Neon is best known for its use in neon signs, neon glow lamps are used to indicate on/off signs in electronic instrument panels and in early televisions. Helium is extensively used in the field of cryogenics which is low-temperature science. Helium is also used by divers not for buoyancy but to prevent “the bends” a condition when nitrogen bubbles in the blood as a diver comes up to the surface. Helium as we already know has been used in the filling of balloons, for large airships and for children. The noble gases are used in many daily and specialized applications. The breakdown of radium as well as uranium can lead to the production of helium ions as well. After the discovery of radium by the Curies, German physicist became fascinated with radium and discovered a gas that it emitted and he called it ‘radium emitting he discovered the new element, radon. (Ref.1) (Fractional distillation is a technique whereby different liquids can be distilled/condensed using differences in their boiling points, to collect each substance separately.)Īctually both radon and even helium are by-products of radioactive decay. How abundant are these noble gases? It is noted that their abundance decreases with increase in atomic weight, with He being the most abundant while there are only three molecules of element 118! Most of the noble gases are present in the earth’s atmosphere, except for helium, radon and are recovered from the air by obtaining them as liquids and conducting fractional distillation to separate them. (Ref.1) Yet the word’noble’ is appropriate, since certain elements like gold or platinum are also considered ‘noble metals’ because of their reluctance to undergo chemical reactions easily. They are neither inert(since we know some of them react with flourine to form compounds) nor rare, because several of them are found in abundance on earth. (Ref.3) They were originally called inert or rare gases. They also happen to be mono-atomic gases, ie, they exist as individual atoms rather than di- or poly- atomic molecules. The noble gases are all colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-flammable gases. Hence there are really 7 noble gases present and since some of them are not completely non-reactive, the noble gases group is now called Group 18 and not Group 0. (Ref.1) A cyclotron is a high particle accelerator where subatomic particles like protons and electrons are in a magnetic and electrical field and can collide at high speeds with each other. In addition, in 2006, scientists in Dubna, Russia, announced that the element 118, the next noble gas, was synthesized in 20 in a cyclotron. In 19,scientists observed that some of the noble gases,like radon, krypton and xenon form different flourides. Initially it was called Group 0 for this reason. Till the early 60’s, scientists were talking about the stable octet/duplet rule to justify the non-reactive nature of these gases. This also implies that the last group elements are not reactive. In fact, almost all elements in the periodic table gain or lose electrons during a chemical reaction to get to the stable electronic structure of these noble or inert gases. In addition we have seen that the halogens gain an electron to have the outer stable electronic structure of noble gases. One has already seen that the alkali and alkaline- earth elements try to lose one or two electrons to achieve the stable noble gas structure. The exception is helium, which has a stable duplet or 1s2 structure. All these are obviously gases and the outer electronic structure is a stable octet, which is really a ns2 np6 configuration, where n=2 through 6. Helium,He, neon, Ne, argon, Ar, krypton,Kr, xenon, Xe and radon, Rn are the six common noble gases. Sometimes, when I look at the last group in the Periodic Table, the Noble Gases, I wonder if they too belong in another world. “Why aren’t you reacting? It is as if you are in another world!”, she would remark in dismay. My mother would come and implore me to go out and I would be oblivious to her presence. I remember when I was young, I liked stretching on a black sofa almost upside-down and reading a book.