Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	Odorless, colorless gas which gives off an intense red light under high voltage melting point -249 °C; -416 °F boiling point -246 °C; -412 °F density 0.0009 g/cc; 0.056 pounds/cubic foot
1898 Sir William Ramsay & Morris W. Travers, England
νεος (neos) = new, young (Greek)

After his discovery of Argon (1894) and the isolation of Helium (1895) the British chemist Sir William Ramsay ((1852-1916), was faced with an almost insuperable problem: he had found the first and the third member of the group of inert gases (Helium and Argon), and now needed to find the intermediate member. Ramsay says:

"Here is a supposed gas, endowed no doubt with inert properties, and the whole world to find it in."

Joined by an assistant Morris W. Travers (1872-1961), he continued to search this member of the inert gas family. On 30 May 1898 they discovered Krypton (but, they were not looking for that gas, the fourth member of the inert gas family). In June, they solidified some of their fifteen liters of Argon by surrounding it with liquid air boiling under reduced pressure. They then collected the first of the Argon to vaporize. This had a complex spectra with many lines in red, a number of faint green, and some in violet. The yellow line is fairly bright, and persists at very high vacuum.

Ramsay's 13-year-old son Willie asked:

"What are you going to call the new gas? I should like to call it «Novum»."

Ramsay liked the suggestion but, wanting to maintain the chemical family's suffix -on, called it "neon" (from the Greek νεος [neos] = new, young). Finally, on 12 July 1898 they found the fifth of the noble gases, Xenon. They had discovered three members of the inert gas family within six weeks.

Sir William Ramsay got the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1904 because of his discovery of four of the noble gases (Neon, Argon, Krypton, and Xenon).

Use of neon
Initially, there was no use for neon. The French engineer, chemist, and inventor Georges Claude (1870-1960), was the first to apply an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neon gas (circa 1902). Neon glows red when an electrical charge was passed through it. This gave Claude the idea of producing light in an entirely new way. He made neon tubes which could be used like ordinary bulbs. Georges Claude displayed the first neon lamp to the public on December 11, 1910, in Paris. The only problem was that nobody wanted a red light in their homes.

Undeterred by this failure, Claude continued to think of ways for using his invention. Then he found that by bending the tubes, one could make letters which glowed. This idea found many potential users, and the use of neon tubes for advertising signs began in 1923. Georges Claude and his French company Claude Neon introduced neon gas signs to the United States by selling two to a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles. Earle C. Anthony purchased the two signs reading "Packard" for $24,000. Neon lighting quickly became a popular fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, people would stop and stare at the first neon signs dubbed "liquid fire." Red is the color neon gas produces, almost every other color is produced using argon, mercury and phosphor. There are now more than 150 colors possible.

• W. Ramsay, The Gases of the Atmosphere: The History of Their Discovery. London: Macmillan, 1915.
• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 765-767.
• Edelgasse. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 1 (1926).
• Univ. Coll. London, Dept. of Chemistry, The Discovery of Helium & Other Gases
• About.com, The History of Neon Signs.