Ramsay and Travers discover neon (1898)

William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered neon in 1898 at University College London. The team isolated neon, krypton, and xenon from liquid air via fractional distillation during a six-week period starting in late May 1898. The legacy date of 7 June is not supported by the provided passages, which only specify the year and the general timeframe.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. Sir William Ramsay held the chair of Chemistry at University College London from 1887. After argon was identified, Ramsay investigated other atmospheric gases. Morris Travers went to University College, where he began to work with Ramsay, helping determine the properties of the newly discovered gases argon and helium.

Methodology. In 1898, Ramsay and Travers obtained a large quantity of liquid air and subjected it to fractional distillation. This process allowed them to isolate the remaining rare inert elements in dry air after removing nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide. The gases were isolated in roughly their order of abundance.

Timeline. The isolation of the remaining gases occurred in a six-week period beginning at the end of May 1898. Neon was identified alongside krypton and xenon during this timeframe. The legacy row's specific date of 7 June 1898 is not confirmed by the supplied passages, which only state the year and the start of the period.

People involved

Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.