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10He 11Li 12Be 13B 14C 15N 16O 17F 18Ne 19Na 20Mg
...
18B 19C 20N 21O 22F 23Ne 24Na 25Mg
26Al
27Si 28P 29S

Instructions for using templates in the isotope table

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The isotope table article has caused trouble for several users because it is too big for certain web browsers' editors (more than 90 kB), e.g. typographical errors have been introduced by the software. Partly to reduce file size (less than 45 kB) and partly to make the isotope table easier to edit, a few templates have been introduced for use in this article.

Here are instructions for using the templates, plus an excerpt from the isotope table code and a demonstration of what the isotope table will look like. See for instance the links to Tritium and Carbon-14, and the two-coloured cell of Al-26.

Using the templates

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Template Syntax Effective text
Explanation and comments
{{Iso1}} {{Iso1|Nr|Symbol|X}} title="{{Iso/X/text}}" style="background:{{Iso/X}};" | <small><sup>Nr</sup></small>Symbol
{{Iso1|Nr|Symbol}} title="Unstable" style="background:white;" | <small><sup>Nr</sup></small>Symbol

One-coloured cells

X is member of "ROYGBIV-" and represents a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet or white background colour of a whole table cell. If X is omitted, the colour defaults to white.

Nr and Symbol represent atomic number and chemical symbol and are rendered as NrSymbol. Symbol may contain links, e.g. [[Helium-4|He]] is rendered as He.

{{Iso2}} {{Iso2|Nr|Symbol|X|Z}} title="Isotope: {{Iso/X/text}}; Nuclear isomer: {{Iso/Z/text}}" style="background:{{Iso/Z}};" | <div style="background:{{Iso/X}};"> <small><sup>Nr</sup></small>Symbol</div>
{{Iso2|Nr|Symbol|X}} title="Isotope: {{Iso/X/text}}; Nuclear isomer: Unstable" style="background:white;" | <div style="background:{{Iso/X}};"> <small><sup>Nr</sup></small>Symbol</div>

Two-coloured cells

X and Z are members of "ROYGBIV-" as mentioned above. X is the background colour of the text, and Z is the border colour of the table cell. If Z is omitted, the border defaults to white.

Nr and Symbol are the same as above.

In principle this template could be used for both one- and two-coloured cells. However, this template yields more text than the first one, calls the double number of sub-templates, and also displays misleading popup titles if used in one-coloured cells. Therefore it should only be used when there is actually a need for two colours.

The following templates are generally not used independently, but are called by Iso1 and Iso2 using the variables X and Z:

How the colors are assigned

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category color category color
- V
I B
G Y
O R

Adding a drip line

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Whereever you want to add the proton or neutron drip line to the chart, add the option |drip= with one of the values t (top), r (right), tr (top-right), tl (top-left), trb (top-right-bottom), tb (top-bottom), tlr (top-left-right), b (bottom), l (left), bl (bottom-left), br (bottom-right), blr (bottom-left-right), lr (left-right), or tlb (top-left-bottom) to the cell template Iso1 or Iso2, as demonstrated in the example below. To avoid confusion, only specify drip lines from inner cells.

{{Iso2|1070|Uxq|O|drip=trb}}

1070Uxq

Or in empty cells: {{Iso1|drip=bl}}

      

Explanation of background colours

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Half-lives (example: Gd)
145Gd < 1 day
149Gd 1–10 days
146Gd 10–100 days
153Gd 100 days–10 a
148Gd 10–10,000 a
150Gd 10 ka–700 Ma
152Gd > 700 Ma
158Gd Stable
Half-lives (example: Gd)
145Gd < 1 day
149Gd 1–10 days
146Gd 10–100 days
153Gd 100 days–10 a
148Gd 10–10,000 a
150Gd 10 ka–700 Ma
152Gd > 700 Ma
158Gd Stable

The background colour of each isotope's cell indicates the isotope's physical half-life. See colour chart to the right. Differently coloured borders indicate half-lives of the most stable nuclear isomer states.

To insert this colour chart in an article, add the following tag:

{{isotope colour chart}}

The template takes an optional, nameless parameter that may be used to add styles such as table width or font effects, or override the default styles. The styles are given as a semicolon-separated list using colon as the assignment operator, e.g.:

background:pink; font-style:italic;

The parameter is separated from the template name with a pipe ("|"), and the full template call becomes:

{{isotope colour chart | background:pink; font-style:italic;}}

The result is shown to the lower right.


Excerpt from the isotope table code

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 {| cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" width="100%"
 |+ '''List of known [[isotope]]s'''
 |-
 ![[proton|p]] →
 !1
 !2
 ...
 |-
 !2
 |{{Iso1|3|[[Tritium|T]]|O}}
 |{{Iso1|4|[[Helium-4|He]]|R}}
 |{{Iso1|5|Li}}
 |{{Iso1|6|Be}}
 |{{Iso1|7|B }}
 |{{Iso1|8|C }}
 ![[Nitrogen|N]]
 !8
 |-
 !3
 |{{Iso1|4|[[Hydrogen-4|H]]}}
 |{{Iso1|5|[[Exotic helium isotopes|He]]}}
 |{{Iso1|6|Li|R}}
 |{{Iso1|7|Be|I}}
 |{{Iso1|8|B }}
 |{{Iso1|9|C }}
 |{{Iso1|10|N }}
 ![[Oxygen|O]]
 !9
 ...
 |-
 |
 !8
 |{{Iso1|10|[[Exotic helium isotopes|He]]}}
 |{{Iso1|11|Li}}
 |{{Iso1|12|Be}}
 |{{Iso1|13|B }}
 |{{Iso1|14|[[Carbon-14|C]]|O}}
 |{{Iso1|15|N |R}}
 |{{Iso1|16|O |R}}
 |{{Iso1|17|F }}
 |{{Iso1|18|Ne}}
 |{{Iso1|19|Na}}
 |{{Iso1|20|Mg}}
 ![[Aluminium|Al]]
 !14
 ...
 |-
 |colspan="4"|
 !13
 |{{Iso1|18|B }}
 |{{Iso1|19|C }}
 |{{Iso1|20|N }}
 |{{Iso1|21|O }}
 |{{Iso1|22|F }}
 |{{Iso1|23|Ne}}
 |{{Iso1|24|Na}}
 |{{Iso1|25|Mg|R}}
 |{{Iso2|26|Al|Y}}
 |{{Iso1|27|Si}}
 |{{Iso1|28|P }}
 |{{Iso1|29|S }}
 |
 ![[Argon|Ar]]
 !19
 ...
 |}

Excerpt from the isotope table

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p 1 2
n H He 3 4
0 1H Li Be 5 6
1 2D 3He 4Li 5Be B C 7
2 3T 4He 5Li 6Be 7B 8C N 8
3 4H 5He 6Li 7Be 8B 9C 10N O 9
4 5H 6He 7Li 8Be 9B 10C 11N 12O F 10
5 6H 7He 8Li 9Be 10B 11C 12N 13O 14F Ne 11
6 7H 8He 9Li 10Be 11B 12C 13N 14O 15F 16Ne Na 12
7 9He 10Li 11Be 12B 13C 14N 15O 16F 17Ne 18Na Mg 13
8 10He 11Li 12Be 13B 14C 15N 16O 17F 18Ne 19Na 20Mg Al 14
9 12Li 13Be 14B 15C 16N 17O 18F 19Ne 20Na 21Mg 22Al Si 15
10 14Be 15B 16C 17N 18O 19F 20Ne 21Na 22Mg 23Al P 16
11 16B 17C 18N 19O 20F 21Ne 22Na 23Mg 24Al 25Si S 17
12 17B 18C 19N 20O 21F 22Ne 23Na 24Mg 25Al 26Si 27P Cl 18
13 18B 19C 20N 21O 22F 23Ne 24Na 25Mg
26Al
27Si 28P 29S Ar 19
14 19B 20C 21N 22O 23F 24Ne 25Na 26Mg 27Al 28Si 29P 30S 31Cl K 20
15 21C 22N 23O 24F 25Ne 26Na 27Mg 28Al 29Si 30P 31S 32Cl 33Ar Ca

Discussion

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Popup titles displaying half-lives when hovering over table cells were added in January 2006. For background and discussion see Talk:Isotope table (complete)#Alternatives for displaying colour legend.

13 July 2006 edit

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Presumably this was for performance, but there was no documentation and it was by an anon IP. Is there any way we can tell how this change actually affects performance? --JWB 21:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed color changes

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Here is a proposal for splitting the longer-lived categories into more precise bands, with the colors based on interpolation of the present ones. Red is left as stable here, so this proposal is disjoint from the one at Talk:Isotope table (complete)#Red to gray?. Or, if we do adopt gray for stable, the 100ky+ categories can be shifted down one color, as the colors for 10k-100k and 100k-1m do not look very distinct, at least on my monitor. --JWB 16:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

145Gd <1 day
146Gd 1–10 days
149Gd 10–100 days
153Gd 100d–1 year
147Pm 1-10 years
148Gd 10–100 years
241Am 100-1000 years
14C 1000-10000 years
239Pu 10k–100k years
99Tc 100k-1m years
150Gd 1m-10m years
129I 10m-103m years
238U 700m-14b years
152Gd 38b-50q years
158Gd Stable


I'm going to give gray (#BBB) a try as nobody has objected. Discuss here or at Talk:Isotope table (complete)#Red to gray?. --JWB 19:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another Color proposal

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I liked the Isotope table, but found the coloring scheme a bit counter-intuitive: it seemed to me that "energetic" colors on the warm end of the spectrum should represent the more unstable elements, while cooler colors should go on the more stable end of the scale. Here's a proposed scheme:

Half-lives (example: Gd)
145Gd <1 day
146Gd 1-10 days
149Gd 10-100 days
153Gd 100d–10 years
148Gd 10-10,000 years
150Gd 10k–103m years
152Gd >700m years
158Gd Stable

What do you think? --Erudy (talk) 20:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. However, I would suggest finishing the table with the sequence orange > yellow > white for a better lightness gradient. --IanOsgood (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good point...although I didn't change the order of the colors (I wanted to keep the traditional coolness/warmth gradient), I lightened the "orange" color into more of a pink to maintain the light/dark gradient. Also I removed one of the more blue colors to reduce ambiguity. How does this appear on other people's screens?
Half-lives (example: Gd)
145Gd <1 day
146Gd 1-10 days
149Gd 10-100 days
153Gd 100d–10 year
148Gd 10-10,000 years
150Gd 10k–103m years
152Gd >700m years
158Gd Stable

Erudy (talk) 15:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is also being discussed at Talk:Isotope table (complete)#Red to gray?. Physical color temperature and traditional color symbolism give opposite results. There is also the possibility of using brightness or saturation to indicate stability and reserving color for decay mode or something else, for example as in the unimplemented Wikipedia:WikiProject_Isotopes#Color_scheme. In any case, I want to split up the halflife categories into finer ones. --JWB (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting point about the opposition of physical color temperature and psychological color temperature. Personally, I find the "psychological" version more compelling, at least in this context. I think the whole point of a graphical device such as Isotope table is to make information quickly and clearly accessible, and I think the "psychological" spectrum does that better, even if it's not as "accurate". It would be more accurate to lay all the isotopes out in writing on some gigantic spreadsheet, giving their precise half lives etc. Of course such a spreadsheet would be unreadable.
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Isotopes#Color_scheme is certainly an ambitious proposal, and I guess I'm not sure that it is not trying to cram too much information into the available space. I feel like we can communicate one piece of information (length of half-life) in a clear and intuitive way (using of couple dimensions of spectrum, ie "psychological" cold->warm plus dull->bright), or we can try to communicate more pieces of information (length of half life and type of decay) with less clarity ("pastel->saturation/brightness" for one and "scientific" cold->warm for the other) I see the value of communicating type of decay, but wonder if it wouldn't be more effectively done with some sort of symbol rather than a color? Wouldn't having, I don't know, a β tucked into the corner of the box (perhaps underneath the isotope number?) more intuitively communicate beta radiation than the color blue, for instance? (I'm more of an interested layperson than an expert in all this, so maybe there is some sort of connection between the blue and beta radiation, but I don't know it.)
As for adding more "steps" in the spectum, and thus increasing precision, I'd say it's a great idea. However, I also feel that it's a different discussion.Erudy (talk) 16:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be bold and try implementing this on iso1 and iso2Erudy (talk) 19:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm finding it harder to read, but I was used to the previous scheme since I've used and edited this page a lot. I do think that color temperature with blue hotter is intuitive to people familiar with any one of many fields like photography, metallurgy, or stellar evolution. Also note the names of the color/halflife templates are still the first letters of the original colors.
I do think that using saturation (the black to white dimension), perhaps along with color, to indicate halflife, would add readability. Currently, very unstable is white and stable is gray, so intermediate halflives should also progress along this scale, even if they also have color.
I've made some attempts to draft tables or lists of isotopes organized by other criteria like halflife; see my user page for links.
Indicating decay mode in some other way than color is not a bad idea if designed well, but it would also have to be implemented, which may be difficult for many schemes. To some extent decay mode is predictable from position on the chart (above the stable sequence, below, or high mass) and it is the exceptions that need to be highlighted. --JWB (talk) 19:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still finding Erudy's scheme to be much harder to read. --JWB (talk) 00:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]