Talk:Periodic table

Structure section's Group nomenclature

Would it make sense to change the preferred nomenclature of Group in the Structure section from being Tetrels, Pnicto­gens etc. to being the far-more-commonplace Mendeleev (i.e. I–VIII ) style? Chumpih ^t 16:13, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The standard IUPAC group numbers 1 through 18 are already at the top. The ambiguities of the I-VIII style are discussed in the subsection Periodic table#Group names and numbers. Double sharp (talk) 01:44, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Lutetium (Lu) should be treated as a lanthanide or a transition metal? What about Lawrencium (Lr), is it an actinide or a transition metal?

According to the Periodic Table from Wikipedia, the table is confusing. It appears to universally recognize Lu and Lr as transition metals, even though Lu could be a lanthanide and Lr could be an actinide, respectively. NaoHoi (talk) 08:22, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@NaoHoi This is discussed fully at Group 3 element and endlessly in earlier discussions on the talk page here (see archives). Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:08, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@NaoHoi, @Michael D. Turnbull: The discussion in the archives of this page are eclipsed by those at WT:ELEM. "Endlessly" may be an exaggeration, but not by much! YBG (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Superheavy elements & new periodic layouts

The hunt for elements beyond 118 is intensifying. Experiments now use novel beam-target combinations (e.g. vanadium beams on curium) to try to create element 119. In parallel, theorists predict dramatic changes in table structure at high Z: for example, Pyykkö’s relativistic calculations suggest new blocks may appear near element 139–172, and some have even proposed “50-column” table layouts to accommodate these superheavy electron configurations. One speculative framework is a 4D periodic table: Zeiner-Gundersen et al. (2024) add a “quantum topological stability” axis to capture isotopic stability and relativistic effects, predicting new “islands of stability” for superheavy nucleire. Designios (talk) 01:30, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

What does it matter? There's no chance there will ever by any chemistry of those elements. 72.14.113.138 (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Polemical nonsense

It seems that someone's decided to turn this article and related ones into a crusade to recognize Lu and Lr as d-block or transition elements, when they clearly aren't. The version of the periodic table I am used to has La-Lu and Ac-Lr as 15-element groups; putting Lu and Lr in the main table and the other 14 below is the worst possible arrangement as it suggests a fundamental difference between the two that isn't there. Of course you _can_ make argument based on electron configurations, but those are irrelevant as the periodic table is and always was intended to reflect chemical properties only and trying to reflect instead quantum-mechanical structure is an odious hijacking of it, even if accurate.

The periodic tables drawn up before electron configurations were known about _somehow_ manages to get the pattern right, matching the modern tables except (not quite universally) placing Th an U below the transition metals. But even this error could be detected without using QM; the differences in chemical porperties were already clear, and would have made the change necessary when Am and Cm were discovered just is actually happened. Of course the electron configurations are not meaningless but allowing them to determine the periodic table's format is clearly a mistake and does a dishonor to chemistry.

So the 'inner transition elements' (a term not used anymore, it seems, but useful) must contain 15 groups though there are only 14 f-electrons; on the other hand, it is equally clear from chemical evidence that for the d-electrons the opposite must hold: only groups 4-11 can properly be called transition elements based on chemical behavior, as the horizontal similarities are not convincing enough and the group 3 elements (which must include all 15 lanthanides and 15 actinides to be consistent, as they used to at Wikipedia) are not sufficiently transition-like. The properties in question should be known to anyone that has any right to comment on the issue, so I need not discuss them.

And indeed with the non-transition metals no definitive conclusion cand be drawn about which of groups 2/12 and 3/13 Mg and Al belong with; an ambiguity easily accommodated by the traditional 8-group numbers (whose only flaw was using the same number for the three columns headed by Fe, Co, Ni) but arbirtarily decided by modern arrangements. Though the preponderance of the evidence probably agrees, there's a sufficient amount to the contrary that insisting rigidly on the 18-group division is misleading and loses information that the table is supposed to illustrate.

Aesthetics, too, has caused publishers to place hydrogen where it usually is instead of the only chemically defensible position, separate from all groups as it is without doubt not to any degree an alkali metal or a halogen (despite a few resemblances to the latter). Helium is correctly places, obviously, so only hydrogen is outside of periodicity. And correctly we called Li-F the 'first row' elements and Na-Cl the 'second row' - saying Period 2 and 3 is ridiculous because again, there is no periodicity with hydrogen, which stands alone, and 'Period 1' does not exist even though the corresponding quantum number does. This is no different from calling Ti-Cu the 'first-row transition elements', which is acceptable.

Anyone that doubts the relevance of these arguments does not understand the importance and significance of the Periodic Table, or intentionally ignores them in favor of considering it merely a book-keeping device for the electron shells, which must be resisted. Whoever forced this change into Wikipedia monstrously sinned against science. 72.14.113.138 (talk) 17:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Please point out

1. the exact part of the article that you believe should be changed,
2. what it should say it instead, and (most importantly)
3. the reliable source that supports that change.

Right now, the most important of these -- the reliable source -- is missing, and your exact request is unclear (too broad). If you need help with formatting, see Wikipedia:Edit requests. Renerpho (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Since you evidently read the entire post, you should know what I meant and that that hardly can match it, because indeed it is too broad for such, and must be. I am not making a minor edit request; I object to all the edits that have been made, over a period of years, to this article and others such as Group 3 elements, intended to declare it a matter of scientific fact that Lu and Lr do not belong with the f-block but with the d-block. This is a logical error as the periodic table _is not_ a matter of fact at all; it is a human creation, the common property of all, that is built on chemical fact but is not dependent on any one. Thus the proper arrangement of the table is not something that could be sourced; only the arrangements chosen by this or that source are.

So for the matter about which I complain, there are and can be no reliable sources, and it is a matter of pure opinion. Although Wikipedia does not ordinarily take (as it should not) a position in matters of opinion, here it must because periodic tables are _used_ on Wikipedia (as such, not just for illustration). In this, the arrangement chosen for them is no different than the arrangement of a navbox/infobox, and does not need (and should not have) any source cited.

My opinion on how it should be arranged is hence as good as anyone else's, the only difference can be in how well I argue it. There is no need to go into exact details of implementation if it is not agreed on to change, though again as a matter of logic my opinions should be accepted if there is no good argument to the contrary, to the extent it is reasonable (which I think it clearly is) and technically possible.

But even if nothing is done there, the objectionable text - all of it - that has accumulated on how it is 'proved' that Lu and Lr must be separated from the other lanthanides and actinides should all be removed or reworded to express that it is solely a matter of opinion, as it logically necessary. And if it falls down when presented that way, then it deserves to fall. 72.14.113.138 (talk) 21:01, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

You're commenting in the wrong place then. If you must, ask at WP:CHEMISTRY. Renerpho (talk) 21:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

There are many sources that justify the Sc-Y-Lu arrangement from lots of perspectives (see User:Double sharp/Group 3 sources for the hundred or so that I found). The 2021 IUPAC report outright points out the business about how there shouldn't be 15-element rows in an f-block, so we do the same; but in fact there are also very many cases where physical and chemical properties are in accordance with the situation of the electron configurations. William B. Jensen addressed the matter in detail in his J. Chem. Ed. article of 1982: Table 2 compares a lot of properties where Lu fits with Sc and Y much better than La. This was, as he points out, known before periodic tables based on electron configurations really began to catch on (classically speaking, Sc, Y, and Lu belong in the yttrium separation group of rare earths, while La and Ac belong in the cerium separation group). Double sharp (talk) 06:08, 15 June 2025 (UTC)