Talk:August Kekulé

message: --Stone 09:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 11:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: I have reworded this example to make clear that it is the chain structure is based on Kekule's ideas and not the correct structure. But I also have some historical questions:
Who proposed the chain structure and when? Kekule himself? Someone else prior to 1912 (when crystallography started)? Or a more recent textbook looking for examples where Kekule's ideas give the wrong structure?
If the chain structure was criticized prior to 1912, on what grounds was it criticized then? Of course, it was easy to criticize in Pauling's era (1930s) after the correct structure was known from crystallography. As it is easy for modern students who have learned about VSEPR and orbital hybridization.   Dirac66 00:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The structure was proposed before 1882, when Kolbe heavily critizised it, not on the basis of something better, but on the basis that the people proposing the structures also had not the slightes clue what a benzene ring or periodic acid look like. The chemistry of  periodic acid showed no sign of different oxygens, which would be the case in the linear structure. (Kekule made this asumption in the question of disubstituted benzenes, that the disstance between the substituents makes the substance behave different) Kolbe and a few other chemists refused to make the step from chemical reactivity and experimental results to conclude the structure of a molecule, because this hypothesis was possible to disprove.--Stone 18:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  HIO4 example 

message: From Dirac66: First for anyone trying to follow the previous section. According to the discussion history, the text at the left margin is by Ajrocke, and the indented text is insertions by Stone who forgot to sign.
Perhaps each of us is partly right. I proposed above (in the first HIO4 Example section) a text to clarify Stone's edit about HIO4, with information about Kolbe from Stone's answers to my questions. However this text is too long, and I forgot my own comment above that "The focus should remain on Kekule however since it is his article." Ajrocke says that a detailed discussion of HIO4 is not relevant to Kekule (who never discussed this molecule), and proposed that the paragraph be "deleted" - from this article? or from Wiki? He then says that the material would be valuable in another article, so I think that he meant deletion from this article only. But Stone's strong reaction suggests he thought total deletion from Wiki, as he agrees the paragraph can be moved to a better place.
So I think if we forget the word "delete", there is agreement that we can move the details about HIO4 to another article. However I would not like to see it just deleted with the idea that maybe someone in the future will put it in another article. Instead I think we should first identify together the most appropriate place to insert this information. If Kolbe raised the point about HIO4, it could be mentioned in the Conflicts section of his article. Except that I am uncertain on reading Ajrocke's comment as to whether he accepts that Kolbe in fact raised this point, so perhaps Stone and Ajrocke should first try to agree on whether it was Kolbe or someone else (I can not help here - I have no access to the original sources and very little German).
Another alternative would be a more general historical article, if possible one longer than the present article on structural theory.
After the information about HIO4 has been placed in another article, then we can eliminate its mention in the Kekule article. I suggest instead mentioning that Kekule's fixed valences work well in organic chemistry but less so in inorganic chemistry, with brief mention of the early criticism by Kolbe (or someone else) as well as of the later systematic clarification of the idea of valence by Werner (and also Lewis?).   Dirac66 02:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree! Although I always feel sad if something I contributed has to move!--Stone 08:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Dirac66's solution to the issues discussed here.  In response to his questions:  1.  When I used the word "delete" I meant "remove from this particular article", and did not mean to suggest "remove from Wikipedia".  Indeed, I tried to be clear that the paragraph would be good somewhere, just not in this biographical article.  2. I do not know whether Kolbe raised this particular issue, which is why I asked for a reference for his 1882 critique.  In preparing my biography of Kolbe (The Quiet Revolution: Hermann Kolbe and the Science of Organic Chemistry, University of California Press, 1993) I tried to read every article that Kolbe ever published, and every private letter he ever wrote.  Of course, one can never do that without missing something, and there is also the problem that with the passage of time one forgets this and that.  Ajrocke 13:41, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible solution re HIO4

message: Citation
*
Abstract
August Kekulé's account of his discovery of the ring or hexagonal structure of the benzene molecule--the event that ushered in the science of organic chemistry--is the single most cited personal report in psychological writings on creativity. Although his mental state has been depicted as dreaming, visual hallucination, alcoholic stupor, or hypnagogic imagery, such depictions do not cite Kekulé's original German account but rely either on secondary sources or an 1898 English translation by F. R. Japp in the "Journal of the Chemical Society." Kekulé's original account is presented together with the results of three new translations by German language experts. Comparative analysis of all translations indicates omissions in the one by Japp and significant differences. Psychological assessment indicates that Kekulé's breakthrough was due to specific forms of primarily conscious creative cognition named homospatial and janusian processes.
[I have downloaded the pdf and it is interesting. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 06:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  benzene ring discovery (use later) 

message: "with the two substituted carbon atoms separated by one, two and three carbon-carbon bonds"
I) Hydrogen is substituted not carbon so this needs clarification.
II) Seems to me it would be clearer to talk about carbons instead of carbon-carbon bonds as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arene_substitution_pattern where its said "In ortho-substitution, two substituents occupy positions next to each other". Then in meta there is one carbon inbetween and in para 2 carbons.
80.222.46.182 (talk) 17:52, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem in the text concerning benzene 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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