October 31 - November 3, 2004
Element of the Day
Saturday, October 23
From
the Greek word for new, neos.
Discovered by: Sir William Ramsay, a Scottish chemist, and Morris M. Travers, an English chemist, shortly after their discovery of the element krypton in 1898.
Uses: The largest use for neon gas is in advertising signs. Neon is also used to make high voltage indicators and is combined with helium to make helium-neon lasers. Liquid neon is used as a cryogenic refrigerant. Neon is highly inert and forms no known compounds, although there is some evidence that it could form a compound with fluorine.