Elements 10: Neon •

Neon was called after the Greek word neo for new, as it was the third new gaseous element found in the Earth’s atmosphere in the late 19th century. By the time Neon was discovered by William Ramsay and established as a true new element by its light spectral lines, as well as by its unique melting and boiling temperatures, it was clear its discovery also established a whole new group in Mendeleev’s periodic system of elements. In the spirit of this century, the group was called noble gases, because they appeared utterly unreactive and unable to combine into compounds with even very reactive other elements. Was this a hidden hint at the nobility still surviving in places a century after the French Revolution and its spinoffs did away with them in many countries? An unreactive mostly non mingling lot, soon to be tested by the First World War, which toppled many more. To this day, old nobility survives in some countries that still have those medieval institutions, though since the development of evolutionary biology ways were found to prevent the old inbreeding curse.