Talk:Oxygen

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Featured article star Oxygen is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
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Article vandalised with Jason Preistly name and TV show cross references being inserted instead of joseph preistly. JDN

Contents

Pronunciation

It seems odd to give the pronunciation of this common word: WP is not, after all, a dictionary for foreign learners of English. Nevertheless, I see that this is the established practice for chemical elements. I'm merely registering my disagreement with this practice. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The question is rather of whether everyone visiting the article can be expected to understand how to pronounce the word: given that it's a fair bet that this is not the case, it's probably a reasonable idea to leave the pronunciation there - not to mention that consistency is appreciable. Nihiltres{t.l} 03:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
But how about a plea for the common man, and a pronunciation guide which is at minimal dictionary phoneme symbols and at best, something any native speaker can get: OX-uh-jin. This IPA stuff is barely worse than nothing. SBHarris 04:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
The trouble with that is that it can and will be interpreted differently for different people - IPA's advantage is accuracy across dialects, in that "OX-uh-jin" could perhaps be misconstrued as oaks-ah-jean. I believe that the MOS says something about it, not to mention that we have an IPA guide. Nihiltres{t.l} 14:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken I know some Brits who say oakes-ah-jean. A good first crack pronunciation isn't the worse thing in the world, and in fact there is no single right way to say this word, but many wrong ways. People from Baahstaan, that taahn in Masssaachussaaats, are going to say "aahcks-aah-jaaahn" no matter what you do. SBHarris 03:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

FA status

Congratulations all round to the editors. A thoroughly deserved success. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment - This was a hard topic to get to FA status. Lots of work by many people was needed and given. --mav (talk)

Oxygen Percent Chart

A graph of oxygen percent levels throughout the history of life and/or Earth would be a nice addition. Something like this:

http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/150Tetrapoda/Images/AtmosphericO2CO2.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tablizer (talk • contribs) 03:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there one already in the section called "Buildup in the atmosphere"? --Itub (talk) 09:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
The figure on the right looks like what you are suggesting. It used to be in the article but now you can find it in the one for the biological role of oxygen. - tameeria (talk) 13:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Oxygen TFA image

I think this free image of liquid oxygen (O2) and the gas above it would be better for the Main Page than the image of ozone stuctures currently chosen for tomorrow's TFA. First off it actually shows the element (in two of its states and in its most common allotrope). Second, the pale blue color of liquid oxygen is pretty cool and due to its electonic structure, plus you can even see bubbles of the gas, plus the gas above it. Ozone (O3) is important, but relatively rare. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. The ozone diagram gives a misleading representation of an 'oxygen molecule', which occurs far more in the O2 state than in O3. G.bargsnaffle (talk) 00:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What benefit derives from showing a vial of something bluish? The bohr-model diagram at least will be recognizable by anyone who's studied chemistry at the high school (secondary) level. Michael.Urban (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Credit for discovering

Its kind of odd that they give someone credit for discovering oxygen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.149.141.81 (talk) 02:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Discovering it means they discovered it as a separate element with its own atomic structure, physical and chemical properties, and most importantly, discernible from nitrogen, which makes up the majority of the earth's atmosphere. Of course discovering an element is (or rather was) a very notable feat, it's nothing like breathing in air and giving it a name, which is what I imagine you believe discovering oxygen means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.195.142 (talk) 06:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Oxygen third most common element in the universe?

Unlikely given that there are numerous other elements at higher concentrations in the sun. This claim derives from an unsourced table in Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements with the citation in the discussion page thereof [1]. Unclear where the author of the latter table got his information. Also the title of the latter table "Relative Abundance of Selected Elements in the Universe", does not rule out other, more common, elements because of the word "Selected". All in all probably not strong enough evidence to assert that oxygen is the third most common element in the universe Phillip SanMiguel (talk) 13:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is true that there is more oxygen then other elements other than H and He, I wouldn't mind knowing the theories as to why this is the case. --70.54.5.241 (talk) 12:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, here's what NASA has to say, anyway:
Which at least confirms oxygen as #3 in the Sun, and implies the same is true of the Universe in general.
There also seem to be some links there with further info.
—Wikiscient— 13:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Looks like I was wrong. I also see oxygen listed as the 3rd most abundant here: [2]. I would also be interested as to why this might be. Phillip SanMiguel (talk) 13:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Whoa, yeah, that's a way cooler citation! Image:Face-grin.svg
As far as why that is: it's the result of the overall balance of Nucleosynthesis processes... which I'm sure gets about as complicated as you want -- ie. a more straight-forward answer to that is escaping me at the moment ...!
—Wikiscient— 14:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The Notes and Citations section

...looks bloody. Could some one please fix it? ---- penubag  (talk) 07:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks!-- penubag  (talk) 06:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Four references seems to have gone fud - I would fix it but I can't figure out where they were originally pointing! Seansheep (talk) 09:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed by reverting. A combination of vandalism and reversions to earlier versions initially made it difficult to work out who did what. Sorry if anyone lost anything that they considered important - but I do know now who removed the links.Pyrotec (talk) 16:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Breathing

so how much oxygen does an average human consume per day for breathing? and it would be interesting to know this for other animals as well. but the article tells nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.219.42.9 (talk) 16:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

About 30 grams of O2 per hour. Plantsurfer (talk) 22:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Michał Sędziwój should be mentioned as the first one to discover oxygen as a gas!

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C5%82_S%C4%99dziw%C3%B3j wuz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.171.87.226 (talk) 18:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Hydrogen as the true acid producer

Not sure why my addition describing hydrogen as the true acid producer was reverted with comment that there are acids without hydrogen. The very definition of an acid requires excess hydrogen -- it is a substance that can donate extra hydrogen ions (and a base is one that can accept them). For example, that's the wikipedia definition of acid. In any event, I think my addition wasn't actually as well written as it could have been. I would suggest something like: "Chemists eventually determined that Lavoisier was wrong in this regard, but by that time it was too late, the name had taken. Actually, the gas that could appropriately have been given the description, "acid producer," is hydrogen." Then I would plan to move the stub sentence at the end about nitrogen to the prior paragraph, which spoke of nitrogen. Any thoughts? Jlawniczak (talk) 02:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

There are multiple definitions of acid, and not not all of them require hydrogen. Lewis acids are defined as electron pair acceptors. Arrhenius acids can be defined as anything that lowers the pH of pure water, but the acid itself need not have hydrogen. Some examples of acids with no hydrogen include metal cations and borane derivatives. Sulfur trioxide can also be considered an acid; in fact, during the 19th century chemists used the formula SO3 to describe sulfuric acid itself! However, for the purpose of the history section--where you added the sentence about hydrogen--no further elaboration regarding modern acid definitions is necessary in my opinion, as it is slightly off-topic. I suggest leaving it at "not all acids contain oxygen". --Itub (talk) 08:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree you are right, yet the definition adopted by wikipedia is the one I gave that requires hydrogen (see the wikipedia acid section). I do agree that it is not directly in point, yet I think it is a very interesting piece of information about the naming of oxygen -- that in fact hydrogen would have better had the name. And it's not too far from the other discussion in the same section about nitrogen and its name (and more in point and interesting to me). But if you're against it and no one else cares to comment, then I'll let it be. Jlawniczak (talk) 02:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not strongly against it, as long as you don't replace one oversimplification with another oversimplification. ;-) Just one point: it is not up to Wikipedia to "adopt" one definition of acid, and one has to be careful when using Wikipedia as a source. The acid article could use some improvement. But anyway, despite choosing a mix of the Arrhenius and Bronsted-Lowry definitions of acid for the lead paragraph, that article then goes on to discuss the other definitions. --Itub (talk) 15:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, really appreciate it, your comments were excellent and make a lot of sense. I'll craft something in the next week or so. If you don't like it, please let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlawniczak (talk • contribs) 04:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Holy cow, the bot got me for not adding my signature in about 6 seconds. Way to go. I'll do it myself this time. Jlawniczak (talk) 04:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

2,000 or 5,000 years

There were two contradictory statements on the page (unless I missed a subtle difference between them). One said it would take 2,000 years to produce the entire oxygen in the atmosphere and the other said it would take 5,000 years to consume it. Since oxygen is in equilibrium, these two numbers should be the same. I chose the 2,000 version for the following reasons:

  • It had a reference to an article that's on the Web ([3], p. 9), whereas the 5,000 version referred to an offline book and included a contradictory footnote that could be interpreted to imply that only respiration had been taken into account.
  • Though both numbers are to be found on the Web, a Google search seemed to find more instances of the 2,000 version.
  • Last but not least, if you search for "billion tons of oxygen" and photosynthesis, the results again vary surprisingly, but with a clear consensus near 400 billion tons per year, and the one page that gives a range of values with two significant digits, i.e. seems to have put at least some thought into how reliable the numbers are, [4], says 430 - 470 billion tons per year, which fits very well with the 2,000 version, since there are roughly a quadrillion tons of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Joriki (talk) 14:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is it neccessary for the two values to be equal? Maybe consuming it takes into account the fact that some organisms would die, or maybe the plants are neglected since they would produce the oxygen anyways. Nergaal (talk) 17:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your argument. The two sentences that I think contradict each other are:
  • "... even if all photosynthesis were to cease completely, it would take all the oxygen-consuming processes at the present rate at least another 5,000 years to strip all the O2 from the atmosphere" and
  • "At the current rate of photosynthesis it would take about 2,000 years to regenerate the entire O2 in the present atmosphere."
I don't see any leeway in interpreting "all the oxygen-consuming processes at the present rate" and "At the current rate of photosynthesis". If one takes into account that some organisms would die, the oxygen-consuming processes would no longer take place at the present rate. And even if that's what's meant by "at the present rate", it would take a complete simulation of the biosphere to predict how many of which organisms would die -- in that case, the text should say something completely different, like "X carried out a simulation of the biosphere and found that if photosynthesis would suddenly stop working, the oxygen would get used up in 5,000 years". As for neglecting plants: I'm not sure what you mean by "they would produce the oxygen anyways", but it would at least need to be noted that plants have been neglected, since again it wouldn't be "all the oxygen-consuming processes at the present rate".
There are of course many other things that one might find interesting to take into account (for instance that it takes time for the oxygen to diffuse in the atmosphere and in the oceans, which would also reduce the rate at which it could get consumed), but none of these are compatible with "at the present rate".
Joriki (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi Nergaal -- I re-reverted the change since I haven't heard back from you for a week. (Not surprising, considering this link on your user page. :-) Please let's discuss this before you revert again, since I think the version you re-established is inconsistent, whereas my version is at most missing a piece of information (of which neither of us seems to know exactly what it's about). Joriki (talk) 14:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

British POV

"Oxygen was independently discovered by Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, in 1774, and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, a year earlier, but Priestley is usually given priority because he published his findings first." - First oxygen was discovered by Scheele in 1772-73 (some sorces even say 1771) and this discovery was described in his book from 1773 witch was only published later- and secondly "is usally given priority" needs a (global) source - I bet this is only the case in the UK - but English is not only the native language of the UK - it is even the world language - so you can't say "usually" - in Central Europe it is usually Scheele (which is also one-sided) and after watching some other language-wikipedias it seems that Priestley is also not given "priority". 195.243.51.34 (talk) 06:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

And I'm sure yet others discovered oxygen even before Scheele (as some have claimed) but are not given credit at all due to incomplete, unnoticed or missing publication. In science, discovery only matters when the rest of that discipline is informed and has a chance to review and challenge the new finding. By delayed publication, Scheele was not the person who actually advanced work in his field. In summary: discovering something and keeping it to yourself and a few colleagues is not advancing science since it can't be properly vetted by peer review. That's not a British POV, that is a science POV. That said, 'often' is better than 'usually' and I made that change. --mav (talk) 02:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

adding atomic mass to intro section?

I am wondering if we should add atomic mass to the intro section for all of the elements. The reason is that some pages, like Magnesium has the atomic mass written on the introduction section, but other elements don't. I don't know to whom I should turn, but I would like to see some consistency in this. I guess I advocate that it is useful because googling magnesium tends to bring up the wikipedia page, and the intro page in particular. People might be looking for basic information about the atom, including not just atomic number, but the weight. I spoke of this because I noticed Nergaal reverted my changes without explanation to Chlorine, Oxygen, and Sulfur in 19 August 2008.--Luxdormiens (talk) 18:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Isn't one problem that oxygen has 3 stable isotopes so that the atomic mass of each must be different? There is a box with an indication of number of neutrons for each of the three isotopes. Jlawniczak (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The periodic table of the elements sometimes lists the average mass of each element, based on the proportion of the isotopes found in nature. The magnesium is probably anomalous then.--75.22.181.159 (talk) 07:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC) Sorry, this was me. --Luxdormiens (talk) 07:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

All elements articles have an "infobox" on the top right, listing the atomic mass along with many other physical and chemical properties. --Itub (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

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