to the attention of the Western world in the red crystalline mineral crocoite (lead(II) chromate), discovered in 1761 and initially used as a pigment. Louis Nicolas Vauquelin first isolated chromium metal from this mineral in 1797."

--Kevjonesin (talk) 09:42, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

So the contradiction is with

"Chromium...Before 1 CE...Terracotta Army...China...Found coating various weapons in China because of its high strength and corrosion resistance"

with the reference Cotterell, Maurice. (2004). The Terracotta Warriors: The Secret Codes of the Emperor's Army. Rochester: Bear and Company. ISBN 1-59143-033-X. Page 102. Terracotta Army also says "chromium dioxide", using the same reference and others. Siuenti (talk) 12:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, the Chinese Wikipedia entry for chromium says "discovered in 1797". Siuenti (talk) 12:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for checking the Chinese Wikipedia, Siuenti.

It seems to me that the presence of 'chromium (di)oxide' on ancient artifacts is likely a weak, if not outright spurious, indicator of an early awareness of chromium as a distinct element. In light of which the chromium entry might better reside alongside other existing eighteenth-century (1700s) entries.

I did some 'snooping' as well. Found a chinahistoryforum.com entry examining the question in—fairly extensive—detail:

It seems clear the swords are not 'chromed' in the sense we understand it today, nor was the identified material used to coat them chromium as such, but a reduction of chromium in combination with other material (into Potassium chromate) and it may be that chromium was created in a reduction process rather than actual isolated.[2]

Much that is posted in casual articles about the weapons and their 'coating' may well be repeatedly recycled media simplifications/exaggerations. I'm thinking that unless some reputable scientific/academic source can be found explicitly attributing knowledge of elemental chromium to the ancient Chinese it would be best to categorize the chromium entry by the known 1700s dates.

--Kevjonesin (talk) 13:39, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Wait, the ancient Chinese Cr claim is back? I could've sworn we'd gotten rid of it some time ago: it seems to keep coming back for some reason. I've taken it back out and replaced the Vauquelin entry for Cr (which is indisputable). Double sharp (talk) 14:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Bi has a similar issue, though (thankfully) that one seems to be resolved in favour of the indisputable 1753 date. Double sharp (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Zinc[edit]

When I typed in "When was Zinc discovered" in Google, it was discovered in 1746. But in the article, it was discovered before the Middle Ages. Should I change Zinc to "Discovered to Middle Ages?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erbium Is Awesome (talk • contribs) 22:49, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Rasaratna Samuccaya[edit]

He was not a person. This is the title of a book. Double sharp (talk) 04:22, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

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Antimony[edit]

I find the "in widespread use" for this element and the source given rather questionable. As far as I can gather, the sulfide (stibnite, Sb₂S₃), was used (in cosmetics) but not known as an element or metal until much later.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] The "in widespread use" bit implies the element, not a compound. Kleuske (talk) 23:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

References

Moscovium - 2010? Really?[edit]

A lot of earlier sources (and even the Wikiepdia article on it) claim 2003, but why so recent here?

Same thing for the others. I'm sure flerovium was 1999 and livermorium was 2000.

Vandalism? Or something further?

8.40.151.110 (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

IUPAC. The 2003 discovery did not meet IUPAC's criteria; the 2010 discovery of ^289,290Mc as daughters of ^293,294Ts did. Same with Fl and Lv; the initial discoveries did not meet IUPAC's criteria, but the later experiments did. Double sharp (talk) 03:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I changed it on the element articles for Nh–Og, this time with hidden comments to deter others who might not be aware of this from changing it back. You can see all the IUPAC reports linked at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Elements/Links. Double sharp (talk) 03:07, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

What about, say, Ds, Rg, and Cn? Were those actually later or no? 8.40.151.110 (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

No; for those, the original discoveries were confirmed. The IUPAC technical reports are here: Ds, Rg, and Cn. (Although arguably since the 1966 date from IUPAC for nobelium is from the date of publication of the papers, Ds and Rg should really say 1995 instead of 1994; I will change that.) Double sharp (talk) 04:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that after the IUPAC reports accepting the discoveries of moscovium and tennessine, there have appeared new articles noting some incongruencies in the decay chains (one, two). Burzuchius and I have remarked on this at Talk:Tennessine#Number of atoms and isotopes): the nuclides involved are probably still Mc and Ts isotopes and their daughters, but they might not be the ones claimed, and some of the more removed daughters may have been misidentified more significantly (the extremely short half-life of ²⁷⁷Mt to spontaneous fission that is claimed is rather unusual given its odd proton that should hinder this, but if it is not the daughter of ²⁸¹Rg but is instead the granddaughter of ²⁸⁰Rg via ²⁸⁰Ds, then it would make perfect sense as the even-even ²⁷⁶Hs). So it is plausible that in the future IUPAC will push back the discovery date even further, when future studies confirm these two elements beyond all reasonable doubt. (The names have already been officially assigned and will not change even if that happens, as it did with nobelium.)

It is honestly rather a pity that IUPAC has not commented on the discoveries of the first hundred elements. Different sources often give slightly different dates for some of them, and there are quite a few truly controversial cases such as lutetium and actinium. Double sharp (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The articles for Ds and Rg need to be updated as well. I see how Lu and Ac could be controversial. 8.40.151.110 (talk) 22:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

P.S. The reason I chose this option is that otherwise it gets difficult to explain Nh. If you say Mc was discovered in 2003, then so was Nh, the year before the RIKEN team saw its first event, and so JINR should be the discoverers; but then it gets named Nh by RIKEN instead. Maybe rewriting it like Lu would be better. Similarly I'd add a note that Fl, Lv, and Og were discovered earlier but only published a bit later and recognised by IUPAC in even later experiments. But then if you use the earliest experiments for Fl and Lv the difficulty is that these seem to have undergone electron capture along the way, which would move forward the discovery of Nh; I think we would need to rewrite that like Pa.

All right, I seem to have convinced myself that it would work fairly well! So I guess I'll do it to avoid this confusion. Double sharp (talk) 03:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

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Last stable element to be discovered[edit]

This article claims that "Hafnium was the last stable element to be discovered." The article on Hafnium calls it the penultimate stable element to be discovered. The article on Rhenium claims it to be the last stable one. I have no idea what's correct, just trying to point out the inconsistencies.--37.201.181.76 (talk) 12:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Re was discovered in 1908 by Ogawa, but at the time the discovery was not recognised. In the meantime Hf was discovered, and so when Re was rediscovered in 1925 it looked like it was the last. I'll fix the Hf and Re articles. Double sharp (talk) 23:31, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Question about As, Sb, Zn, Bi[edit]

They seem to have been discovered after classical times (or else why wouldn't they be "planetary metals"?) but before phosphorus. Since the discovery of phosphorus is famous as the first one recorded I would imagine arsenic, antimony, zinc, and bismuth as "unrecorded medieval discoveries" but I can't find a source that really makes sense of that... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:71BA:CFD0:BDF2:8137 (talk) 16:55, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

It is hard to define what a discovery is before the the modern conception of a chemical element was in force. Zinc, antimony, and bismuth were known for a long time but were not recognised as distinct metals until later. Double sharp (talk) 16:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It's murky, yeah. I hope I have done justice to the antimony and arsenic entries. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 18:49, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Should Pd be 1802, and question about Mc, Ts, and Og[edit]

According to this it's possible that Pd should be 1802: http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/element.php?sym=Pd

Also, I've seen some sources claiming 2005 for Og and 2009 for Mc and Ts. Is that when the first events were seen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:B1FB:9425:19EF:D9E4 (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It's complicated. Wollaston discovered the metal in 1802 (we know that from his lab book) and named it palladium the same year, but he only published the discovery (most unconventionally by offering samples which he had purified for sale in a Soho shop) in 1803. He first published on palladium traditionally in 1804 (although the paper was on rhodium, he mentioned palladium several times) and only disclosed that he had been the discoverer of palladium in an 1805 paper. As such, one needs to define what exactly one means by a "discovery", and then we need to remember that there is no definition that will apply equally well to 1669 (phosphorus) and 2009 (tennessine).

As for the superheavies: the first atom of oganesson was synthesised in 2002, but the discovery was not announced externally because its decay energy was the same as that of ^212mPo, a common unwanted side product in experiments aimed at producing superheavy elements. As such the ²⁴⁹Cf+⁴⁸Ca experiment was rerun in 2005, when two more atoms of ²⁹⁴Og were made, and publication occurred in 2006 (including both the 2002 and the 2005 data). The first atoms of ²⁹³Ts were certainly produced between July and October 2009 (see the discovery paper) and I have changed tennessine accordingly to 2009; moscovium on the other hand was first produced in 2003 in the ²⁴³Am+⁴⁸Ca reaction, although the IUPAC–IUPAP JWP only recognised its production as the daughter of tennessine in 2009. Since we are now going by dates of first generally accepted production rather than waiting for the JWP announcements, I've retained 2003 for moscovium. Nihonium is then treated as a case of roughly contemporarous independent discoveries (kind of like how bromine is treated now). Double sharp (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Question about Si[edit]

Did Berzelius actually think he had discovered it rather than simply isolating it? It's mentioned in works of his from before 1823... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:C95:5EFB:69C9:5AB5 (talk) 12:20, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Depends how you look at it. By modern standards he was the discoverer, as no one before him had successfully isolated it; whether he thought of himself as such is quite another matter (you can read his original paper here in English and here in Swedish). Certainly fluorine was often mentioned in the literature before Moissan isolated it in 1886. It is fairly difficult to be consistent in such a list because we then have to deal with uranium: Klaproth thought there was a new element in the mineral he was examining, and he was right, but he claimed to have isolated it, and in that he was wrong. Yet he is pretty much universally acclaimed as its discoverer, and not Péligot. Double sharp (talk) 15:05, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. I would say the discoverer would be the first person to recognize the existence of the new element. How could F have been included in the first periodic table if it wasn't discovered until 1886? If we're treating "earths/radicals" as their component elements, then Na and K could possibly be 1758, F 1771, Ca ?1755, and B, Al, and Si also in the 1700's. I know the theory of combustion wasn't put forth until the 1770's–80's, but it just doesn't make sense to me that Na, K, F, Ca, B, Al, and Si would be discovered so long after Y. I also tried to use 1808 for Al, Si, Be, and Zr (from Humphry Davy's paper naming them) but I was called out on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:C95:5EFB:69C9:5AB5 (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Does this help with regard to Si, Al, Zr, Be, and Y? https://books.google.com/books?id=TPY4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA135&dq=ittrium+1808&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij3PbYl5_aAhUGxYMKHeiWBSsQuwUITDAG#v=onepage&q=ittrium%201808&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:C95:5EFB:69C9:5AB5 (talk) 23:40, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Let me know what you think of this suggestion, pulled from the book I linked to above:

Potassium – Davy 1807

Sodium – Davy 1807

Calcium – Davy 1808

Barium – Davy 1808

Strontium – Davy 1808

Magnesium – Davy 1808

Yttrium – Davy 1808 (isol. Mosander 1843)

Beryllium – Davy 1808 (isol. Wöhler and Bussy 1828)

Aluminum – Davy 1808 (isol. Ørsted 1825)

Zirconium – Davy 1808 (isol. Berzelius 1824)

Silicon – Berzelius and Davy 1808 (isol. Berzelius 1823)

Boron – Gay-Lussac & Thénard 1808 (isol. Davy 1808)

Fluorine – Ampère 1810 (isol. Moissan 1886) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:C95:5EFB:69C9:5AB5 (talk) 01:28, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Going that way, wouldn't Al have to be 1787 and B and F 1789 (Lavoisier, mentioned in the article)? I think all this sort of thing is quite logical but that it can get us fairly far afield from the general consensus of reliable sources is (which is fairly inconsistent). We'd have to ask ourselves:

Is it a discovery if somebody mistakes a compound for the new element? (Uranium.)
Is it a discovery if somebody finds the element, but thinks it is a compound? (Chlorine.)
Is it a discovery if somebody finds the element but has by modern standards a completely wrong understanding of what it is? (Nitrogen and oxygen.)
Is it a discovery if someone predicts that a new element must be there, but has no means of finding it, but the new element becomes part of accepted theoretical chemistry anyway? (Not only Davy with Al and others, but also Mendeleev for Sc, Ga, Ge, and many others.)
Is it a discovery if evidence is presented for a new element but chemical isolation is not done, either due to location (helium) or short half-life (oganesson)?
Is it a discovery if someone correctly thinks there is a new element there but mistakenly thinks he has isolated it when he has not? (Urbain's claim for lutetium.)
Is it a discovery if someone claims to have found a new element, and was widely accepted as a discoverer, but later advances in chemistry shows that he cannot have found that element, but really found a different element which he did not claim? (Debierne's claim for actinium, which was probably protactinium; Ogawa's claim for nipponium, which he thought was eka-manganese but we now know was probably dvi-manganese.)
Is it a discovery if someone claims to have found a new element, but his claim is rejected, only to be reevaluated later thanks to advances in chemistry? (For some time there was doubt about polonium as an element.)
Is it a discovery if someone claims to have discovered a new element, was probably correct in hindsight, but he only found really convincing evidence for it later? What year should such a situation be placed under? (Lawrencium and flerovium.)

Trying to provide one-size-fits-all answers to these questions would provide interesting results, but as the TWG alluded to, absolute priority tends to mean absolute injustice. Really, this whole list exists only because of the tradition that the discoverer names an element. I think the best way to deal with it is just to follow the consensus of historians (Mary Elvira Weeks is an excellent start) and put enough explanatory information for readers to make up their own minds. Double sharp (talk) 02:11, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I would say yes for U and no for the others (Be, Zr, Sr, Y, Ba, Mg, and possibly others), but that one is a little confusing.
Yes.
Yes.
If the evidence is from the properties of its compounds (F, Al, Si, etc.) and not purely theoretical.
Yes.
Yes.
Unless they are definitively disproven if they are still widely accepted as the discoverer; not if they retracted their claim.
Unless the discoverer him/herself rejects the claim.
I'd keep the earlier year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:C95:5EFB:69C9:5AB5 (talk) 02:36, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Reasonable answers, even if not all sources would agree with them. Anyway, getting back to the point, we would need to push things back even further, because of this 1787 comment from Lavoisier: "We are probably only acquainted as yet with a part of the metallic substances existing in nature, as all those which have a stronger affinity to oxygen than carbon possesses, are incapable, hitherto, of being reduced to a metallic state, and consequently, being only presented to our observation under the form of oxyds, are confounded with earths. It is extremely probable that barytes, which we have just now arranged with earths, is in this situation; for in many experiments it exhibits properties nearly approaching to those of metallic bodies. It is even possible that all the substances we call earths may be only metallic oxyds, irreducible by any hitherto known process." He was discussing the "earths" he had listed, and from that list we would end up having to give him credit for discovering Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ba; then Davy would have named them (including Al and Si, which he could not isolate), and their isolation would come even later. Similarly Lavoisier's mention of radical boracique and radical fluorique rather implies by these standards that he discovered boron and fluorine. Double sharp (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I must admit that I'm not sure what you mean for #7. Using Debierne's example again, he claimed the discovery of actinium and today is still usually recognised as such, but the chemistry he recorded for it is wholly inconsistent with that known for actinium suggests that what he had at first was really what we now know as protactinium. Is it reasonable to credit him as the discoverer of Ac? Is it reasonable to credit him as the discoverer of Pa? This is the kind of difficulty I am talking about. Double sharp (talk) 06:16, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

1787 for Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ba and 1789 for B and F actually make sense, especially if we're using 1794 for the rather rare and obscure Y. That said, the date that Davy named them still makes a lot of sense too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:75D7:1FB0:D1AB:1E30 (talk) 17:08, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Yttrium isn't that rare: it's more common than lead. I don't think it's that remarkable that common-sounding elements got discovered later since they are more difficult to isolate, even if you know that they are there. Double sharp (talk) 23:49, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

But if you know they're there then haven't they already been discovered? That's the way I see it... Also, I didn't know yttrium is more common than lead. Learn something new every day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:A594:E4D2:7948:BAC8 (talk) 13:17, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

How about we just change Al and Si to 1808 as outlined above and keep everything else the same? Let me know what you think of that idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:A594:E4D2:7948:BAC8 (talk) 17:42, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The trouble is what counts as knowing that an element is there. Take hafnium: Bohr certainly knew that element 72 would be found in zirconium ores, and motivated by his predictions Coster and Hevesy searched for it there and found it. Isn't this the same situation, just with periodicity and electronic structure substituted for an understanding of the role of oxygen in oxidation and a recognition that earths are metal oxides? If we would like to consider Lavoisier (who understood this) or Davy (who tried and failed to isolate them after Lavoisier had made his remarks) the discoverer of aluminium, when actually they just looked at alumina and realised that it must be the oxide of a metal they could not isolate, why don't we consider Bohr the discoverer of hafnium? (Strictly speaking Bohr was not the only one who predicted that element 72 should be an eka-zirconium at the time, but his prediction is certainly the most well-known.) After all, all samples of zirconium at the time already contained significant hafnium impurities. Double sharp (talk) 05:36, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

If you only have periodicity and electronic structure to go on then you haven't observed the element yet; that's not the case with the role of oxygen in oxidation and a recognition that earths are metal oxides if you're working with the oxide (which Davy was). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:84EE:DBA2:4565:26B0 (talk) 14:34, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

If we're using 1825 for Al and 1823 for Si then we'd have to use 1886 for F, which doesn't make any sense because it was clearly known to exist before then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:3DC0:9115:A25A:5AC5 (talk) 15:26, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I think you'll find that it's quite common to consider fluorine to have been discovered in 1886, although this is usually the result of talking loosely when isolation is meant. This article on the history of fluorine clearly writes "Fluorine was the last of the halogen family to be discovered and separated, after chlorine in 1774, iodine in 1811, and bromine in 1826". For the most part, though, the article (along with Greenwood and Earnshaw) considers this to have been the isolation, and quietly ignores the question of discovery, because it is complicated. In the case of hafnium, because of its extreme similarity to zirconium, experimenters working on Zr had certainly observed Hf directly without knowing what it was because all their Zr samples were contaminated with it. Personally I think that this list is far too simplistic and of necessity treads roughshod over all the different degrees of claims (a fun one is lutetium, where both Urbain and von Welsbach claimed at about the same time to have found a new element occurring with Yb, and both were right, but only von Welsbach succeeded in isolating it – though Urbain mistakenly thought he had). By the same token, if we consider F to have been discovered in 1810, then that means that you can discover an element without experimental work simply by realising what the constituents of a substance must be, which creates fun questions about when Na and K were discovered. It also means that bismuth was discovered in 1753 by Geoffroy, who first managed to experimentally demonstrate that it is a distinct element, which itself causes problems because Agricola was well aware of bismuth far earlier. Furthermore the whole idea that identifying a compound counts as observing the element only really starts to make sense when the whole notion of what a compound is is sorted out – and that was still being sorted out in 1779 when Proust's law was formulated. Again, there isn't a way to apply consistent criteria across all 118 elements to a simple timeline without raising questions. Double sharp (talk) 16:39, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. It just doesn't make sense that an element could be named (and even its properties determined - keep in mind this was before the periodic table) long before it was discovered... does it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:3DC0:9115:A25A:5AC5 (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

You know what, I've thought about it and I think everything should stay the same as it is right now. In fact, can we delete this whole section so it doesn't cause any changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:7116:FA47:EE6D:F1DC (talk) 14:34, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

It's all right. I don't see why the section would need to be deleted; it's useful to have these explanations and examples up to point people to to show that this is not as simple as a simple table implies it is. Double sharp (talk) 02:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Cr[edit]

Should its discovery and isolation be the same date? Would that be 1797 or 1798? I can't tell from looking at the paper... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18C:8601:8448:4D19:7809:37F:4C7D (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Error in Hydrogen section[edit]

Antoine Lavoiser named Hydrogen in 1783 while reproducing the 1781 Cavendish experiment not 1793. The Hydrogen wiki page reports it correctly. The website cited (http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/element.php?sym=h) does say 1793 in its header, but if you read the explanatory text below, it references the correct naming year twice. That 1793 in the header appears to be a typo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MC152 (talk • contribs) 14:19, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Yttrium[edit]

What do you make of what's said here? https://books.google.com/books?id=EFzuCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=beryllium+1828+yttrium+1828&source=bl&ots=-xmLzhddbd&sig=dDPDYLMsN8WQ_5VHTM2Hj-zM23c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH75bin8TaAhWDesAKHRcPBms4ChDoATABegQIABA0#v=onepage&q&f=false If it's not true, I feel we can consider Wöhler the isolator of Y since we're considering Ørsted the isolator of Al. Squee3 (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Why exactly would it not be true? Indeed this means that Rose (1843) should likely be considered the isolator of yttrium, since he postdates Mosander's removal of terbium and erbium. Double sharp (talk) 13:38, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Noble gases[edit]

Wouldn't helium be the first noble gas discovered technically? I know that they found out that the noble gases were a thing when they discovered argon, but helium is a noble gas. So can you please fix it?Porygon-Z 03:53, 26 March 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Porygon-Z474 (talk • contribs)

The article says Argon in 1894 was the first noble gas to be *isolated* on Earth. Helium was observed/discovered in 1868 in the Sun, so it could not be isolated at that time. So the article was not strictly wrong, but I have now clarified the helium entry a little. Dirac66 (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

plot of year of discovery[edit]

Another version of the plot showing the date of discovery that includes the Chemical Symbols. Plot of year and accumulative number of elements discovered

[1] Elementymology & Elements Multidict

[2] LANL

[3] Chemistry explained

[4] The Antimony Archive

[5] All manner of antimony, Nature

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[3]

[4]

[5]

anhducwiki

Wednesday, September 30, 2020