Talk:Hydroxide

Color change

why did (naoh) change his color when we mixed with (hcl)?

From what I remember

NaOH + HCl --> NaCl + H₂O

where both the reactants and products are clear. If you also added [universal indicator] then NaOH would be a blue/purple colour, HCl a yellow/red colour and the products a green colour (if equal amounts of NaOH + HCl used). Hope this helps - Oatzy 21:08 GMT 04/10/05

A Hydroxide is not a ion... OH^- is one --Helios89 10:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

well... it depends on how u define the word hydroxide. different people may have different perception of its meaning. in the article, hydroxide refers to the ion containing O and H atoms with a negative charge(OH-). while some of us might have understood it as any alkali substances that have a pH value greater than 7. perhaps "ion" should be added to the title to avoid confusion?

Joke

 A physics professor and his assistant are working on liberating negatively charged hydroxyl ions, when all of a sudden, the assistant says, "Wait, Professor! What if the salicylic acids do not accept the hydroxyl ions?" And the professor responds, "That's no hydroxyl ion! That's my wife!"

I don't get it :-( --Slashdevslashtty 02:40, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get it either...

I get it, and its the worst joke I've ever heard. I'm sad

It's a joke from an early episode of the Cartoon Network cartoon "Dexter's Laboratory". It's not funny, and it's not very original. cobalt91 00:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For those of us who don't get it, will someone please explain! Even if it is bad, I'm the kind of person who wants to know :-( Poobarb 00:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the joke is that there is nothing to get. ArcherMan86 (talk) 03:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

molar mass

Hey, isn't the molar mass of OH- about 17 g/mol, not 19?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jschwart37 (talk • contribs) 06:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I think the molar mass is still wrong. If hydrogen is approximately 1.01 and oxygen 16 then that makes it 17.01 g mol^-1. Even being more precise (and assuming the pages on oxygen and hydrogen are correct), it must have a mass of a least 17.00734g mol^-1. A minor niggle I know, but these things do affect calculations.78.86.129.231 18:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

right now its about 17.00274. It may not be the same number you calculated, but it is at a relatively insignificant place. If your calculations require that amount of precision or the numbers will be greatly affected, I'm sure there are other places you would be looking for the molar mass of OH- than the wikipedia article. Also the degree of precision of the other articles on the elements may be questionable. oxygen can be written as 16.00 or 15.994 or other variations depending on the necessity of significant figures. It seems fine to me. I wouldnt care if it were changed to 17.00734. calculations shouldnt be dependent on wikipedia. Gremlack 01:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HO- not OH-

This article has to be completety reviewed. The correct chemical formula is HO^- and not OH^-. This a common mistake, yet, wikipedia should not have these mistakes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.24.66 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is odd... every chemistry text I have ever read has referred to hydroxide as OH^-, I have never seen it wrote as HO^-. I don't think it is a mistake unless 98% of the people on this planet are making this same mistake (including the people who write chemistry textbooks, who have PhD's in chemistry...)

No, he is right, the correct formula for the hydroxide ion is HO-. If you understand anything about formal charges and lewis structures you would understand why. A chemistry professor that I know who has a Ph.D also uses HO-. The textbooks that go by "OH-" are trying to follow "tradition." They are wrong however. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.70.58.59 (talk) 14:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not HO^- or OH^- is correct is fairly irrelevant to wikipedia. Wikipedia is made to reflect the common usage, not the correct usage, and therefore the proper usage on wikipedia is OH^-. As an aside, I disagree with your professor, HO^- is slightly more correct than OH^-, but neither are as correct as [OH]^-, since HO^- promotes the ridiculous idea that the oxygen atom somehow "owns" the negative charge. This would result in a fairly substantial error in the stability of the ion if it were taken as true. Equilshift (talk) 21:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article revised