Talk:Svante Arrhenius

Why was there opposition to his promotions?

On more than one occasion it's noted that there was strong opposition to Arrhenius's promotion to an important position. Were there particular things about Arrhenius that tended to invite opposition, whether professional, personal, or both? TooManyFingers (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The pronunciation of his name

What is the point of showing a non-Swedish pronunciation of his name? Its a Swedish name, so its pronounced in Swedish. I guess that the first pronunciation shown in the article is supposed to be English, but his name is not an English word, so I don't understand how could there even be consensus on what a correct English pronunciation would be. If Wikipedia insists on having made up pronunciations of non-English names, could the actual (in this case Swedish) pronunciation at least be shown first? Or could the first pronunciation just be removed, as there aren't made up pronunciations in the articles for Euler and Gauss either? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.233.143.158 (talk) 10:53, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Formula for the Augmentation of temperature has issues

This page mentions a formula that gives an augmentation of temperature but it does not express what the augmentation is. Is it a percentage increase or an absolute increase? Initially, I guessed the former. Chemistry is not my speciality. Having worked through an example it appears to be an absolute value.

It would be helpful to have a worked example to explain the meaning of Augmentation of temperature start temperature change in CO₂ and end temperature as calculated using the formula.

history.com states Svante Arrhenius predicted that a halving of CO₂ would reduce the global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius and doubling of CO₂ would increase the global temperature by 5 degrees.

Working through that example I get different results.

5.35 * ln(2) = 3.708 celsius or 6.675...degrees Fahrenheit. This does not equal 5 as would be expected from the text on history.com.

5.35 * ln(1/2) = -3.708... this also does not equal -5 as would be expected from the text.

The alpha would need to be 7.21 to get an answer of 5.

This implies the text on history.com is wrong or the formula here is wrong or the value of alpha is wrong.

As a hypothesis, 7.21 may be the combined alpha for both CO₂ and the water as produced when burning carbon.

But clarification is needed.

The comment on his actual predictions near the end of the article say a reduction of 0.62–0.55 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius), 0.62–0.55 what? similarly we need units or percentage sign or whatever.

The formula quoted must be a rule of thumb as if the start value is zero it ln(infinity) is still infinity. And we know that would be wrong.

An explanation of how this formula used to make those predictions differs from the one quoted would be welcome. Robin Murison (talk) 10:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• 1922 Svante Arrhenius.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:43, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

"Svantearrhenius" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Svantearrhenius has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 19 § Alanturing until a consensus is reached. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 18:51, 19 May 2026 (UTC)