Talk:deuterium

Notation
IUPAC recommends that deuterium and tritium should be called by the chemical symbols “$2$H” and “$3$H”, not “D” and “T”, respectively. I strongly support IUPAC’s recommendation, for multiple reasons. So i hav been adding this recommendation onto relevant articles on Wiktionary, such as “deuterium”, “tritium”, or “heavy water”; usually in a “Usage notes” section. Okay?

See “Category:mul:Inorganic compounds” and “Category:mul:Chemical formulae”. For both categories, i used wikicode so that cases of “D” meaning deuterium, and “T” meaning tritium, are alphabetized as “H²” and “H³” respectively. This way, in both categories, all references to hydrogen (any isotope, or isotope unspecified) are alphabetized as “H”; so that references to the same element are together, as they should be. Indeed, that is IUPAC’s stated reason why the symbols “²H” and “³H” should be used, rather than “D” and “T”: so that chemical formulae are alphabetized correctly, with all references to the same element being together. The proper notation is that the superscript denoting atomic mass number is before the chemical symbol (²H, ³H etc.), not after. However, in said wikicode, i put said superscript after the chemical symbol (H², H³); so that the symbol would actually be alphabetized as “H”, and hence together with other references to hydrogen, rather than as “²” or “³”. (Not that said wikicode, of putting the superscript after the chemical symbol, is actually visible on the article thus sorted.) Okay? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)