Talk:List of chemists

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Delete Newton?[edit]

I don't think Newton is a chemist

I disagree. Newton spent many decades and wrote over a million words on the study of alchemy, the precursor to modern chemistry. --Marmor 00:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a problem with Newton (or other natural philosophers) in the list. Newton was certainly an alchemist. I do question Lister and some other non-chemists that lived since the discipline of chemistry was clearly defined. Camarks 22:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alchemy is not chemistry. What chemical discoveries is Newton responsible for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.124.142 (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Israel Shahak[edit]

The article about Israel Shahak has very, very little to do about his life as a chemist and should be removed from this list. Grhs126student 19:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact remains that he is a chemist. Therefore he meets the criteria for the list. Rmhermen 20:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria and name change[edit]

The above comment from back in January talks about criteria for the list. What are they? Surely not that the person is just a chemist. Otherwise the list would be massive and always incomplete. Should we rename it to "List of important chemists" as has happened to "List of publications in X", renamed to "List of important publications in X"? This might assist the repeated addition by a user of his own name to the list. --Bduke 23:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this one for real? He is not on the list of Nobel winners.

On a related matter. I think we should restrict this list to chemists who have a WP article and move any redlinks to here on the talk page until an article is created. That would ensure that all entries meet a notability test. However it is clear that some redlinks are very notable. They just need an article. What do people think? --Bduke 21:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the criteria needs to be different than just those chemists that have a WP article, otherwise this would be redundant with a category. Notable chemists that don't yet have an article should be listed. Perhaps WP:BIO and/or WP:PROF could be used as guidelines. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If they are that notable, they should have an article. In the meantime, listed here would draw attention to the need for an article. I have just been through the whole list and checked redlinks, finding that several did actually have articles. I will check that the blue links are all for real and not to disambiguation pages. I have done quite a bit of reverting entries on this list and it is often difficult to know whether they are notable or not as the entry makes no such assertion. I certainly think it is best to move those here. There is one guy who adds himself about every month. --Bduke 21:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have tracked down the redlink above. It was this vandalism on 5 May 2006. This shows how difficult it is to maintain lists like this with redlinks. --Bduke 21:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Non-verified people on the list[edit]

Re the above discussion, I am moving here those entries that I can not verify.

Moved until verified, I could only find one paper by one of the names at this time. Das Nerd 22:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Bert Maes (born 1975), Belgian organic chemist
  • Gitte Van Baelen (born 1982), young, dynamical Belgian organic chemist from Mol

Moved as I could not verify (was in the N section):

ChemGardener (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Moved one that is legitimate but article had been deleted:

ChemGardener (talk) 23:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Combine with category: Chemists[edit]

I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to combine this list with the category chemists, or maybe change it's name to List of Famous Chemists. It seems silly to have two lists running side by side and the category list is easier to add to. - Curious GregorTALK - Synthesis for all 08:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC) (Sorry forgot to sign just now)[reply]

  • Comment. It is wrong to think of categories as lists. They categorise existing articles. If you read two sections above, you will see that I suggested removing entries that did not have an article. That list would then be equivalent to the category, although note that the category has many sub-categories. Chemists are mostly categorised under categories such as Category:American chemists. My proposal was opposed on the grounds that the list could include chemists who did not yet have an article. Adding the word "famous" or "important" is frequently opposed as being subjective or original research, so I'm not inclined to support that. I'm inclined to give a weak support to your proposal but I am going to draw the attention of the good folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry to it. This list does get a lot of inappropriate additions. I would also note that merge is not the appropriate word. The list would have to be deleted after ensuring that all the links were correctly categorised. --Bduke 22:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with you on it not really being a case of Merging the article, but combining them in some way. I have made a suggestion about classifications [[Wikipedia_talk:Classification here]. It might not be the correct place for this kind of suggestion. If possible could you tell me where to post it to get people to think about it. Many Thanks - Curious GregorTALK - Synthesis for all 11:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have to think more about it. Your suggestion or something like it came up on the wikien-l list some time ago. --Bduke 12:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep both - If I understand Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes, categories and lists can have different uses for helping find information and helping organize the editing. The advantages of lists are you can see the gaps in content that need added (red links). Also, you can follow the changes in the list content via history. Lists can also be sorted various ways, which may or may not be useful. Related changes can be more effective with lists; there can be invisible links to the talk pages to follow them and a list can be maintained as one page where a category may be large enough to require several. ChemGardener 18:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There does not seem to be consensus to change anything and no comment for two months so I'm removing the tags.--Bduke 05:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adrian Albert[edit]

A random point Adrian Albert, (1907–1989), is said to be an Australian Medicinal Chemist, yet he was born in Chicago and is the place he most associated with. He never appears to associate with Australia...???

A wrong link. Adrian Albert was an Australian Medicinal Chemist and very famous too. The link points to someone else. I'll fix it. --Bduke 07:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. The Australian is Adrien Albert. --Bduke 07:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Making sure all Chemistry Nobel laureates are included(?)[edit]

(Sorry if I don't format this correctly, this is my first time using a talk page.) I just added Kurt Alder, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1950 (With Otto Diels, already on the list). Maybe someone should make sure all chemistry laureates are on this list. If you win the nobel in chemistry, that pretty much proves you are a notable chemist, no? 206.225.97.152 (talk) 18:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)Chuck[reply]

Absolutely! Thanks for catching that, all of the Nobel Laureates should be on this list. I'm sure there are others we've missed.... Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good observation that we need these.
Looking at the Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry and the number on the List of chemists that say Nobel Prize in Chemistry, we have about half of them (77 of 153 by my count). While some of them are present but not flagged as Nobel on this list, a quick check of the A's and the Z's suggests this percentage isn't too far off. A's have 6 in the Category and 2 on the list with an additional one, Arrhenius, not mentioned as Nobel on this list. Z's have 1 on the list versus 3 in the Category.
I suspect that this means our coverage of non-Nobel chemists would be even less complete. ChemGardener (talk) 14:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All the Nobel laureates from Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry are now in the list. What other general groups should we be checking to see they all are included? ChemGardener (talk) 00:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we should consider including the Category:Wolf Prize in Chemistry laureates? The Wolf Prize in chemistry is often considered the most prestigious award after the Nobel Prize. Myops (talk) 21:39, 4 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chemists that are important but not for their chemistry[edit]

There are some people who are chemists, and may even be known as chemists, that are important for other reasons. Margaret Thatcher may be the most famous one. Israel Shahak mentioned above is another example. If this is really a list of important chemists, I think they don't belong on this list. Have we come up with criteria that would speak to this? ChemGardener (talk) 01:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point! Angela Merkel is another, she has a doctorate in quantum chemistry. I think there are two possible approaches.
  • Say that "This list will only cover people who have made significant contributions to the field of chemistry", put something unambiguous in the lead, and then exclude the Thatchers, Merkels etc.
  • As well as the above, have a separate section after the main one, "Chemists who are notable for work outside chemistry". I'm sure some would be interested to see such a list.
It really depends what we see as the scope of this list. I actually don't mind which option we choose - but you're right, we need to choose one or the other and stick with it. Walkerma (talk) 03:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I support the second option - a good idea. --Bduke (Discussion) 05:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like the second option as well. I've put it up with Merkel, Shahak, and Thatcher as the initial members.
There are also some who could go in both sections. Linus Pauling is the example that comes to mind. I would leave them in the famous for chemistry section. ChemGardener (talk) 02:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move?[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: nomination withdrawn. Jenks24 (talk) 10:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]



List of chemistsList of famous chemists

  • Article name is too broad and only lists famous chemists anyway. The requested name is alreadya redirect to this article and so i have requested a speedy deletion on it and am now requesting that this article take its place. Thanks Jenova20 (email) 18:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's already implied that we will only list notable chemists, and if we were to go along this line, "notable" would be better than "famous". Jenks24 (talk) 18:53, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well whatever the name, it can't stay how it is, it's too broad and it's factually incorrect. Thanks Jenova20 (email) 19:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Other Areas: E Grant GIbbons, Bermuda MP[edit]

E. Grant Gibbons completed the FIRST synthesis of pleuromutilin as a Woodward PhD student at Harvard: J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1982 104, 1767. He left chemistry and went into international business and government in Bermuda. He served in the Bermuda Parliament and as Minister of Finance. He is briefly mentioned in Wikipedia at United Bermuda Party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AdderUser (talkcontribs) 22:02, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Benjamin Hsiao[edit]

No offense to Dr. Hsiao, but does he really belong on this list? Rangek (talk) 02:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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