Talk:Helium

Helium has been listed as a level-4 vital article in Science, Physics. If you can improve it, please do. This article has been rated as FA-Class.

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New York criminal court citation[edit]

This article was cited twice (without versioning) by Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino, Jr. of the NYC Criminal Court in Manhattan (New York County) to support the proposition that helium is a "noxious material" in denying the dismissal of misdemeanor criminal charges against three men selling helium balloons of "unlawfully possessing or selling noxious material" (New York Penal Law § 270.05).

Helium is defined as a colorless, odorless, tasteless, nontoxic, inert monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table. (See Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Helium, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium.) Although "neutral helium at standard conditions" should not pose a health risk, excessive inhalation of the gas can cause asphyxiation. (See New World Encyclopedia, Helium, available at http://newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Helium.)

People will sometimes inhale helium in order to temporarily make their voices sound high-pitched. "Although this effect may be amusing, it can be dangerous if done in excess." (Id.) This is "because the helium displaces oxygen needed for normal respiration." (Id.) "Inhaling helium directly from pressurized cylinders is extremely dangerous, as the high flow rate can result in barotrauma, fatally rupturing lung tissue." (Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Helium, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium.) Additionally, "[o]n loss of containment this gas can cause suffocation by lowering the oxygen content of the air in confined areas." (See Lenntech, Water Treatment Solutions, Helium, available at http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/he.htm.)

People v. Givenni, 27 Misc.3d 1135 (2010), available at https://www.leagle.com/decision/innyco20100421378 and https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2010/2010-20138.html

(Note, there were no allegations in this case that anyone inhaled helium directly from pressurized containers or that anyone was harmed; only that the defendants sold helium balloons and that unspecified other parties later inhaled some helium from these balloons). NTK (talk) 00:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

This decision was criticized in a law review case comment by Colette Siesholtz:

In People v. Givenni, the court did not use Wikipedia merely as a collateral reference; rather, the Wikipedia definitions and descriptions of helium were used as the primary basis for the court's central, factual finding that helium is a noxious gas and therefore prohibited for sale.

NYLS Law Review, vol 56, 2011/12 1635 at 1641. available at http://www.nylslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2012/04/56-4.People-v-Givenni.Siesholtz.pdf

NTK (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

"After hydrogen, helium is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe"[edit]

Doesn't that title imply it's the third? Prinsgezinde (talk) 15:45, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

No. -DePiep (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

The hell it doesn't. It could be understood (especially by English as a second language readers) as just that - the third most abundant. For those unable to understand why it isn't clear, read this version:"After hydrogen, helium is the lightest and most abundant element in the observable universe." It has exactly the same meaning! Quaint idiom, maybe; but certainly not clear. Or don't you care?40.142.185.108 (talk) 11:06, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I've done some rephrasing to remove ambiguity. Double sharp (talk) 04:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Melting point[edit]

What is the purpose of listing a Melting point at 2.5 MPa? What is the melting point at atmospheric pressure? There is none, as far as I know...why not list that instead?

It is tradition by now. That is what everyone does. Gah4 (talk) 13:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

See Melting points of the elements (data page). Looks like at 1 atm, there is no melting point. -DePiep (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

So (unsigned) suggests just not putting any number. Gah4 (talk) 15:15, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Helium has a melting point, but only at pressures above about 2.5 megapascals (25 atm). It seems reasonable to me to list its melting point at the lowest pressure at which it has one. --RexxS (talk) 18:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Surely that ought to be absolute zero, though, where pressure exactly compensates for zero-point energy. Double sharp (talk) 06:26, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I assure you it's not. Zero-point energy implies that that helium molecules still have energy even at absolute zero, which is why under atmospheric pressure, helium remains fluid no matter how low the temperature. There is a minimum pressure required for helium to achieve a solid state, and that turns out to be around 2.5 MPa. According to the sources, at that pressure, helium will be a solid below 0.95 K and liquid above it. If you're expecting intuitively that a lower melting point exists at a lower pressure, I think you'll find that you are mistaken. Quantum mechanics can be rather like that. --RexxS (talk) 14:55, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. Melting points of the elements (data page) gives a value of 0 K for He, labelling it as "hcp crystal melting to He-II superfluid at 25.00 atm". 25.00 atm is listed in the source article as "P₀(hcp + II), the equilibrium pressure at 0 K"; I confess I don't understand all of the paper, but since the melting point is supposed to be the temperature at which the solid and liquid states can exist in equilibrium, this bit seems relatively clear. It also seems to imply that 25 atm is indeed the lowest temperature that helium can freeze, and that indeed as I expected this is where the melting point is absolute zero. The value of 0.95 K, at least based on that data page, seems to only come from WebElements. The edit to the data page giving this extra detail and source on helium is here (from 15 March 2016 by Layzeeboi; I've invited him to this discussion.) Double sharp (talk) 16:30, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

P.S. This has come up before at Talk:List of chemical elements#Melting point of helium. Double sharp (talk) 16:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I cited the source at https://web.archive.org/web/20080531145546/http://www.phys.ualberta.ca/~therman/lowtemp/projects1.htm which agrees with https://www.webelements.com/helium/ rather than a Wikipedia page, which is not a reliable source.

The discussion at Talk:List of chemical elements #Melting point of helium seems to be original research, based on the assumption that lowering the pressure always lowers the melting point because raising the pressure always raises melting point. That assumption is not necessarily true. I'm pretty certain that where https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00117245 (the article you cited) states "The minimum in the melting pressure occurs at 0.774 K and is 8.04 × 10−3 atm below the 0 K value.", it's telling us that there is a minimum value of the pressure required for a solid phase to exist, although it is giving 0.774 K as the temperature at which that minimum pressure occurs, It's worth noting that if the minimum pressure is around 25 standard atmospheres (2,500 kPa), then the required pressure at 0 K is only 0.03% above that, so they must have had some pretty sensitive methods of measuring.

I'm not bothered about which source you prefer, but all of the sources I've looked at indicate that there is a minimum pressure (as a function of temperature) for the solid phase to exist, and that the minimum doesn't occur at 0 K. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

All helpfull and clarifying here, but should this text not be in the actual article body text then? The infobox is supposed to reflect that text, no more. Also, in the text body there is more space for clarification. -DePiep (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree, DePiep. There is a general dispensation in chemistry/physics articles to allow physical characteristics to be given in infoboxes without being in the article, but the minimum in the P-T relationship for the melting point seems to me so unintuitive that it deserves an explicit mention in the body of the article. Unfortunately, my physics degree predates much of the research cited and I never learned about it as an undergraduate. Perhaps one of the regular editors with a more modern understanding can craft something. --RexxS (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, this is all very interesting! You learn something new every day, I guess. I very much agree that some details about this should be written in the article, along with an explanation for this highly counterintuitive behaviour. Double sharp (talk) 03:48, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

1K[edit]

The article says that Onnes cooled helium below 1K to liquify it, but the boiling point is closer to 4.2K. I will look through the reference, but I don't see why it should say 1K. Gah4 (talk) 17:39, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

The reference says 5K on page 18. Before actually seeing liquid, they noticed that it would stay at a nice constant temperature, a little less than 5K, a sign of a liquid. Gah4 (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

lede[edit]

A couple sentences into the lead (lede) is:"Its abundance is similar to this figure, in the Sun, and in Jupiter." It is, I believe, incorrectly punctuated. (I myself also overuse the comma, but this is worse than even I would do.) It should be (imho)"Its abundance is similar to this figure in the Sun and in Jupiter." I am also dubious that an abundance (value) can be "similar" to a figure. So, I suggest:"Its abundance is similar to this in both the Sun and Jupiter."40.142.185.108 (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I've made a small copyedit to the lead to try to incorporate your suggestions (including the "after hydrogen, the second most"). Hopefully it will satisfy readers and avoid ambiguity. --RexxS (talk) 15:51, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

New helium supply from Tanzania?[edit]

Interesting article at Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-28/we-re-running-out-of-helium-and-helium-one-might-have-a-fix "In a typical mine (sic) where it can be profitably separated from the methane and other gases it's bound up with, helium concentration stands at about 2%. According to the Investor's Guide, the hot springs in southwestern Tanzania were spitting out gas with 5% to 15% helium in it. "I thought someone wrote it down wrong," Bluett says, "that the decimal was in the wrong spot or something." If the numbers were right, he and his former housemate had stumbled onto something better than a gold mine." Reporters! Gas well, of course.

"In 2016, NSAI said there could be as much as 98 billion cubic feet of helium below Mtili's hot rock. That would be enough to fulfill global demand for 16 years. "To my knowledge, it was the largest primary helium reserve ever announced," Bluett says. Goodbye, helium shortage—at least in theory."

Who knows what will become of this, but it's an interesting prospect, and the geologists seem smart & attentive. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:19, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Make-up[edit]

How come it doesn't say anywhere how many protons, neutrons and electrons it's made up of? Nor is an image of the molecule shown anywhere. Isn't that something that should be in the first or second paragraph of the introduction? I've been missing this on other elements also. Am I just not understanding something right? Cause I don't really know that much about these matters... When looking at the page of an element, how can I quickly know what its molecule is made up of? Thanks for any clarifications/explanations. 191.114.43.14 (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

These are in there soemhow, but not easily as plain numbers. In the infobox: The number of protons is the atomic number Z: 2 for helium. Importantly, the 2 also appears as subscripopt in the title: "₂He" (because this 2 is identifying He, not just a property). The number of electrons: implicitly, that number is the same as Z when the atom is in rest (say, not in a compound). So number of electrons=2. This is the total number of "Electrons per shell"(which is more complicated in heavier elements; for example "2, 8, 3"= 13 for aluminium). The number of neutrons is not stable (in general, for all elements), and so is not a single number. The variants are listed in the list of "Main isotopes of helium", via a superscript: ³He, ⁴He (that is, minus the 2 protons that is 1 or 2 neutrons).

As for a drawing: for a simple element like helium this might be do-able: see Atomic number for example. But when atoms are heavier, the layout is not in a 2-dimensional form. See the image in Electron#Atoms_and_molecules: they appear more like "clouds" in various 3D-forms and directions.

Since this is the pattern for all elements, the numbers are not specified in this detail for each element. That would be rewriting these definitions in each element article. This build-up of atoms is mentioned in, for example, Atomic number, Neutron number, and Mass number. -DePiep (talk) 07:15, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Since the OP mentions "molecules": this is a separate consideration from proton, neutron, and electron counts. DePiep has explained and given links for the latter: a helium atom always has 2 protons, as that is the defintion of the atomic number (otherwise it would not be helium), and thus to be electrically neutral it must have 2 electrons (otherwise you have a helium ion), but its number of neutrons can vary (1 or 2 neutrons both make a stable helium isotope; there are also some unstable helium isotopes with more neutrons). But as far as talking about a "helium molecule" makes any sense it must mean a single helium atom, as helium is monatomic. For other elements this can vary (nitrogen will be N₂, but oxygen might be O₂ or O₃), and speaking of molecules does not quite make sense for metals like iron or silver with their giant metallic structures (neither does it make sense for the giant covalent structures of carbon or silicon). Such structural considerations will be mentioned in the article, although "crystal structure" (the way the atoms of an element arrange themselves in a bulk solid) also appears in the infobox. Double sharp (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

OP here. Good god, what was I thinking. Of course do I mean atom, and not molecule. You'll have to forgive me, it's not my field of expertise. But yes, wouldn't some form of graphical illustration of each atom in its "standard" or "neutral" form be useful? If such a thing exists. It would certainly be for me as a layman in order to visualize the thingy. At least in terms of ions, neutral would be imo when electrons equal protons. But for isotopes? is there a "neutral" form or are they simply equal variants? 191.114.57.105 (talk) 05:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It might work for helium, where neutral helium would have 2 protons and 2 electrons: something like File:Atom.svg for helium-4. But it would quickly prove problematic for neutral uranium with 92 protons and 92 electrons: the protons are all going to be stuffed at the centre in the nucleus (we will assume for sanity that the atom is not drawn to scale, or you just see a lot of empty space between the nucleus and the electrons) and you can't see them all, let alone count them. The stable isotopes are basically equal variants; helium-3 and helium-4 both occur in nature and are both totally stable as far as we know. In the case of helium, helium-4 might be preferred as it is much more common than helium-3, but for a case like bromine with two isotopes (bromine-79 and bromine-81) of nearly equal abundance (51% and 49% respectively) there really is little reason to choose one over the other. For a radioactive transuranic element like californium you would also have the problem that it doesn't exist naturally on Earth anymore; you would have to choose either the most stable isotope (251) or the most commonly used isotope (252), and they are not the same. Double sharp (talk) 06:03, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

We've got a complete commons:Category:Electron shell diagrams (English) set of images, but those have the nucleus as a plain ball. That avoids having to pick an isotope (something that is, as noted, not intrinsic to the elemental identity anyway). Would be trivial to incorporate that completely automatically into the infobox of all elements. Is it useful in the general case, given how much of the interesting nature of many elements is when the electron count varies, and on the assumption that the fleetingly-existing synthetics aren't even neutral at all? DMacks (talk) 06:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The synthetics are neutral: all the ones we know have half-lives comfortably longer than 10⁻¹⁴ seconds, enough to grab an electron cloud. Oganesson, the shortest-lived, has one confirmed isotope with a half-life of about 6.9×10⁻⁴ s. I guess it is conceivable that once we increase atomic number high enough we might reach something that lives for long enough to count as a nuclide (with nuclear shells) but not long enough to count as an element (no electron shells), which will make a fun argument. IIRC we once did have them automatically put in, but they were taken out, IIRC because they are not that good a reflexion of reality once Z gets high enough. (Though there isn't anything much better as far as diagrammatic representations go.) Double sharp (talk) 06:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Cleveite or Uraninite[edit]

I've just reverted a series of changes that systematically replaced "Cleveite" with "Uraninite", describing the latter as the "correct name" for the former. I asked the editor for the source that supported the assertion, but they only provided generic links that didn't verify the addition in my opinion. What is clear to me is that the sources used in this Featured Article such as Kirk 2013 describe the mineral as cleveite, and that as "a variety of uraninite (UO2)". Now it may well be that the terminology used in the sources is old-fashioned, but it is what we find in the sources. Without a reliable source specifically showing that the term "cleveite" has been replaced by "uraninite", I don't think we should be deviating from what the sources use, particularly as a Featured Article may be assumed to have received a rigorous source check, especially having been through a FAR in 2014.

@Ryboy42, Sbharris, Stone, VexorAbVikipædia, EdChem, and DMacks: as the principal editors of the article, I'd be grateful your guidance. --RexxS (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

(1) Mineralogists still distinguish between uraninite and cleveite. (1a) Wikipedia itself distinguishes between cleveite and uraninite, providing separate articles for each. (1b) Similarly, Wikidata distinguishes cleveite as a variety of uraninite: Minerals, mainly: Section #1: non white streak, mainly: Oxide class (no olivines): Subsection #1.4: oxides, stricter sense. (1c) See also, for example, on the mineralogical Web site Mindat.org, where there are separate entries for Uraninite (https://www.mindat.org/min-4102.html) and Cleveite (https://www.mindat.org/min-29957.html), where Cleveite is described as "A REE[Rare Earth Element]-and Th[Thorium]-bearing variety of uraninite." (1d) In 1955, J.W. Frondel of the U.S. Geological Survey distinguished Cleveite as a variety of Uraninite: Frondel, J.W.; Fleischer, Michael (1955). Geological Survey Bulletin 1009-F: Glossary of Uranium- and Thorium-bearing Minerals (PDF) (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C., USA: United States Government Printing Office. p. 194. However, in 1958, Frondel called for eliminating the formal distinction: Frondel, Clifford (1958). Geological Survey Bulletin 1064: Systematic Mineralogy of Uranium and Thorium (PDF). Washington, D.C., USA: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 12–13. From pp. 12–13: "The names broggerite, cleveite, and nivenite were applied originally to minerals thought to be distinct from uraninite, and this usage has continued in some recent literature. All of these substances have been found by X-ray study, however, to be only compositional variants of uraninite marked by a relatively high content of rare earths. The name ulrichite was proposed to designate the hypothetical pure UO₂ following the realization that uraninite was not a definite compound of both U⁺⁴ and U⁺⁶ — a uranyl uranate — but is more or less oxidized UO₂. The above names serve no useful purpose and should be completely abandoned. Varieties of uraninite that contain significant amounts of other elements in solid solution should be designated by chemical adjectival modifiers, such as cerian uraninite, thorian uraninite, and the like, following the widely accepted modern convention." However, the composition of Cleveite (see columns 13 and 14 on p. 17) is not so distinct that Frondel's proposed nomenclature seems applicable; and even if Frondel's proposed nomenclature were applied to cleveite, cleveite would still be recognized as a distinct variety of uraninite, although it would no longer be called "cleveite".

(2) I would also point out that anyone doing research on the discovery of helium would be confused to discover that Ramsay isolated helium from some mineral that he called "cleveite", whereas Wikipedia would claim that he isolated it from "uraninite".

VexorAbVikipædia (talk) 06:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

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Talk:Helium

Talk:Helium

Contents

New York criminal court citation[edit]

"After hydrogen, helium is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe"[edit]

Melting point[edit]

1K[edit]

lede[edit]

New helium supply from Tanzania?[edit]

Make-up[edit]

Cleveite or Uraninite[edit]

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