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Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle SRB exhaust gas makeup.
Message-ID: <1989Oct25.024533.14584@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <8910231952.AA14411@decwrl.dec.com> <1989Oct24.163114.29924@utzoo.uucp> <572@milton.acs.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 02:45:33 GMT

In article <572@milton.acs.washington.edu> stephen@milton.acs.washington.edu (Stephen Milton) writes:
>>>     Does it contain hydrogen oxide? 
>>I.e., water?  Yes...
>
>technically, water is not hydrogen oxide, its dihydrogen oxide...

No, technically water is hydrogen oxide (ref: Hdbk of Chemistry & Physics,
table of inorganic compounds).  It is normal to omit numeric prefixes when
no ambiguity is present (e.g. N2O4 is nitrogen tetroxide, not dinitrogen
tetroxide), and also common to refer to the most common or "normal"
oxide of XXX as "XXX oxide" (e.g. Fe2O3 is iron oxide even though FeO
also exists; if one is being fussy one uses "ferric" and "ferrous" or
"iron (III)" and "iron (II)" to distinguish).  Chemical nomenclature
in practice is nowhere near as formalized and pedantic as it could be
in theory.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu