Talk:Oxygen

"High-energy oxygen" theory

The claim, currently included in the lede, that

Dioxygen provides most of the chemical energy released in combustion and aerobic cellular respiration

is part of a very wide campaign by a Wikipedia editor to insert references to his theory in many science articles (so if you're trying to research it on Wikipedia, you'll likely come across another page edited in the same way by the same person). This theory, which describes oxygen as a "high-energy" molecule, is pretty fringe-y, and culminates in such statements as

the lower heating value is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen consumed in the combustion

which, of course, it isn't. Branched alkanes differ in their heating value (but not in the amount of oxygen consumed in their combustion) from the unbranched alkane they are based on. (See also ring strain, aromaticity, triple bond).

(It's well-known that for restricted classes of fuels, a rough approximation of the heating value can be obtained by considering only the elemental composition of the fuel, or even just the amount of oxygen required for its combustion. See Weir formula for a 1949 paper that's pretty clear about that.)

I strongly feel this theory should be removed from Wikipedia. It's non-notable, violates the scientific consensus, has been introduced by a single COI editor, and I believe (though others may feel differently) that it qualifies as both a fringe theory and pseudoscience. Asking whether it's the oxygen or the fuel which "provides" the chemical energy for a reaction is a question which, in standard chemistry, simply makes no sense. (It does make sense, of course, if you consider nuclear energies, but the results are then very different from the predictions of this theory).

I've brought this up in a number of places:

• the author's talk page at User talk:Klaus Schmidt-Rohr#Photosynthesis
• WP:FTN at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Chemical energy and related articles
• my user page is where I currently keep notes: User:IpseCustos
• individual articles' talk pages. Unfortunately, there's quite a few.

I've also fixed a few pages, but was, of course, reverted.

My question is two-fold:

1. If I'm wrong and it's actually perfectly good science and in accordance with Wikipedia's principles, could someone please tell me?
2. If I'm right and Wikipedia has been widely damaged in an attempt to push pseudoscience, how do I fix it? Is an RfC the next step?

IpseCustos (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Up to his old tricks again. [1]. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:43, 28 April 2023 (UTC).

"High-energy oxygen": I'm sorry this discussion is a mess

The discussion concerning "high-energy oxygen" is a mess. That's my fault, and I'm sorry and will try to do better in future, choosing a single central venue for discussion when possible.

• Most of it is on WP:FTN at WP:FTN#Chemical energy and related articles.
• Some of it is on User talk:Klaus Schmidt-Rohr and User talk:IpseCustos.
• Some of it is on Talk:Photosynthesis.
• Some of it is on this page, Talk:Oxygen.
• There's a plea for help on Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Chemistry.

Since so many articles are involved (57 articles assigning the chemical energy of oxidation to the oxygen molecule), I might have missed some.

Again, I'm sorry, I realize this is making life harder for other editors who just want to get an overview. If there's anything I can do to actually improve the situation, rather than adding more and more posts to various discussion forums, please let me know?

IpseCustos (talk) 09:33, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I am a published expert in chemical energy and bioenergetics, the field under dispute here, and have credentials as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Everything I have written on this topic builds quantitatively on chemical textbook principles of the relations between bond strengths, chemical energy, and heat or free energy release. According to these textbook principles, conversion of relatively weak electron-pair bonds, as found for instance in O₂, to stronger bonds releases energy, which means that relatively weak bonds store chemical energy. I have not deleted other editors’ content in any major or disruptive manner but rather added fairly brief technical statements prompted by the context (and have also made numerous unrelated advanced technical edits in articles within my expertise, e.g. on formal and applied thermodynamics, chemical equilibrium, kinetics, acids/bases, mass in special relativity, NMR spectroscopy, electrochemistry, statistical mechanics, materials, solubility, etc.).

My (and a few colleagues') careful and quantitative thermodynamic analyses have elucidated notable but previously unexplained facts of chemical energy and bioenergetics, and have been published in detailed and accessible peer-reviewed articles by reputable publishers such as the American Chemical Society.

Examples of questions answered include:

- Why is combustion or aerobic respiration of organic molecules always exothermic, and why is the heat of combustion of an organic fuel in a fire (LHV) directly proportional to the amount of O₂ consumed?

- Why do carbohydrates have less than half the heat of combustion, per gram, of fat?

- Why does fermentation of glucose produce only 2 ATP, while respiration of glucose + 6 O₂ produces 30 ATP? (Attributing this difference to incomplete decomposition of glucose in fermentation is invalid, because splitting glucose up all the way into 3 CO₂ + 3 CH₄ releases only 15% of the energy of glucose combustion with 6 O₂, and complete decomposition of glucose into 6 formaldehyde molecules would release no energy at all.)

- How is nearly half of the energy of aerobic respiration released by the reaction of O₂ at Complex IV of the inner mitochondrial membrane without any bonds of an organic molecule being broken?

- Why do plants need two photosystems in tandem?

- What is the source of the energy of the photons (~200 kJ/mol) emitted, for instance by fireflies, in bioluminescence, and why O₂ the only indispensable reactant in bioluminescence?

- Why was life energetically limited before the widespread availability of atmospheric oxygen?

My brief explanations answering these questions in relevant Wikipedia articles have led to friction with editors who for some reason seem uninterested in providing explanations of such notable facts (even after repeated prompting, they have not shared sources showing alternative valid explanations of the notable science questions listed) and accepting their conceptual consequences.

In any case, as soon as I understood the viewpoints and expectations of other editors, I started to work on consensus phrasing that took these concerns into account where possible. Specifically, we have consensus that in general terms combustion and aerobic respiration “releases the chemical energy of fuels/nutrient molecules and oxygen”, and I have accordingly revised the contested phrasing in a significant fraction of the articles in question. Can we build on that consensus? In a few other cases, I have documented every important statement with a reliable secondary source (textbook with specific page number or official standard) and thus fully met Wikipedia requirements.

In the course of this discussion, individual editors have opined that incorrect statements are fine on Wikipedia or that experts should not edit in their area of expertise; notable scientific facts backed by reliable secondary sources (textbooks) have been deleted. This is rather disappointing. I hope that the community of science editors on Wikipedia more broadly will carefully examine the veracity and notability of the specific disputed statements and their contexts, in the cases where consensus has not yet been reached. Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk) 16:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

There is no such consensus. The word "together", in the phrase I agreed might be an acceptable compromise under certain conditions, is crucial. IpseCustos (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

See [2]. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2023 (UTC).

References

Symbol O

I was taught O is a letter not a symbol. 2601:881:202:2980:5D1A:9254:4721:BFFD (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

In this context, the term "symbol" refers to chemical symbol. O is the chemical symbol for oxygen. ¹⁴¹Pr 17:50, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Breathing

I could find nothing in this article about oxygen being the reason we breath, and it being the element that combines with food to produce the energy to keep us alive. Am I wrong? Did I over look it? A huge number of readers will not know this, and this is the most important feature of oxygen from our point of view. So I added it to the introduction, which should always contain the information that readers will find the most important. Nick Beeson (talk) 23:38, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

It is covered in Oxygen#Photosynthesis_and_respiration. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:21, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

It might be stated better that the reason we breath at all is precisely because of the prevalence of dioxygen (or rather life evolved to breath dioxygen because 'it is there' and it is suitably reactive) (Andy Loates). 81.155.194.247 (talk) 00:47, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 April 2023

The sentence "The body's circulatory system transports the oxygen the cells, where cellular respiration takes place." is missing the word "to". It should read "The body's circulatory system transports the oxygen TO the cells, where cellular respiration takes place." ChiCub08 (talk) 21:39, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done Cannolis (talk) 21:59, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Oxygen-15 natural occurrence

Shouldn't oxygen-15 be listed as "trace" rather than "synthetic" , since trace ammounts are produced naturally by lightning and in the sun. 174.103.211.189 (talk) 04:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

oxygen is not the most abundant element on earth. iron is

thought that should be changed 2605:A601:AA0D:F900:9CA4:FB25:36E:D726 (talk) 05:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Oxygen is the most abundant specifically on Earth’s crust 99.17.2.140 (talk) 08:50, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Define abundance. By number fraction, i.e., actual number of atoms, oxygen is by far more abundant over the entire Earth. There is a greater mass fraction of iron but that's simply because it's heavier. However, as stated in the article, there is a greater abundance of oxygen by mass in the Earth's crust and biosphere. Polyamorph (talk) 13:15, 16 January 2024 (UTC)