# Talk:Ruthenium

Chemistry of precious metals by Simon Cotton 
Elements of Metallurgy and Engineering Alloys by F. C. Campbell
The radiochemistry of ruthenium by Edward I. Wyatt, Robert R. Rickard 
Electronic Materials Handbook by Merrill L. Minges
doi:10.1007/BF00701448 An evaluation of some commercial thick film resistor materials for strain gauges

I read a while ago ruthenium will ignite methane gas. Any article to solidify this claim would be great. A fascinating property if it does. 24.244.23.239 (talk) 15:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Quite a few articles at https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=ruthenium+methane+combustion&oq=ruthenium+methane+c - a start to answering your question. Ben (talk) 16:54, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@Mellk reverted five edits with a brief and, well, obnoxious edit summary "Complete nonsense". I returned the 5 edits and ask for a proper explanation. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:01, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

The source refers to the name of a medieval polity and not about ruthenium. The part about naming refers to the 19th-century. Please read the policy on WP:NOR and self-revert. Mellk (talk) 03:05, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
We already have a source to support the statement that "he chose the Latin name for Russia used back in the day, Ruthenia, as the basis for his name". Why do you insist on using a source that refers to the naming of something else? The name did not refer to Ukraine in the 19th century, this is indeed complete nonsense. Mellk (talk) 03:08, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes it did, see:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Austria_hungary_1911.jpg
or
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linguistic_and_political_map_of_Eastern_Europe,_Casimir_Delamarre,_1868.jpg Shahray (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Ruthenia is an ambiguous term, but Claus specified the meaning by saying that he named the element after his motherland (Russia). (sources: [1],[2]) No source seems to discuss Ukraine in this context, so neither should we. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
There are other sources that were cited, while it was meant as Latin name for Russia, generally it refers to the territory of Ukraine. Shahray (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
@Shahray The other possible meaning of the name are not relevant here. The sources clearly point out that the name chosen by the discoverer was intended to mean his "Motherland", Russia, and that he chose the Latin name for that purpose.
The word "Russia" does derive from "Rus" which does refer to the people from the area around modern Kiev, Ukraine. But that line of connection is not what the sources on the naming of Ruthenium refer to.
Please don't change the article to the "Ukraine" version now that three editors have agreed to the "Russia" version. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:40, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Very well, I agree. Still as this term generally refers to territory of modern Ukraine, will it make sense to add a brief mention of this in history segment? Shahray (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
My opinion: Only if there are reliable sources that discuss the element and consider that the name Claus chose is somehow incorrect. Otherwise it seems too tangential. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 15:57, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
There seems to be a good summary of this topic by this source. Quote (from Ukrainian):"So why, then, do many Russian and Soviet publications claim that K. Klaus named the element in honor of Russia? The roots of erroneous definitions in Russian and Soviet encyclopedias are contained in the publications of tsarist Russia. In the same Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, we find the following: "... the name of ruthenium is derived from Ruthenia, which means Russia". However, it is known that in tsarist Russia, Ukrainians were not recognized as a separate nation, and everything that concerned Ukrainians also applied to Russians.
From what has been said, it is clear that the statement spread by Kremlin propaganda that ruthenium is named after Russia is not true. First, Karl Klaus did not name ruthenium in honor of Russia, but kept the name that was given by Ozann. Secondly, the words Rhutheni and Rhuthenia were used in Latin to refer to the Ukrainians/Rusyns and their country, and the widely used Latin name of Russia was and remains the word Russia, not Ruthenia." Shahray (talk) 10:06, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
That's not a reliable source. Please review WP:RS. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I was already viewing wp:reliable source to figure out if that's considered a reliable source, but didn't seem to find anything. Can you please explain more specifically? Shahray (talk) 10:27, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
What is it, a blog post? In any case, it seems self-published. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Doesn't seem to be that, it's an informational web platform, and this segment is specifically about "Articles/Education". Neither it looks like user-generated content, so I didn't find problems with it. Shahray (talk) 11:20, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
It is an article from this blog: https://volodes.uamodna.com/ He's pro-Ukraine, so any claims related to Russia should be taken with a grain of salt (per common sense or WP:COISOURCE). Jähmefyysikko (talk) 15:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Of course, duh. Still I don't see any issues with this article specifically, so I guess we can include this in our article? Shahray (talk) 15:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that Ruthenia is erroneous. Compare with Scandinavia. It is not uncommon for Scandinavians to object to how Scandinavia is used in English. Nordic people themselves understand it to only include Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but in English it can also include Finland and Iceland. This does not mean that English way of using the word is incorrect, since the Nordic people don't own it. Now "Ruthenia" may have a well-defined scope in Ukrainian context, but in other contexts it can be more ambiguous. What I would like to see would be a neutral, high-quality academic source that discusses the term Ruthenia from a wider perspective, and comments on whether ruthenium is an appropriate name. Such source might not exist: there's not too much research at the intersection of chemistry and humanities. It could also be that there is no problem with the name, so nobody bothers to write anything about it. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion there is only one meaning for the word "Ruthenia" that matters in the context of the history of Ruthenium: the meaning it had for Claus which he stated clearly. He could have said it meant "ice cream cones" and that is what we would say. If, as I thought the first time I read the article, he meant "land of the Rus" then we could have refs about what that meant. But he did not say that. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:09, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
You forget that Claus initially followed Ossan's proposition to name it "Ruthenia", the reason for this isn't known.
And only later he define it to be the name of his "motherland" (because Russian imperial ideology was to appropriate anything connected to Rus'). Shahray (talk) 16:19, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
The name "Ruthenia" itself is not erroneous, the fact that russian and soviet publications say that Ruthenia is russia is what called erroneous.
"Ruthenia" isn't as widely known term as "Scandinavia", so a brief specification that it is the name of Ukraine would be welcoming.
To follow neutrality, we need to consider viewpoints. Shahray (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
But based on what they wrote, it appears that Osann and Klaus both assumed that "Ruthenia" means "Russia" when they chose the name. Do we have any other neutral, reliable source that considers them to have made an erroneous assumption? Double sharp (talk) 16:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
While Claus defined it to be his "motherland", the reason Ossan named it after Ruthenia is unknown, this is what sources suggest. But in German Ruthenia was applied to Ukrainians, while Russia stayed Russia. Shahray (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Two points: (1) The element was discovered by Klaus, so isn't he the authority for what it's named after? Osann's element ruthenium does not exist any more than Śniadecki's vestium does: people have tried to identify both with the real element 44, but the identifications are not widely accepted in either case. So even if Osann meant something different from Klaus, it doesn't clearly follow that that has a bearing on the etymology. The argument can be made, but I think it needs to be made in RS. (2) Even if we accept Osann as having some say, on the grounds that Klaus specifically reused his name: if Osann considered Ruthenia to refer to Ukraine, then why would he consider the name ruthenium appropriate for a metal he thought he'd discovered in samples from the Ural Mountains? That only seems to make sense if he considered Ruthenia to refer to Russia. At the very least, it introduces enough doubt that I would want to see an RS on what Osann specifically thought Ruthenia meant. Yet even this paper, which argues that Osann deserves priority for Ru (a not uncontested claim), considers it "obvious" (the author's word!) that Osann intended to honour Russia! Double sharp (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
1) Well, Claus himself said he simply followed the name given by Ossan
2) There is no point of discussing this, as this would just be an WP:Original Research. The truth is, we don't know, and this is what the sources suggest. Like mentioned, the Latin name of Russia  seems to be just Russia, so I don't think clarification of not so well known term would harm. Shahray (talk) 16:33, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Well, I have been looking for sources. Yves Jeannin (2012) specifically says that Klaus used "the old name of Little Russia", whereas Hödrejärv (2004) thinks it's "obvious" that Osann was honouring an unqualified "Russia". But Jeannin cites no source for his assertion (it is only in a summary at the very end of his paper, which is mostly about Śniadecki's vestium) and it appears to contradict what Klaus said when he clarified himself. I still cannot find an RS saying that Osann meant anything other than Russia, and by now have found one stating to the contrary that it's obvious that he did mean Russia. Double sharp (talk) 16:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
"Little Russia" is another term for Ukraine, but used by imperial russian government, because it was denying them. So no matter how you look at it, Ruthenia is just Ukraine.
Consider this, if there is an element "Scandinavium", named after Finland, it would be obvious fpr a majority that Scandinavia doesn't mean just Finland, but other countries as well. This is not the case with "Ruthenia", as it's not well known, it can be easily confused by meaning Russia and only Russia, so wouldn't it be better to avoid this type of confusion? Shahray (talk) 16:45, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm aware of the term "Little Russia" (I even linked it). What I mean is that Jeannin's assertion that Klaus meant it seems to contradict Klaus' explicit statement that he named the element for his fatherland. He mostly lived in Dorpat (Tartu), St. Petersburg, and Kazan, none of which are in Ukraine. Considering that Jeannin doesn't spell the name of Jędrzej Śniadecki correctly it seems easier to believe that Jeannin made a mistake, when he is the only source I can find agreeing with the idea that either Klaus or Osann meant Ukraine instead of Russia. Double sharp (talk) 16:57, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Well, Claus can just consider Ukraine to be part his "motherland" because of imperial chauvinistic ideology and stuff. Again, Ossan never clearly defined the reason behind the naming, so it's just unknown. In any case, I don't see any harm in bringing more specification regarding relatively not well known term, so let's just not waste time on this searchings because we will never know anyways? Shahray (talk) 17:07, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Let me extend this comparison to sourcing. It is not difficult to find blog posts which complain about the "incorrect" use of the word Scandinavia, but to write something about the issue in Wikipedia, we ideally use something like the introduction chapter of Cambridge History of Scandinavia (unfortunately behind the paywall). Jähmefyysikko (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Consider this, if there is an element "Scandinavium", named after Finland, it would be obvious fpr a majority that Scandinavia doesn't mean just Finland, but other countries as well. This is not the case with "Ruthenia", as it's not well known, it can be easily confused by meaning Russia and only Russia, so wouldn't it be better to avoid this type of confusion? Shahray (talk) 05:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
It's an imaginary example. I don't think these analogies will carry us very far in this discussion, but a real case that more closely parallels this is Dacia (link to dewiki), a word that usually refers to Eastern Europe, but can—due to some errors in Papal office—also refer to Denmark. Still, for medieval Danish people who carry the Latin toponym "de Dacia", it is quite enough to tell that here Dacia stands for Denmark, and not say anything about Dacia located around Transylvania (or any other Dacias). The word could be wikilinked, as is done here, to serve a reader who wants to learn more about the name. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:33, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
But the Latin name of Russian Empire is still just "Russia". And in Russian Empire Ruthenia was never used to refer to state for "Russian Empire". Shahray (talk) 07:05, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Btw, "Ruthenia" probably carried different meanings in 19th century than in the present day. Claus might have consulted a German-Latin dictionary from 1829 to confirm that Ruthenia = Russia. But unless we have sources discussing the nomenclature, we should not say anything more about it in the article. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
@Jähmefyysikko Thanks, I used those refs to fix a similar issue in Template:infobox ruthenium. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out, I condensed the infobox entry further a bit. (diff) Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I guess the 19th century was there to focus on the time that Claus made his choice, but condensed is better for the infobox. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Marshall and Marshall (2009) quote Klaus as saying specifically I named the new body, in honour of my Motherland, ruthenium. They reference Pitchkov (1996), who attributes this quote to Klaus' 1845 paper in Gorn. Zh.
I have not been able to access this paper; however, the primary sources I could access are consistent with this account. In an 1845 paper describing his discovery (doi:10.1002/prac.18450340114), Klaus only mentions that he followed Osann's naming:

Ich will dieses Metal Ruthenium nennen, weil es in geringer  Menge in dem von Osann erwähnten weissen Körper vorkommt, der grösstentheils aus Kiesel-, Titansäure, Eisenoxyd und Zirkonerde besteht und von Osann fur ein eigenthümliches Metalloxyd, das er Rutheniumoxyd nannte, gehalten wurde.
In the 1828 Osann paper where he introduces the name ruthenium, he writes

Das Gerücht von Auffindung eines neuen Metalls veranlasste Vorschläge zur Benennung desselben, unter welchen der, es Ruthenium zu nennen, gewiss der passendste ist.
Why would he find this name particularly appropriate? The most obvious answer seems to be that he was analysing samples from the Urals (the title of his paper makes that clear), but that would imply that Osann thought Ruthenia referred to the Russian Empire, as the other meaning would not refer to that region. Evidently Klaus thought the same as Osann. Double sharp (talk) 14:47, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

The 1845 Gorny Zhurnal paper is available at https://elib.uraic.ru/bitstream/123456789/6857/1/gorn_mag_1845_7.pdf (the relevant page is 160). As Lewis comments in https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201901922 , Claus actually uses the word отечества ('fatherland'), not motherland. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 16:05, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you! That settles it indeed. For reference, here's the quote:
Потомъ, чрезъ 2 года, получивъ металлъ въ совершенію чистомъ видѣ, сообщилъ уже объ этомъ открытіи ученому свѣту и новое тѣло назвалъ, въ честь моего отечества, рутеніемъ. Я имѣлъ полное право назвать его этимъ именемъ, потому что Г. Озанъ отказался отъ своего рутенія, и въ химіи еще не существовало этого назваиія; при томъ металлъ этотъ былъ найденъ въ маломъ количествѣ, въ бѣломъ тѣлѣ, и названъ Г. Озаномъ окисью рутенія.
Double sharp (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)