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At what concentration is nitric acid a strong oxidant? At what concentration would it decompose an alcohol, a ketone, carboxylic acid or similar group? This is just rough estimates of course.
essentially i'm writing a piece of coursework involving the production of potassium nitrate, on the potassium nitrate page it said that it could be produced as "a by-product of the making of nitric acid from potassium nitrate and hydrochloric acid." unfortunately i have been unable to find an equation for this reaction on this page or the potassium chloride page, it seems somewhat frustrating that theres a reference to it and yet no follow up info, I would be grateful if someone were to amend this.
many thanks samson992@live.co.uk
A user always cite this paper http://www.chemicke-listy.cz/ojs3/index.php/chemicke-listy/article/view/2266 in different articles, calls it mainstream view and straightly reject views of other academicians. There isn't one but numerous other reliable sources that contradict assertions made by the authors of this article of interest. I can list those sources. Also this article doesn't address the primary sources that are cited by other scholars and contradict statements made by author of this article. For example, here, in case of nitric acid, this article hasn't addressed texts like Liber Luminis Luminum Hu741f4 ( talk) 16:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The close resemblance between the practise of the Jabirian writers and al-Razi is most marked in their passages on such 'sharp waters'. These waters range from simple mixtures to distillates obtained from complex mixtures. They are not always fluid and some of the processes refer to melting rather than dissolution. But among them we find the rudiments of processes which were finally to lead to the discovery of the mineral acids, sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric. The mineral acids manifest themselves clearly only about three centuries after al-Razi, in the works of Europeans, some of whom were alchemists, but others of whom were concerned with the production of medical elixirs.
It is generally accepted that mineral acids were quite unknown both to the ancients in the West and to the Arabic alchemists.
The text is given here in full because of the prevailing notion that Islamic chemists did not produce mineral acids.
between the time when the Summa perfectionis was written and the seventeenth century, the mineral acids–sulfuric, hydrochloric, nitric, and the mixture of the latter two, called aqua regia, had been discovered.
the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011
The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments.
Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion – While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.
I don't assume anything, evidence from major historians of chemistry on what the mainstream view is has been presented above. Evidence has also been given that
al-Hassan's work is considered polemical
and ideological
by other scholars, which means that we should use him with care.
WP:DUE/WEIGHT is a core policy, we represent points of view proportionately according to their prominence, not as though they are equivalent and as though we can simply let the reader decide. Relative prominence or weight is crucial, see WP:BALANCE and WP:FALSEBALANCE. Editors can disagree on how the due weight policy applies (i.e., on how prominent a certain view or source is and how it should be presented), but they are not free to simply refuse discussing relative weight.
I propose we first give what all scholars, including al-Hassan himself, admit to be the mainstream view, i.e., that the discovery of mineral acids such as nitric acid is generally believed to go back to 13th-century European alchemy. The minority claims of Holmyard 1931 and al-Hassan 2001 (the former of which is actually outdated and the second self-consciously polemical) should be presented as what they are, i.e., claims contradicting the mainstream view that have not (yet) been generally accepted. Al-Hassan 2001's confused mention of Michael Scot's Liber Luminis luminum should either be relegated to the footnote or left out entirely. Karpenko & Norris 2002 's view should be clearly identified as the one that is in line with the mainstream view. I think calling it "conventional" is a good fit.
My proposal can be read here (the first paragraph of the history section). Let me know what you think. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 16:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011
The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments." Since this is mainly about Al-Hassan (Holmyard is old and obsolete and so not a good source), I am genuinely curious about any positive reviews of Al-Hassan's work that you may cite? In my experience, his work is not well received by other scholars, who like Ferrario 2010 tend to find it interesting and challenging but marred by its unfounded attacks on other scholars and by its high amount of substantial mistakes and general lack of rigor. Despite Al-Hassan's many attacks on William R. Newman's work (e.g., [1]), Newman hasn't even taken the effort to write a response, which he did do for what are presumable more legitimate criticisms of his work (e.g., [2] [3] [4]). Among historians of chemistry, Al-Hassan's work is considered WP:FRINGE. Again, if this has recently changed, I would be highly interested in any source which shows the contrary. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 01:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
@ Apaugasma You are citing his other work, "Studies in Al-Kimya': Critical Issues in Latin and Arabic Alchemy and Chemistry," which has received a negative review by an author named Gabriele Ferrario. The sources here are "Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History, Cambridge University" and "Makers of Chemistry" by EJ Holmyard. These have received positive reviews and have been cited in numerous academic books by reputed scholars. These aren't fringe sources, so I don't see any problem in mentioning them along with the viewpoints of others. Hu741f4 ( talk) 09:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
The History section of the article says:
The conventional view is that nitric acid was first described in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth", after c. 1300
Later on this same article says:
Nitric acid is also found in works falsely attributed to Albert the Great and Ramon Llull (both 13th century)
These are contradictory statements Hu741f4 ( talk) 09:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Nitric acid can also be made with a nitrate salt and bisulfate 2601:645:A01:BD30:ED90:588A:E812:723E ( talk) 05:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||
|
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Nitric acid article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
1Auto-archiving period: 90 days
![]() |
![]() | This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
At what concentration is nitric acid a strong oxidant? At what concentration would it decompose an alcohol, a ketone, carboxylic acid or similar group? This is just rough estimates of course.
essentially i'm writing a piece of coursework involving the production of potassium nitrate, on the potassium nitrate page it said that it could be produced as "a by-product of the making of nitric acid from potassium nitrate and hydrochloric acid." unfortunately i have been unable to find an equation for this reaction on this page or the potassium chloride page, it seems somewhat frustrating that theres a reference to it and yet no follow up info, I would be grateful if someone were to amend this.
many thanks samson992@live.co.uk
A user always cite this paper http://www.chemicke-listy.cz/ojs3/index.php/chemicke-listy/article/view/2266 in different articles, calls it mainstream view and straightly reject views of other academicians. There isn't one but numerous other reliable sources that contradict assertions made by the authors of this article of interest. I can list those sources. Also this article doesn't address the primary sources that are cited by other scholars and contradict statements made by author of this article. For example, here, in case of nitric acid, this article hasn't addressed texts like Liber Luminis Luminum Hu741f4 ( talk) 16:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The close resemblance between the practise of the Jabirian writers and al-Razi is most marked in their passages on such 'sharp waters'. These waters range from simple mixtures to distillates obtained from complex mixtures. They are not always fluid and some of the processes refer to melting rather than dissolution. But among them we find the rudiments of processes which were finally to lead to the discovery of the mineral acids, sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric. The mineral acids manifest themselves clearly only about three centuries after al-Razi, in the works of Europeans, some of whom were alchemists, but others of whom were concerned with the production of medical elixirs.
It is generally accepted that mineral acids were quite unknown both to the ancients in the West and to the Arabic alchemists.
The text is given here in full because of the prevailing notion that Islamic chemists did not produce mineral acids.
between the time when the Summa perfectionis was written and the seventeenth century, the mineral acids–sulfuric, hydrochloric, nitric, and the mixture of the latter two, called aqua regia, had been discovered.
the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011
The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments.
Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion – While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.
I don't assume anything, evidence from major historians of chemistry on what the mainstream view is has been presented above. Evidence has also been given that
al-Hassan's work is considered polemical
and ideological
by other scholars, which means that we should use him with care.
WP:DUE/WEIGHT is a core policy, we represent points of view proportionately according to their prominence, not as though they are equivalent and as though we can simply let the reader decide. Relative prominence or weight is crucial, see WP:BALANCE and WP:FALSEBALANCE. Editors can disagree on how the due weight policy applies (i.e., on how prominent a certain view or source is and how it should be presented), but they are not free to simply refuse discussing relative weight.
I propose we first give what all scholars, including al-Hassan himself, admit to be the mainstream view, i.e., that the discovery of mineral acids such as nitric acid is generally believed to go back to 13th-century European alchemy. The minority claims of Holmyard 1931 and al-Hassan 2001 (the former of which is actually outdated and the second self-consciously polemical) should be presented as what they are, i.e., claims contradicting the mainstream view that have not (yet) been generally accepted. Al-Hassan 2001's confused mention of Michael Scot's Liber Luminis luminum should either be relegated to the footnote or left out entirely. Karpenko & Norris 2002 's view should be clearly identified as the one that is in line with the mainstream view. I think calling it "conventional" is a good fit.
My proposal can be read here (the first paragraph of the history section). Let me know what you think. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 16:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
the tone of an open and fiery polemic against other scholars [...] the tone of the polemics tends to exceed the desirable boundaries of an academic disagreement; Brentjes 2011
The at times rather sharply ideological tone does not improve his arguments." Since this is mainly about Al-Hassan (Holmyard is old and obsolete and so not a good source), I am genuinely curious about any positive reviews of Al-Hassan's work that you may cite? In my experience, his work is not well received by other scholars, who like Ferrario 2010 tend to find it interesting and challenging but marred by its unfounded attacks on other scholars and by its high amount of substantial mistakes and general lack of rigor. Despite Al-Hassan's many attacks on William R. Newman's work (e.g., [1]), Newman hasn't even taken the effort to write a response, which he did do for what are presumable more legitimate criticisms of his work (e.g., [2] [3] [4]). Among historians of chemistry, Al-Hassan's work is considered WP:FRINGE. Again, if this has recently changed, I would be highly interested in any source which shows the contrary. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 01:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
@ Apaugasma You are citing his other work, "Studies in Al-Kimya': Critical Issues in Latin and Arabic Alchemy and Chemistry," which has received a negative review by an author named Gabriele Ferrario. The sources here are "Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History, Cambridge University" and "Makers of Chemistry" by EJ Holmyard. These have received positive reviews and have been cited in numerous academic books by reputed scholars. These aren't fringe sources, so I don't see any problem in mentioning them along with the viewpoints of others. Hu741f4 ( talk) 09:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
The History section of the article says:
The conventional view is that nitric acid was first described in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth", after c. 1300
Later on this same article says:
Nitric acid is also found in works falsely attributed to Albert the Great and Ramon Llull (both 13th century)
These are contradictory statements Hu741f4 ( talk) 09:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Nitric acid can also be made with a nitrate salt and bisulfate 2601:645:A01:BD30:ED90:588A:E812:723E ( talk) 05:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)