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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Archive to January 31, 2006.

Rosalind Franklin

Franklin's contribution to biochemistry is large but the list is a list of publications and not a list of people. If a specific publication of her will be given, it should be added to the list. APH 13:16, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Environmental chemistry

Again, as in Franklin's case, the purpose f the list should be clarified. This is a list of specific important publications. Therefore, journals doesn't fit here. I removed the journals appearing bellow from the entry. Specific publications form these journals are welcomed. APH 13:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Purpose of list

I agree that the purpose of this list should be clarified and there should be a clear statement of policy that can be easily read before people add to the list. I see that several Journals have appeared even though APH deleted some earlier. Journals are not chemical publications - they are where publications appear. I fear however that this page is always going to be POV and we will never get a definitive list. Bduke 06:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bduke,
For the purpose of the list, please see the science pearls project. I hope that the efforts done to make the list less POV will please you.
Indeed, I do not think that journals should be in the list. I did not edit the list for a while and therefore I had not deleted the new journals.
More important, I do not have a proper background in chemistry and therefore I prefer that experts will take care of the list.
It seems that you are such a person.
Would you agree to adopt the list?
Thanks,
APH 09:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Future of this page

This is a list of important publications in chemistry, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

  • Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
  • Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
  • Introduction – A publication that is a good introduction or survey of a topic
  • Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world
  • Latest and greatest – The current most advanced result in a topic
I have copied this to the top and added the policy as discussed further down. Bduke 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This appears at the top of the main page and I add it here to clarify what I said earlier and am adding now. Bduke 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, APH, I have thought about this overnight and I will give it a go. However I have strong views on this page, yet I do not want to impose them on others. We must have consensus and we must avoid POV. This means we need to have more people having a say.

This is the summer holiday time in Australia and I am off in about 48 hours for a 5 day holiday. I will make some suggestions including asking for others to debate various issues and then review the situation in 10 days time. First some proposals:-

  • This page should not be a very long one. It is not the place to add every book on chemistry. The books added must be highly significant or highly important for the reasons stated at the top of the article (although I think I would like to delete the "latest and greatest" category, and "introduction" books should be really really special).
  • This should mean that every new entry to the page, should expect to be debated on whether it should be kept or deleted.
  • This is not the place to list chemistry journals. There may be a place in Wikipedia where they should be listed with some information on them, but this page is not it.
  • This is not the place for journal articles or even review journal articles. Wikipedia is for people getting into an area. They can go to the original literature later. Their inclusion would make this page far too large. The Watson and Crick paper may be an exception to this, but perhaps we can debate that later.
  • This is, therefore, the place for books, but their significance or importance must be clear and transparent and, if necessary, defended in debate on this talk page. Books should not be added just because one person likes them. That is POV. We must be NPOV.
I think I agree with all of your general points except the one about papers; I think there are several "landmark papers" which transformed chemistry, such as Kekulé's first description of the structure of benzene-type aromatics (in Bull. Chim. Soc. Fr. 1865, iii, 98-110, I think). Also see my earlier thoughts about scope here; that discussion seemed to indicate that this page might grow quite long as Wikipedia itself grows. How many publications do you think should be listed as a maximum, or should there be no maximum? Walkerma 04:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Your views on articles on fluorine chemistry are interesting and convinces me that it not the purpose of this page to put in all 50 from that area, all 50 fron this area and so on. It is why I think we should avoid papers. A new area is usually well described in a book at some stage. If the papers go anywhere, in my view, they should go as references to a page on fluorine chemistry and so on. I think this page is for those who want a broad view of how chemistry came to be what it is now in very broad terms. People can get deeper into the literature from the specialist pages. For example, I have recently added a lot of references to pages that deal with different aspects of semi-empirical computational chemistry. They are all important. I would not want them all on this page.
How many? How long? It would be nice if it was all on one page and we did not split it from a list of areas of chemistry, but we might have to. If the whole thing gets too large, it really loses giving people a broad overview.
I do not want to force my view of people. Perhaps a few papers should be included, but we have to remain NPOV, so we have to have some criteria of real importance in order to add a few.
I have copied in your username, time, date etc in a number of places to clarify your contribution to the debate. Bduke 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
If I understand you correctly, the page currently has three categories of "publication" listed: significant, useful introductions and journals, and you propose only the first of these be covered here (I would agree). Is this a fair summary of your view? Walkerma 04:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
The page itself lists five categories and I have added it at the top of this section to clarify. I have doubts about "latest and greatest", because I think a bit of time is needed for a new idea to be properly understood and accepted. By then it is put into perspective in a book. My doubts about "Introduction" is that it really means every book with the title "Physical Chemistry", and similar for other areas, will have to be added. I think a few have had a special influence but they will need great justification in my view. The other three categories are fine. Note none differentiate between journal articles and books. Bduke 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

If these are accepted, we could build a real resource that lists the books that have had a real significant influence on the growth of chemistry and on chemists. They would represent a real resource for someone wanting to really understand why chemistry is like it is today.

We already have some books that meet the criteria above:-

  • Corey's "The Logic of Chemical Synthesis" reports a major shift in the way synthesis was done.
  • Cotton's "Chemical Applications of Group Theory" opened up group theory for chemists and inorganic chemistry in particular was never the same again.
  • Pauling's "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" taught experimental chemists for the first time that quantum mechanics was important.
  • Pauling and Wilson's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" was how they and many others later learnt about quantum mechanics.

There may be others. I am not an expert on all branches of chemistry. I think that these four should remain and probably do not need debate. Of the others, many are justified on the basis of "introduction". Do they give a better introduction than other books? Do they have special significance? In most cases, if not all, of the introductory books included, if we were to avoid POV by listing all similar books, the page would be massive. This is why introductory books must be very special indeed to get consensus and avoid POV. Let us start the debate.

"March's Advanced Organic Chemistry: Reactions, Mechanisms, and Structure". Is this better than other textbooks. Has it had more influence than, say, the texts by Fieser and Fieser, or that by Morrison and Boyd? I think not. I therefore propose that it be deleted. Debate this below indicating whether you want it kept or deleted:-

  • delete - for reasons above Bduke 22:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I disagree with you entirely regarding March. March is today's reference text for organic synthesis. It has tons of references, and remains incredibly useful. EVERY practicing organic chemist has a copy of this book. ~K 22:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Most organic chemists would probably pick this as the single most important book on organic chemistry, many of us sleep with it by our bedside. Walkerma 04:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Clearly I was wrong here. This is interesting as it supports my opinion that we need a critical mass of experienced chemists to keep this page NPOV and not a list of papers and books that someone felt like adding at some time. I have not done organic for 45 years!! Bduke 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Debate closed. This entry will be kept. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

"Vogel's Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry". All Vogel's books had a tremendous influence, but perhaps more so in Britain and the Commonwealth than the rest of the world. I'm inclined to say that we keep it, but it should be debated. Do we include his qualitative and quantitative chemical analysis books, which were possibly more popular and more important than this organic text? (Debate that elsewhere and just comment on the organic text here.)

Although, you are correct that this book had tremendous influence, nobody today uses this book. It has few references and little discussion of mechanisms. It's fine to keep the book on the list. However, if this book were removed, it wouldn't bother me. ~K 22:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Hard for me to judge its historical importance, though I used it in the lab extensively when I was in high school (in UK), and I still use it for writing on Wikipedia. IMHO it doesn't try to be a textbook or an academic treatise, rather it aims to be a "recipe book." I see it as a more basic version of Organic Syntheses, I used one Vogel expt. in my college sophomore organic lab this fall. My vote would depend on the total number of listings we end up with, if this is to be limited. Walkerma 04:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Debate closed. This entry will be deleted, as nobody has suggested a significance over and above it being an introduction. Leaving it is not NPOV, but if someone can justify it under the criteria I suggest below, we can debate it again. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

"A Chemist's Guide to Density Functional Theory". This is a good overview, but is it that important? I suggest that the book by Bob Parr has had much more influence on spreading DFT among chemists and getting them to use the link between electronegativity, hardness, etc and DFT. I propose replacing this by the Parr book.

Debate closed. It is disappointing that nobody else joined in, but I am going to stick with my opinion and replace this with the Parr book, when I find the exact details. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

"Inorganic Chemistry" and 8 journals listed under "Polymer Chemistry", as journals should be deleted.

Debate closed. Journal entries will be deleted. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There are others that we may have to debate later, but these hopefully will start the process. I will try to draw attention to this debate elsewhere. I will also make a few changes to the page, that might cause further debate. I will not however delete anything. Apologies for the length. I hope it starts a real debate. Bduke 22:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have put a mention in "Things you can do" on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry and it should also appear on Portal:Chemistry. I also added a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry. I hope this may attract a few more people to comment. I'll leave other comments until later. Bduke 06:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


  1. I also agree with the points Bduke listed, besides the journal articles point. The list can be used for several goals. An introduction for the beginner is an important goal but I do not think that it should be considered the most important goal. Listing the article in which breakthroughs where made is an important goal. The examples given above (Corey's ,Cotton's, etc) seems to be very suitable to the list. As for introduction books, I agree that we should try to list introduction books that became “classics” and not just an arbitrary introduction book. I do not have a proper background in chemistry, so I cannot refer to the specific publications you mentioned. However, I read your reasoning and I agree with it.
  2. As for the length of the list, please note that in the future we should use categories instead of the list. That should help coping with a large number of publications.
  3. The latest and greatest is indeed a problematic category. It was meant to classify the current frontiers of the area, but these are hard to identify. I think that this category should be kept but rarely and with care.

APH 08:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I am about to start a WikiBreak on the Gippsland Lakes and will be back on WP on January 11th. It is dissappointing that nobody has added to the debate in the last 24 hours or so, but a start has been made. On my return, I will suggest some improved guidelines for this page, implement some of the proposed deletions, put some more of the existing entries up for debate and add some new entries (also putting them up for debate). In the mean time, I hope some others will come along and join the debate. Bduke 20:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Have fun during the break. I think that some of the guidelines mentioned here apply to other lists too. Maybe we should move the discussion to the science pearls talk page. APH 09:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy proposals for this page

First, I note APH's point above that we should move discussion to the science pearls page. I think the most important point which I ask APH to consider and raise in relation to the other science pearls page is whether the "Importance" reason might be modified to somethink like:-

A publication that is a good introduction or survey of a topic and that has also made a significant impact on the discipline such as in the way it is taught.

You may have better wording. My concern is that this reason, without modification of some kind, opens us up to adding every general chemistry text book, and every introduction to physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry and so on. To not do so would not be NPOV as inclusion of one text has to be from a POV. I have used several of these texts over the years. There is no objective criteria to chose one over the others. One decides on how it fits the way you want to teach the course, cost, availability, etc. Below I will put for debate two books for debate on inclusion where the reason is "Introduction" and where I suggest the impact on chemistry was significant, warrenting their inclusion on this page.

Second, I propose we follow the following critria:-

  1. Books for inclusion can be added in the usual Wikipedia way by anyone editing the page. However it is expected that each entry should give a brief description of the book and a statement of the importance of the publication. The importance could be further developed on the talk page.
  2. Where the editor has failed to add the description and importance statement, they will be advised to add these (if of course they are registed on Wikipeddia and have a user talk page).
  3. Failure to add the description and importance statements after 7 days is reason enough for the entry to be deleted.
  4. New entries will be opened for debate on the talk page With Wikipedians asked to state whether the entry should be deleted or kept. This debate will be open for 10 days. The debate should centre around whether the entry can be included while maintaining the Wikipedia NPOV.
  5. Articles from journals or review books can be included but they should be of very great significance. Journal titles alone should not be included and will be deleted without debate.
  6. Books where the justification for inclusion is "introduction" are particularly prone to being added not from a NPOV. They should have had a significance for chemistry, perhaps in the way it changed the way chemistry was taught, but perhaps in other ways.

Third, these criteria should be put at the top of the talk page and attention drawn to them at the top of the page.

I will do this. It is still open for debate and of course change. Bduke 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please comment on these proposals here. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed policy. A possible solution for the case in which there are some introduction book, all not too important, is to create a joint entry from them called “introduction books”. This way, reader wanting to learn about the topic will know where to start yet it will be clear that they are not a “must read”. Will such a solution solve the specific problem you mentioned? APH 08:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It might well solve the problem in part, but it creates another problem. The new page will now be not NPOV unless it can be expanded to add pretty well every book. Would you suggest sewparate pages for introductory general chemistry (year 1 courses), and introductory physical chemistry, introductory organic chemistry and so on (year 2 courses generally). There are also introductory books to final year study and even post graduate study. The P/G stuff should be references to specific pages like I added more references to the Computational chemistry page. I am open to being pursuaded but right now I think we should try to avoid adding large numbers of references anywhere and stick to references that are really special and significant. Bduke 10:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Debate on existing entries

I am inclined to say that the Lavoisier and Mendeleev entries under Foundations should be kept without debate and they are clear highly significant. However I wonder whether we should add Lavoisier's main book. I have seen this described as the first modern chemistry text.

The rest that we have not considered are open for debate:-

Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis by Theodora W. Greene and Peter G. M. Wuts.

  • Delete - I have no strong views but this is justified as an introduction and there is no further support. Is it significant in other ways? Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - If you do organic synthesis, you use this book. It's a reference book, so it doesn't fall under the categories outlined above. However, nearly every sythetic chemist has used this book at one point. ~K 02:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Comprehensive Organic Transformations by Richard C. Larock.

A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid by Watson and Crick.

Quantitative Analysis by Day, R. A. and Arthur L. Underwood

  • Delete - I have no strong views but this is justified as an introduction and there is no further support. Is it significant in other ways? Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved: A Chemical Love Story (Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story) by Alexander and Ann Shulgin.

Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved: The Chemistry Continues (Tihkal: The Continuation) by Alexander and Ann Shulgin.

The two above seem to me to be the only two that justify deletion now. I will delete them. See my discussion below called "Summary of debate - 17 Jan 2006". Bduke 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Award-winning, NSF supported, nuclear chemistry tutorialfrom ChemCases.com. This is a link to a URL. There are no details of any kind.

Radiochemistry and Nuclear Chemistry by Choppin, Liljenenzin and Rydberg

  • Delete unless someone can justify by adding a line on importance, which is clearly introduction and so needs significance. Needs initials for authors. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Radioactivity, Ionizing radiation and Nuclear Energy by Hála and Navratil.

  • Delete unless someone can justify by adding a line on importance, which is clearly introduction and so needs significance. Needs initials for authors. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications by Allen J. Bard, Larry R. Faulkner.

  • Delete, unless someone can justify and support "One of the most widely used electrochemistry books in the world". Why does htis make it significant? Is it true? If so, why is it widely used? Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The Practice of Medicinal Chemistry by Camille Georges Wermuth editor.

  • Delete - I have no strong views but this is justified as an introduction and there is no further support. Is it significant in other ways? Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I added this book to this list. The main reason for adding the book to the list was the same for adding March to the list. This book is a complete survey of medicinal chemistry. It's a great introduction to the subject as well as a great reference for further study. ~K 02:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please vote and comment as before.

Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Other questions

I propose the following lines should be deleted:-

  • See Also: List of scientific journals - Materials science
  • subclass, Psychopharmacology
  • Directory of Free Full-Text Journals in Chemistry

I will just delete these unless people want to debate them. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Please delete the psychopharmacology section. It's just embarrasing. ~K 02:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I will delete all three of these. I do not think anybody can support their inclusion. Bduke 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

New entries for debate

First, I have altered the heading for "Computational chemistry" to "Theoretical chemistry, Quantum chemistry and Computational Chemistry" and moved the two current entries from Physical Chemistry there. I suggest this is more appropriate. Many older texts on Quantum chemistry give the theory followed by the practice of Computational chemistry, which was not named as a sub-discipline at the time.

Second, I have added some new entries and open them up for debate:-

Physical Chemistry by P. W. Atkins.

Keep - I have justified this on the page itself. Physical chemistry was taught differently after Atkins and all other text books from then on had to respond and write in the refreshing way that Atkins did in stark contrast to earlier texts. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Advanced Inorganic Chemistry by F. Albert Cotton and Geoffrey Wilkinson.

Keep - This is very similar to Atkins in many ways. Inorganic chemistry was taught differently after this book came out. The recent editions have been less competitive with other texts and there has been some backlash against the theory driven approach of this text and a return back to a more descriptive approach. However the pendulum will never fully swing back to where it was before this text. I need a date for the 1st edition. Surprisingly it is not in the 4th edition that I have. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The Structure of Physical Chemistry by C. N. Hinshelwood.

Keep - one of the most influential books on physical chemistry. Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well that is quite a lot of everybody to think about.

Bduke 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances

This is Gibb's original paper and has just been added. Following our criteria, I put it up for debate on whether it should be kept or deleted. --Bduke 00:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

List of scientific journals in chemistry

I have added the journals that I deleted to the above page which I was previously unaware of. This is the place to just give journal titles. There is also List of scientific journals, which lists the most important journals. Bduke 07:39, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Summary of debate - 17 Jan 2006

The latest debate has been going for a week. The response has been rather poor. I fear that unless more Wikidedian chemists express views on this page and its entries then it will be impossible to stop it going away from NPOV. I am therefore being rather cautious about delete entries now. Maybe this edit will come up on people's watchlist and others may comment. I am leaving all entries except two. I am putting the proposed policy at the top of this page, with a note at the top of the main page. I am deleting the three odd things. There is more detail furhter up at the appropriate point.

I now realise that the criteria I proposed suggest that I should wait for 10 days, but I have already made these changes. They can be reversed if necessary. Bduke 00:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you know Wikidedian chemists? Maybe we should contact them and tell them about the page. APH 07:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and I have told them. It is mentioned on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry and Portal:Chemistry. Bduke 09:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
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