Talk:Ununennium/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk · contribs) 01:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Beginning review. I will be adding my comments over the next several days. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 01:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Automated checks

• Dead link: (Reference 20) Düllmann, Christoph E. (October 20, 2011). Superheavy Element Research: News from GSI and Mainz
  • I couldn't find this on Internet Archive, so I removed it, as the only statement that cites it is supported by refs 19 and former-21 as well. Double sharp (talk) 02:52, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
    • Have you considered using WebCite to reduce the link rot issue? Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:56, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
• Isotopes of ununennium in the infobox is a circular reference
  • This appears to come up automatically from the template {{Infobox element}}, so I'm not sure how to get rid of it. Double sharp (talk) 02:50, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
    • I see the problem. OK. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:44, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
• There is an uncomfortable amount of duplication/apparent copyvio with an article on Webelements.com. I am checking out this site as a probable unauthorized user of Wikipedia content without acknowledgement.

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:16, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. WebElements does not appear to have had a page on E119 until recently this year (I've been Googling "ununennium", and it only appeared recently, in September, but it would be nice to have a way to prove this), and so I suspect that they mostly copied this off Wikipedia (in fact, mostly copied me, when I rewrote the lede in August 2014.) (*￣m￣) Double sharp (talk) 02:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

My analysis of the lede showed that it had been been written over a period of time on Wikipedia with contributions by multiple editors, so it is good to have your confirmation! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Lede

• "Ununennium is the element with the lowest atomic number that has not yet been synthesized. To date, all attempts to synthesize this element have been unsuccessful." Second sentence is repetitive. Either delete it entirely, or expand it slightly to include relevant additional information (Your option: What attempts by what teams? What alternative strategies employed? Why has synthesis been difficult? For example: "Multiple attempts by US, German, and Russian teams to synthesize this element...", but I expect you to have your own take on what is most important to present in the lede.)

• I note from the talk page that others besides myself have found this sentence to be unsatisfactory in its present state. From your response to Georgia guy, it is evident that you've thought a lot about the lack of success in the multiple attempts to synthesize this element. Regardless, the sentence still needs improvement. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:07, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm thinking about how to do it; I think I'll have thought of a solution soon. Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
    • OK, changed it to "Multiple attempts have been made by American, German, and Russian teams to synthesize this element: they have all been unsuccessful, as experimental evidence has shown that the synthesis of ununennium will likely be far more difficult than that of the previous elements, and may even be the penultimate element that can be synthesized with current technology." (Noting how the cross-section estimates dropped from the nanobarns to the femtobarns from 1985 to the present, and Zagrebaev's comment in ref 10 that the elements Z > 120 "might already be beyond this natural time limit [1 μs] for their detection".) Is that better? Double sharp (talk) 16:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• "For example, ununennium is expected to be less reactive than caesium and francium and be closer in behavior to potassium or rubidium..." Parallel sentence structure: "and to be closer in behavior"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:44, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

History

• "that may either fission or evaporate several (3 to 5) neutrons." Slightly awkward wording. Try other wordings such as "that may fission, or alternatively may evaporate several (3 to 5) neutrons."
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "the produced fused nuclei" Try "the fused nuclei produced"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "expected to be on the order of microseconds." Isn't this a bit of overlinking?
  • Probably. Removed link. Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Previously, important help (characterized as 'silver bullets')" Link to discussion about werewolves and other monsters is not helpful. If you want the link, you should add a subsection of the Silver bullet article discussing how the term is often used metaphorically to refer to a development in technology, management technique, execution protocol etc. that achieves a major improvement in results. (Example is the No Silver Bullet mentioned in Brooks' famous essay.)
  • Well, I'm not sure I'm up to writing about the metaphorical usage, so I removed the link. Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "and the existence of the quasi-stable neutron-rich isotope calcium-48 which could thus be used" Omit "thus"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Such neutron-rich isotopes are expected to be closer to the sought-after island of stability." Closer than what?
  • Replaced sentence with "The more neutron-rich a superheavy nuclide is, the closer it is expeted to be to the sought-after island of stability." Better? Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• "To more practically produce further superheavy elements, projectiles heavier than ⁴⁸Ca are needed." Try alternative wording such as "Practical production of further superheavy elements would require projectiles heavier than ⁴⁸Ca."
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 22:49, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Synthesis attempts

• "a limiting yield of 300 nb" At multiple points in this section, the word "yield" is used where I rather expected the word "cross-section." Is this a common idiomatic usage of the word "yield"?
  • I can see where it would come from, as the cross-section will give you a measure of the probability of fusion. But I think we ought to stick to "cross-section" for an article like this.  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:20, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Naming

• "the recommendations are mostly ignored among scientists in the field" The term "in the field" is slightly ambiguous and led me to do a double-take. Usually when I think of "in the field", I think of a biologist collecting samples in Death Valley or a paleontologist digging up bones. What you seem to mean is that whereas academics tend to follow the IUPAC recommendations, the scientists actually doing work at the particle accelerators prefer the simpler and more straightforward nomenclature. Could you maybe find some slightly different wording to express this fact? I don't insist on a change; this just bothered me a bit.
  • Changed it to "the recommendations are mostly ignored among scientists who work at the particle accelerators used to synthesize superheavy elements": is that better? Double sharp (talk) 15:52, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oops, I forgot that the theoreticians do it too: so I've made it "the recommendations are mostly ignored among scientists who work theoretically or experimentally on superheavy elements". Double sharp (talk) 06:05, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Predicted properties

Nuclear stability and isotopes

• File:Island of Stablity derived from Zagrebaev.png The caption does not explain that the elliptical region circles the island of stability.
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:49, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• File:Next proton shell.svg Unclear caption. What do the left and right halves of this figure represent? Is the left side some sort of "results of an old model ignoring effects of azimuthal quantum number" versus the right side being "results of a more recent theoretical analysis" or what?
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:49, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• WP:CAPTION recommends succinct captions, placing most description in the article itself. I disagree, preferring to make captions complete, even if they tend to be verbose.
• If you choose to follow the recommendations of WP:CAPTION, make sure that figure descriptions in the article text do not use terms like "the figure on the left/right/above/below" etc. because a large fraction of Wikipedia users are accessing Wikipedia using mobile devices. For articles requiring close integration between figures and article text, I've sometimes used numbered figures, even though maintenance of numbering can be tedious (for example, see Interferometry or Fizeau–Foucault apparatus).
• The figures in this article lack "alt" text. I don't insist on alt text for GA, but if you intend the article to be submitted for FA, I think it is important. Alt text must be written to be easily interpreted by text-to-speech programs for people who have low vision.
• "All isotopes with an atomic number above 101 decay radioactively..." Is there any way for an element to decay non-radioactively? Are there decay modes classified as non-radioactive?
  • Changed it to read "undergo radioactive decay". Double sharp (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• "because of reasons not well understood yet," Try "because of reasons not yet well understood,"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• "The alpha-decay half-lives predicted for ^291–307Uue are of the order of microseconds." Try "on the order"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Nevertheless, new theoretical models showed that the expected gap in energy..." Unexpected shift in tense. The sentences before this one are present tense, and the sentence after this one is present tense. Convert to present tense.
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 15:53, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 05:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Atomic and physical

• "which is easily lost in chemical reactions:" Try "which is easily lost in chemical reactions to form the +1 oxidation state:"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "The effect 'tearing' the 7p subshell into the more-stabilized and the less-stabilized parts is called subshell splitting." I searched Google and Google Scholar for the word "tearing" in conjunction with various variants on the search term "relativistic 7p subshell splitting", and the only results that I got were Wikipedia-derived. Is this use of the word "tearing" an actually established jargon use of the term, or could it be strictly a neologistic invention of some past Wikipedia editor?
  • I've removed it. It was meant to be simply a figure of speech, but if it can be interpreted as a standard term, I'd rather not use it. Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Due to the stabilization of its outer 8s electron, ununennium's first ionization energy—the energy required to remove an electron from a neutral atom—is predicted to be 4.53 eV, higher than those of the preceding alkali metals:"

1. Perhaps move File:Ionization energy of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals.svg closer to this text?
   • I've moved all three pictures to just after the sentence "This stabilization of the outermost s-orbital (already significant in francium) is the key factor affecting ununennium's chemistry, and causes all the trends for atomic and molecular properties of alkali metals to reverse direction after caesium.", as the diagrams illustrate this trend-reversal really well. Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
2. The "preceding alkali metals in the group/column"? The "alkali metals from previous periods"? Or would that be redundant? My ear says one thing, my brain says another. You decide.
   • Changed it to "the known alkali metals". Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

• "indeed, unbiunium (element 121) is predicted to have a lower ionization energy of 4.45 eV, so that the alkali metal in period 8 would not have the lower ionisation energy in the period, as is true for all previous periods."

1. This is not a logical continuation of the statement before the colon, since before the statement before the colon compares ionization energies from different periods, whereas the statement after the colon compares ionization energies within a period. Get rid of the "indeed" and start a new sentence.
2. Do you mean, "so that the first alkali metal in period 8 would not have the lowest ionisation energy in the period, as is true for all previous periods"?
3. "the lower ionisation energy" uses British English. There is mixed American and British spelling in this article. WP:ARTCON states, "While Wikipedia does not favor any national variety of English, within a given article the conventions of one particular variety should be followed consistently." MOS:RETAIN suggests that "the variety used in the first non-stub revision is considered the default." The original version of this article was somewhat larger than a stub and used American spelling.
   • Changed it to "This effect [referring to the 8s stabilization previously mentioned] is so large that unbiunium (element 121) is predicted to have a lower ionization energy of 4.45 eV, so that the alkali metal in period 8 would not have the lowest ionization energy in the period, as is true for all previous periods." Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

• "polarisability", "destabilisation", etc. are other examples of inconsistent use of Englishes.
  • Fixed all the ones I noticed. Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Ununennium's electron affinity is expected to be far greater than that of caesium and francium" Perhaps move File:Electron affinity of alkali metals.svg closer to this text?
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "According to simple extrapolations of relativity laws, that indirectly indicates the contraction of the atomic radius to around 240 pm" Perhaps move File:Atomic radius of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals.svg closer to this text?
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "as francium's melting point is known so poorly: it has been variously been stated to be around 23 °C or 27 °C," Unclear pronoun antecedent. I presume that "it" means francium's melting point. Try "as francium's melting point is known so poorly, having been variously stated to be around 23 °C or 27 °C,"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "and both values are very close to the caesium value" Try "with both values very close to the caesium value"
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "The boiling point of ununennium is expected to be around 630 °C, which is indeed lower than that of all the previous elements in the group" No previous discussion justifies use of the word "indeed".
  •  Done Removed "indeed". Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "(ignoring the anomalous and likely inaccurate value of 680 °C often given for francium, though it is higher than caesium's at 671 °C)" Move to Note.
  •  Done Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "that of francium is often given as 1.87 g·cm⁻³, but this value is likely inaccurate and has been predicted to be between 2.8 and 3.0 g·cm⁻³" Move to Note.
  •  Done (although I left in the note that the trend I'm talking about is using the predicted value instead of the inaccurate one). Double sharp (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 08:39, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Chemical

• "but it would probably be closer to that of potassium or rubidium instead of caesium or francium." Try "than to that of"
  • Changed it to "but it would probably behave more like potassium or rubidium than caesium or francium". Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "This is unusual as periodic trends, ignoring relativistic effects would predict ununennium to be even more reactive than caesium and francium." Comma after "effects"
  • Added. Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "stabilisation", "ionisation", etc. Mixed Englishes.
  • I think I got them all. If I missed any, please note them down here so I can fix them. Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "Indeed, many ununennium compounds are expected to have a large covalent character" The "indeed" is not justified.
  • Removed it. Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• File:Atomic radius of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals.svg "atomic radius of the alkali and alkaline earth metals" Try "atomic radii"
  •  Done
• File:Electron affinity of alkali metals.svg No comments
• File:Ionization energy of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals.svg Inconsistent version of English in caption
  • Fixed. Double sharp (talk) 14:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• "From these M₂ dissociation energies, the enthalpy of sublimation (ΔH_sub) of ununennium was predicted to be 94 kJ·mol⁻¹" Unexpected shift in tense.
  • Changed to present. Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Notes

• "Although stable isotopes of the lightest elements usually have a neutron–proton ratio close or equal to one (for example, the only stable isotope of aluminium has 13 protons and 14 neutrons, making a neutron–proton ratio of 1.077), stable isotopes of heavier elements have higher neutron–proton ratios, increasing with the number of protons (iodine's only stable isotope has 53 protons and 74 neutrons, neutron–proton ratio of 1.396, gold's only stable isotope has 79 protons and 118 neutrons, neutron–proton ratio of 1.494, plutonium's most stable isotope has 94 protons and 150 neutrons, neutron–proton ratio of 1.596), making it difficult to synthesize the most stable isotopes of these elements, because the neutron–proton ratios of the elements they are synthesized from are lower than the expected ratios of the most stable isotopes of the superheavy elements." Long, run-on sentence. I see at least three sentences: "Stable isotopes of the lightest elements...", "Stable isotopes of heavier elements...", "It is difficult to synthesize the most stable isotopes of the superheavy elements..."
  • I've split the sentence into three. Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 10:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

• "aluminium" This is considered British rather than American English, but it is also the IUPAC recommended spelling. So while it violates the Wikipedia recommendation against use of mixed Englishes, it adheres better to world standards. Let it stand.

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 10:27, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Final read

Looks good. While re-reading, I corrected a few items that I missed in my first read-thru. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 16:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)