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Hello, Benjah-bmm27, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  -- Longhair 11:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I am a bot, and I am writing to you with a request. I would like to ask you, if possible, to use edit summaries a bit more often when you contribute. The reason an edit summary is important is because it allows your fellow contributors to understand what you changed; you can think of it as the "Subject:" line in an email. For your information, your current edit summary usage is 2% for major edits and 100% for minor edits. (Based on the last 130 major and 1 minor edits in the article namespace.)

This is just a suggestion, and I hope that I did not appear impolite. You do not need to reply to this message, but if you would like to give me feedback, you can do so at the feedback page. Thank you, and happy edits, Mathbot 16:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good job on the new image; keep up the good work! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for indicating your interest in this project. I also see that you have added your name to the participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. Welcome. As far as the Jmol project is concerned, it may take a bit of time to get moving. I would like to have some of the discussion on this done by e-mail as we will be testing it on a different Wiki. Could you go to my user page and use the appropriate userbox to e-mail me and let me know your e-mail address? I will then reply with mine. --Bduke 22:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank-you for your timely and welcome edits on this page. I was getting tired being the only one holding back the contention by one other editor that clouds of UO3 gas were being produced from uranium combustion. --DV8 2XL 18:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dont grill me, toast me, boil me or fry me in hot oil ..... Monty Pytons Uranium Trioxide is a hot topic, but if you have a good suggestion DO IT! I also try and get reverted from time to time! Thanks to get everything right! Phd only means that you know more about one tiny little and forgot most of the stuff learned for your master.--Stone 20:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, it looks like you help insert ChemDraw. If so, could you please look at arsine. The drawing does not match the structure (the H-As-H angle is misrepresented vs the text, which is correct).And if you have any free time, here are some molecules awaiting their portraits:

asparagusic acid, Benzo(C)cinnoline, bismuthine, Cupferron - a tricky one as it is the NH4+ salt, nitrosonium (i.e. just the diatomic), and Phenylhydroxylamine, where you can simply edit your PhNO pic. I dont know how to upload ChemDraw, so if you could point me to simple instructions, I can start to do this too. --Smokefoot 00:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Smokefoot. I'll definitely get some images done for those articles. As for uploading images from ChemDraw, I copy the structure I've drawn in ChemDraw to the clipboard. Then I open Photoshop and paste it into a blank document. Then I save the image as a hi-resolution PNG. I think there are other programs available free if you don't have access to a version of Photoshop. Hope this is helpful. I can give you more detailed instructions if you'd like. Cheers. Ben.

I've done them all! Let me know if you like them. Ben.

Ben - nice stuff. BTW, for cacodylic acid, it's tetrahedral (like most 4-coordinate main group things lacking lone pairs), so you could still more accurately represent it by modifying say AsH3, replacing l.p. with =O, 2xH with Me's and one H with OH. I dont know the structural details, but to the extent that anyone looks up cacodylic acid, we dont want them thinking it's planar. I understand if you dont have time for this.--Smokefoot 21:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ben. I see you have uploaded new "high resolution" images for the amino acids and have replaced the old structural ones with them. First - i didn't like the old images too much either, but you can't wipe out someone's contribution just b/c you don't like their style, an edit is suposed to improve the article - yours don't - in fact they worsen it b/c the images you have removed and the color ones next to them were sets - they both had similar spatial position of the atoms, well not anymore. Another thing is the size of your images - ~ 20K, for the ~3K the old ones have. That's too much for a simple structure such as an amino acid. Now if you want to draw images there is plenty for you to do, just check Category:Chemistry_stubs, Category:Pharmacology_stubs and List of organic compounds. I suggest that you take a sub class of similar structures that noone has worked on it yet, this way all the images in that sub-class will have the same style - see the bile pigments Biliverdin, Bilirubin, Urobilin and Urobilinogen. -- Boris 04:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Boris - sorry you didn't like my updates. You're right - my skeletal structures for amino acids do not coincide with Michael Ströck's 3D ones. However, I think having a skeletal structure is a lot neater and clearer than lots of C-H's. Having ambiguous planar representations of molecules whose 3D structure is very important is not good. The bond angles are realistic and the stereochemistry is apparent in my versions. In fact, the older images I wrote over were the D-enantiomers, the ones not found in nature, and therefore of much less interest.

As for the 20K issue, Wiki automatically resizes images when the page is rendered, meaning that 20K of image is not downloaded - it's probably about the same as before. The pages will not load more slowly. The WikiProject on Chemistry recommends wholeheartedly in uploading hi-res PNG structures, so that's why I've done it. There is no disadvantage in this format.

I'll happily add some structures for currently unillustrated groups of compounds, as you suggest, but I do feel I was right to update the amino acids. I was being bold! Hopefully we can get the amino acid articles to a state that we're both happy with.

Cheers

Ben 15:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have to work with Michael to find a solution, i like the idea of having two images next to each other, but you have to chose another way to draw these structures becasue with some of the bulky amino acids like Arginine, Tryptophane the currunt sceletal images will make it hard for the color ones to fit.
The images you have replaced were not the D-enantiomers, the ones before them were (for more see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/archive0, section "76. Amino acids"). -- Boris 19:50, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been able to make my own 3D structures in the style Michael used. I've added a modified skeletal structure and my own 3D image of arginine. They looked too small side-by-side so I put them one on top of the other. What do you think? Ben 11:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Excellent. Now since you've started it, you have to finish it - don't stop in the middle. -- 14:30, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been working on these all day and I'll keep going till it's done. Hopefully in a few hours time. Ben 14:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]

All complete. 1 day's work! Have fun with them. Ben 21:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I just wanted to let you know that I think they look great. Thanks for all the hard work. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure! Ben 22:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are not done yet :). Here's more - Category:Amino acids. I'll star alphabetically with 1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid, skipping the ones you did, to put infoboxes where they are needed or change their look to make them look similar, you make the images the same way. To give me some time you can change the images for Arg and istead of having the side chain go horizontal make it go vertical, this way we can fit the two images next to each other instead on the top of each other. -- Boris 01:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll re-draw arginine but I can't promise to do all those other unusual amino acids right away. I'm happy to do them eventually, but there's 50 odd so it may be a while. You're a hard taskmaster! Thanks for the info though. Ben 09:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about you put the opening <style> tag at Science page? -- Boris 18:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MS Word made that page for me - not my fault! Ben 18:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Before you break your hand patting James on the back here are some places you want to visit to get up to speed:

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium/Evidence
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium/Workshop
• Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Depleted uranium and related articles
• Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Depleted uranium and related articles/UO3 vapor

You will note that the arbitration case was brought forward by the mediator from the mediation pages. DV8 2XL 13:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a quick pencil copy, which I hope helps get the angles and proportions right. Thank you for your help with the diagram. --James S. 13:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: Cotton, S. (1991) Lanthanides and Actinides (New York: Oxford University Press.) Please see also the NIST link at the bottom of Uranium trioxide, noting that NIST tries to get the bond angles in their diagrams. --James S. 14:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lone pairs? Uranium has no oxidation state greater than VI. All valence electrons are occupying bonds in UO₃. Thanks again. --James S. 14:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Therefore a T-shape is impossible, because the U=O bonds repel each other and could easily lower their energy by increasing their separation from 90° to 120°. This is why I want to look at what Simon Cotton has to say. Unfortunately, his book is £30! I'll try and find it in the University Library.

--Ben 14:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How familiar are you with the covalent bonds of the f-series elements? --James S. 14:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not very familiar, but I've been reading a lot about them in the last hour! Why do you ask?

--Ben 14:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the f shell valence orbitals are likely to be perpendicular; Gmelin has something about the structure, too, but it's mostly based on the solid state, which as you mention has seven forms in that phase. --James S. 14:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Atomic orbitals can be hybridized to give so-called hybrid atomic orbitals (HAOs). Depending on the type of hybridization chosen, the HAOs can point in many different directions, none of which are necessarily the same direction as the original atomic orbitals. Take methane for example. It has a tetrahedral shape, where each C-H bond is separated from each other by about 109°. The atomic orbitals of carbon do not point in these directions (carbon 2s, 2p_x, 2p_y, 2p_z). But once they are hybridized (1 × 2s + 3 × 2p AOs → 4 x 2sp³ HAOs), a tetrahedral compound can be formed.

Hybridization is just a concept that simplifies the understanding of molecular geometry. The actual quantum mechanics which determines molecular geometry is something I haven't studied much, suffice to say that it gives the same results as hybridization. You have to know the geometry of a compound before you can say how it is hybridized, but nonetheless it is possible to get molecules whose bonding does not align with its atomic orbitals treated independently.

So for that reason, we cannot determine the geometry of the UO₃ molecule simply by looking at the orientation of uranium's atomic orbitals. The 5f AOs of uranium are perfectly capable of forming a trigonal planar geometry when hybridized. That's no proof that UO₃ is trigonal planar, but nor is it proof to the contrary.

However, if Simon Cotton says that the isolated UO₃ molecule is T-shaped then I'll happily draw a T-shaped structure and upload it for the article. It would be very nice if you could scan in the page from Cotton (1991) that has this information.

Thanks again.

--Ben, 15:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ben, I am a chemist and I would love to know why UO3 (gas phase) deviates from the strucutre predicted by VESRP (You should have been taught VESPR in the first year). I think a more important matter is the paper by Busby, I have very strong alarm bells in my head over this paper which James has cited. Please could you go and have a look at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Depleted uranium and related articles as I think that we need a second opinion from a chemist. I think that this work might be deeply flawed.Cadmium

Greetings again and thanks for your work on drawings. The structure of sulfamic acid is H3NSO3, not the one that you drew, H2NSO2(OH). I was surprised to find this out myself. Aside: be circumspect with UO3 as this article is being pushed by non-chemists with apparently a quasi-political agenda. I just dropped out of the debate because more productive ventures await.--Smokefoot 02:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Smoke. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I looked on ChemIndustry's chemical info search for sulfamic acid and it gave the structure I drew. Where did you find the structure as H₃NSO₃? Do you mean it is a zwitterion, H₃N⁺-SO₃⁻? If so, don't we normally not draw zwitterions as zwitterions?

Ben 10:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi mate, since you contributed the image and I took it out again, please weigh in here: Talk:Uranium_trioxide#Structural_formulae. 82.41.26.244 16:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]