Many of us have seen or even owned one of those cool old theater signs that backlight posters or say things like “Theater Room.” It might be interesting to know, though, that these lights are actually made out of neon. Neon is an element that glows a warm reddish orange color when it conducts electricity, and is one of the six noble gases found in the rightmost column of the periodic table. Noble gases do not react willingly with other elements or compounds, so they’re often used in scientific research or manufacturing to keep things from oxidizing during the process of work and storage.
Neon was first discovered in 1898 by chemists William Ramsay of Scotland and Morris Travers of England. Using liquid air, they froze an argon sample and then slowly evaporated it under low pressure to isolate the gas that came off, which turned out to be neon (see the video below). They named it after the Greek word for new, neos. While it’s very rare on Earth, neon can be extracted commercially from liquid air using a process called fractional distillation.
Neon is one of the six noble gases that don’t readily react with other elements or compounds, making it a good choice for use in devices and signs that need to stay unaltered or insulated from oxygen-containing environments. It is odorless and has no taste, and its chemical properties make it useful for a number of applications in science and industry. For example, it is used to create lasers that can be used in the photolithography step of silicon semiconductor manufacture.
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