Talk:Radon

Article changed over to new Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 19:37, 10 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 18:59, 10 July 2005).

While this article does have a good amount of relevant information, there are several places where references are needed to back up evidence, and as such, its not quite ready for GA status. Its not far off though, so I'm putting it on hold until these things can be fixed.

1. Bluelinks need to be added to the 'Applications' section.
2. More references need to be added for the more 'non-standard' knowledge, such as death potential in the lead paragraph, and most if not all of the Applications and History sections.
3. 'Radon therapy' section is already mentioned in 'Applications'; this only needs to be mentioned once.

Here is my generic GA review of the article:

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is well written.

   a (prose): b (structure): c (MoS): d (jargon):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (inline citations): c (reliable): d (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

• Failed due to lack of progress with problems stated above. Smomo 22:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Archives

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Guys -

One thing. I was on Marie Curie's wiki page and it said that she named two elements - polonium and radium. In this article it says that someone else named radium. Who can verify?

Aside from the additions over the years by people promoting different remediation practices, hormesis, etc., the sections on occurrence, health risks, and mitigation all seem unnecessarily large. They all have their own articles anyway, where much of this information is duplicated, so I will be trimming these sections in particular with prejudice. Reconrabbit 15:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

The radon article still doesn't have an image of radon. However, i may have found a picture of radon. HAt 12:28, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

What in that picture is radon? And what is the rest? We can only take pictures with suitable licenses anyway. --mfb (talk) 13:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

TBH I don't even believe that's radon, just look at it! Thats obviously a solid! HAt 13:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I would assume, based on chemistry and the image, that the bubbles are the radon, as decay products being liberated from the solid. But assuming or analyzing someone else's novel image aren't really viable approaches for encyclopedia content. DMacks (talk) 15:06, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Also for your information the promethium(III) chloride page has an image that has the same source as the 'radon' picture. HAt 13:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

A "non-free" image can be used even contrary to its license in extremely limited cases. That PmCl₃ image is documented as meeting Non-free content criteria. DMacks (talk) 15:06, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

This may count as an image of Radon: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Radon_decay_in_a_cloud_chamber.jpg (source: https://www.nuledo.com/en/our-products/) It visibly shows the decay of Radon gas in a cloud chamber ~2026-44967 (talk) 05:36, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Picture is already in the article later on. It's not at the top because it is not immediately obvious to a viewer what they are looking at... Ideally it should be pretty obvious that the subject of an image is 1. a gas and 2. visible, and radon is hard to get in quantity for either of those things to be seen.. -- Reconrabbit 14:36, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

What's the reason that the spectra of Radon and Radium are nearly identical (just adding a few lines to get from Radium to Radon)? Compare Radon spectrum vs. Radium spectrum. Shouldn't the lines be completely different? Renerpho (talk) 00:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I've asked again on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Radon and Radium spectral lines, with some additional comments. I suggest we discuss it there. Renerpho (talk) 01:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Both works are original research according to their descriptions. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The source

• Thayer, John S. (2010). "Relativistic Effects and the Chemistry of the Heavier Main Group Elements". Relativistic Methods for Chemists. Challenges and Advances in Computational Chemistry and Physics. Vol. 10. p. 80. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9975-5_2. ISBN 978-1-4020-9974-8.

was mentioned in a recent edit summary between @DMacks and @The Young Prussian. The source says:

• No compounds in the +8 state have been reported or even claimed. RnF8 is predicted to be unstable towards loss of fluorine [214]. By analogy with Xe, the most likely Rn(VIII)compound to be isolated would probably be Ba2RnO6, the radon analog of barium perxenate.

In my opinion the notable sentence is the first one, not the last one. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:40, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I was only focused on the spelling of the chemical. This area of chemistry isn't my specialty. DMacks (talk) 03:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

In any case: per the Red Book (p. 338) the anion name for Rn is radonate. (For Ra it is radate.) Double sharp (talk) 07:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I was trying for a long while to bring this article to GA status but gave up after a lot of searching around for subpar sources and getting stuck in certain places. @Keresluna, I would pay special attention to the following section headings where I felt there needed to be more citations or more information in general:

• Industrial production
• Inhalation and smoking
• Absorption and ingestion from water

The latter two I wrote "needed review"; I leave it to you. Because of how heavily involved I was in writing the article I don't think I could give an impartial review. -- Reconrabbit 15:34, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I withdrew the nomination. I do not think I will have time for this during the summer. Sorry for this. Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 17:17, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Okay, understood. Maybe I will nominate it myself once I am done with the rabbits. -- Reconrabbit 17:27, 6 June 2025 (UTC)