Re: [lojban] Re: Chemical elements

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Tuesday 15 June 2010 08:26:01 lojdjis wrote:
> "xukmi'fu'e" is mys misprint. I meant "xukmifu'e".
>
> The problem is that all elements are in one periodic system.
> It's strange to name one element as dircyjinme (connection with
> radiation ?)
> and palladium (Pd/46) = jinmrpaladi  (no connection with radiation ?)
> But many stable elements (nonradioactive) have radioactive isotopes.

All isotopes of radium are radioactive. It wasn't the first all-radioactive 
element discovered, but of the first few it is the most intensely 
radioactive, so it got the name.

> Secondly, it's hard to remember all those words (some elements are
> gismu, some are fu'ivla).
> It will be easier for chemists to pronounce them as they write
> formulae.

Same in English and other languages I know: "gold" is a gismu, "bismuth" a 
fu'ivla, many element names end in "-um" but many don't.

There's another problem we haven't solved yet: naming chemical compounds. In 
organic chemistry there are at least two ways of using numbers: di-, tri-, 
etc. indicate how many of an element or radical there are, and 2-, 3-, etc. 
indicate on which atom it is. (I don't remember if there's a third.) We don't 
have rafsi for "hypo-", "per-", "-ate", etc.

> Jorge Llambías, I see one more problem ;-).
> There should be some standard names for isotopes.

I don't think we need names for isotopes, but we do need a way of designating 
them. The only isotopes that actually have names in English are protium, 
deuterium, and tritium.

Pierre
-- 
When a barnacle settles down, its brain disintegrates.
Já não percebe nada, já não percebe nada.

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