Talk:Coronium

Coronium versus Newtonium

The page said

In 1902, in an attempt at a chemical conception of the aether, the Russian chemist and chemical educator Dmitri Mendeleev hypothesized that there existed two inert chemical elements of lesser atomic weight than hydrogen. Of these two, he thought the lighter to be an all-penetrating, all-pervasive gas, and the slightly heavier one to be coronium. Later he renamed coronium as newtonium.[3]

The reference here is to a semi-popular introduction to the history of elements, by Ede, and this does not provide any evidence that Mendeleev later renamed coronium as newtonium. Here's what Ede's book says on p. 84: "Mendeleev also ran into problems with his characterization of coronium (which he later renamed newtonium after the great scientist) and ether. Mendeleev had used his periodic rule to work upward through the atomic weights of the elements, but it seemed reasonable to go down as well, and that led Mendeleev and others to speculate that there might be elements lighter than hydrogen." No specific source given.

The much more detailed scholarly article by Gábor Lente, Where Mendeleev was wrong: predicted elements that have never been found says that Mendeleev used 'newtonium' as the name of a hypothetical element constituting the aether, and coronium for another element, and it never says Mendeleev switched to calling coronium 'newtonium'. It seems odd that Mendeleev would use "newtonium" for one thing (aether) and then use the same name for something else (the element believed to occur in the solar corona), particularly when "coronium" is such a more obvious name for the latter, and "newtonium" has no particular connection to the Sun but might be a reasonable name for an element that carries forces through space. So, I'm going to remove this dubious claim.

Validity

This page smells of BS, but I do not know for sure. --Savant13 16:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

See Astronomical spectroscopy for a discussion of the discovery of Helium, and the hypothesis of Coronium and Nebulium to explain spectral lines.--mikeu 16:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

For a reference to Coronium in the scientific literature, see The problem of coronium.--mikeu 17:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

2@aas JPParadise$ (talk) 11:10, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Dead Link

Reference is dead. I have not looked for a correction. Mdmi (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

References