Sulphur or sulfur ?

[Grumpybear]

It happened in medicine as well- fetus and fetal now, not foetus and foetal. Not quite Hematology in the UK yet, but the time is coming. Is simply a numbers game . US have more scientists, more publications and more international clout. Unfair perhaps but realpolitik.

Never mind, their empire is crumbling. I doubt that they will be Top Nation as long as we were.

More to the point, what is Mandarin for Sulphur?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Never mind, their empire is crumbling. I doubt that they will be Top Nation as long as we were.

More to the point, what is Mandarin for Sulphur?

硫; how you say it depends on which Chinese language!

PS, despite being married to a lady from Hong Kong, I don't speak much Cantonese (the language used in the south of China and Taiwan); this is from Google Translate

 

[benjenbav]

I've thought about it and I've decided to sulfur in silence.

 

[nigelmercier]

When Humphry Davy was trying to isolate the metal 200 years ago he gave it precisely that name...

Which is precisely why I always call it Aluminum. Apart from the fact that many American spellings are much more sensible than ours.

 

[haydude]

What would chemists know about spelling? They spell lead with a p for goodness sake!

If you are from a Latin derived language it makes sense:

Fe = Ferrum = Ferro = Iron
Pb = Plumbum = Piombo = lead
Na = Natrium = Sodio = Sodium
Cu = Cuprum = Rame = Copper
K = Kalium = Potassium = Potassio = Potassium
Al = Aluminium = Alluminio = Aluminium

and

S = Sulfur = Zolfo = Sulfur

Sulphur is the GREEK influenced version.

We need to remember that Latin had its regional dialects and spellings, and it is influenced by Ancient Greek similarly to how English is influenced by French and consequently Latin ( + Ancient Greek). French seems to like to spell "ph" instead of "f" which is the more modern Latin version, therefore since English is greatly influenced by French there is an assumption that "ph" is correct for "f", but it is just the ancient form.

The Latin version used in chemistry uses the "f".

 

[macd]

Which is precisely why I always call it Aluminum. Apart from the fact that many American spellings are much more sensible than ours.

I generally call it 'ally' but I'm inclined to agree. And don't get me started on the bookswap novel (written and set in the US and offered for sale only in US & Canada) in which every single Americanism ('tire', 'color', everything) had been laboriously "corrected" by some anal halfwit throughout the entire 350 pages...

 

[mjcoon]

And while we're going slightly off-topic, does anyone know why Americans call a two stroke engine, which makes one piston stroke up, one stroke down, whereby the engine shaft completes one and only one circle or cycle, a two cycle engine?

I expect they are embarrassed by the implied intimacy of "stroke". But I agree there should be two strokes in a cycle.

BTW do rowers have a stroke next to the cox?

Reverting to elements, if names were merely headed towards brevity and simplicity, ignoring classical derviations, surely we would have clorine by now...

I recommend "Uncle Tungsten" bu Oliver Sacks for making chemistry entertaining.

Mike.

 

[skyflyer]

BTW do rowers have a stroke next to the cox?

Mike.

Yes they do and the other tradition they have is for the winning team to dip their cox in the water.

Possible egg-sucking lesson here, but the choice of SI units (which ones to use rather than what to call them) is highly relevant as it enables you to help verify by 'dimensional analysis' that a formula or maths calculation is 'correct'

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In physics and all science, dimensional analysis is the practice of checking relations among physical quantities by identifying their dimensions. The dimension of any physical quantity is the combination of the basic physical dimensions that compose it. Some fundamental physical dimensions are length, mass, time, and electric charge. Speed has the dimension length (or distance) per unit of time, and may be measured in meters per second, miles per hour, or other units. Similarly electrical current is electrical charge per unit time (flow rate of charge) and is measured in coulombs (a unit of electrical charge) per second, or equivalently, amperes. Dimensional analysis is based on the fact that a physical law must be independent of the units used to measure the physical variables. A straightforward practical consequence is that any meaningful equation (and any inequality and inequation) must have the same dimensions on the left and right sides. Checking this is the basic way of performing dimensional analysis.
Dimensional analysis is routinely used to check the plausibility of derived equations and computations. It is also used to form reasonable hypotheses about complex physical situations that can be tested by experiment or by more developed theories of the phenomena, and to categorize types of physical quantities and units based on their relations to or dependence on other units, or their dimensions if any.

Full citation here