Talk:Sulfuric acid

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Abu Bakr al-Razi and sulfuric acid

Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Hi Hu741f4! I see that you have added the perennial claim about Abu Bakr al-Razi discovering sulfuric acid. You added three sources, but there are many many more repeating the exact same claim. However, none of these sources themselves ever cite a source for this claim. They are also neither specialists on the subject, nor proper secondary sources, meaning that they do not ground the claim in primary sources. According to relevant WP policy however, Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.

This has been discussed before; for a short version please see Talk:Abu Bakr al-Razi#Discovery of ethanol and sulfuric acid, and for a (very) long version, please see this RSN thread.

I will also briefly note that the mainstream view among historians of chemistry is that Arabic alchemists did not know mineral acids such as sulfuric acid:

mainstream view that mineral acids were not known to Arabic alchemists

Multhauf, Robert P. (1966). The Origins of Chemistry. London: Oldbourne. pp. 140-141: 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.
Needham, Joseph; Ping-Yü, Ho; Gwei-Djen, Lu; Sivin, Nathan (1980). Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part IV, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-521-08573-1.: It is generally accepted that mineral acids were quite unknown both to the ancients in the West and to the Arabic alchemists.
Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. (2001). Science and Technology in Islam: Technology and applied sciences. UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-103831-0. p. 59: The text is given here in full because of the prevailing notion that Islamic chemists did not produce mineral acids.
Karpenko, Vladimír; Norris, John A. (2002). "Vitriol in the History of Chemistry". Chemické listy. 96 (12): 997–1005. p. 1002: As dating the works of the Pseudo-Geber corpus is problematic, dating the discovery of nitric acid is likewise uncertain. It is estimated that this discovery took place after 1300, some two hundred years before it appeared in print. [...] The history of sulfuric acid is especially difficult to trace, as no reliable recipe for its preparation is known prior to the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, there are vague allusions to it in the work of Vincent from Beauvais (d. 1264) and in the Compositum de compositis ascribed to Albertus Magnus . [...] A passage from the second part of Pseudo-Geber's Summa perfectionis, as interpreted by Darmstaedter, was long considered to be the earliest known recipe for sulfuric acid [...]
Newman, William R. (2006). Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0226576961.: 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.

What editors have found during the previous discussions about al-Razi and sulfuric acid is that there is a Latin text called the Lumen luminum magnum (not to be confused with the Liber Luminis luminum usually attributed to Michael Scot cited in the nitric acid article), which scholars in the 19th century thought was written by al-Razi, and which does contain a description of sulfuric acid. This text, which in the specialist literature at least since 1939 has not been considered any longer as belonging to al-Razi, may well be the ultimate origin of the perennial claim about al-Razi and sulfuric acid found repeated by modern non-specialist sources not citing any source themselves.

I am currently working on an expansion of this article discussing the Lumen luminum magnum and what specialist scholars have written about it. When I post that I will remove the sources you added, since they contradict the scholarly literature without citing any sources, which renders them not reliable in context. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

In this recent edit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1139170383 I have mentioned the primary source that has been cited by different specialists (Joseph Needham, Ruska, Stapleton, Azo and Husain) who credit the discovery of Sulphuric acid to al-Razi. I see that previous discussions on this issue failed to produce a primary source for this claim Hu741f4 (talk) 19:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry but they do not. Let me quote you from Stapleton, Henry E.; Azo, R.F.; Hidayat Husain, M. (1927). "Chemistry in Iraq and Persia in the Tenth Century A.D." Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. VIII (6): 317–418. OCLC 706947607. p. 333 Although Beckmann and others have ascribed to ar-Razi the discovery of the so-called 'mineral' acids –possibly on the basis of certain interpolated passages in the Liber Bubacaris,– the only prescription in this section that suggests that he was acquainted with any of them is the following, which may be explained as a primitive method of obtaining Hydrochloric acid.; p. 393: It is extremely curious to see how close ar-Rāzī came to the discovery of Sulphuric acid, without actually recognising the powerful solvent properties of the distillate of vitriols and alum. This is all the more surprising, as he fully realised the reactive powers of both Arsenic sulphide and Sal-ammoniac, the 'Spirits' with which he must have associated the distillate from alum.

Needham et al. 1980, p. 195, who quotes Stapleton, Azo & Hidayat Husain 1927, also stresses that Arabic alchemists were capable of using a mineral acid without quite knowing what it was. These source should be more accurately represented. I will do that in the edit I promised, on which I'm still working. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:36, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Here we are talking about Sulfuric acid and not mineral acid in general. According to Needham, even though Al-Razi didn't know about Sulfuric acid, one of his experiment indeed resulted in the production of Sulfuric acid which is mentioned in Kitab al Asrar. Needham writes:

Among the passages which indicate that Arabic alchemists were capable of using a mineral acid without quite knowing what it was, we may quote one from the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar (Book of the Secret of Secrets) written by al-Razi towards + 910. What he seems to be doing is making pure aluminium sulphate from alunite (the sulphate plus the hydroxide), and getting sulphuric acid in order to do it.

Hu741f4 (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I have now incorporated Needham et al. 1980, p. 195 and Stapleton, Azo & Hidayat Husain 1927 into the article, as In one recipe recorded in his Kitāb al-Asrār ('Book of Secrets'), Abu Bakr al-Razi may have stumbled upon a method to create sulfuric acid without being aware of it. I have also added the "It is extremely curious to see how close ar-Rāzī came to the discovery of Sulphuric acid, without actually recognising the powerful solvent properties of the distillate of vitriols and alum" quote from Stapleton, Azo & Hidayat Husain 1927, p. 393. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

How to dilute a concentrated sulphuric acid

Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Such information should be displayed on the pages 41.116.129.240 (talk) 20:20, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

See WP:NOTHOWTO. Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. S0091 (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

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