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helium (He)


Term: helium
Literally meaning: “pertaining to sun”
Origin: Anc Greek
λιος (or according Homer “ηέλιος/yelios)/helios (=sun)  of unknown etymology  probably from ?ç///(certainly, indeed, always) and verb ελάω/elao(=move)  >ελεύσομαι/elefsomai(=go up, come in)
Coined/History 
The element was named in 1868 by English astronomer Sir Joseph N. Lockyer (1836-1920) and his coworker English chemist Sir Edward Frankland (1825-1899). Lockyer used during a solar eclipse in India, a spectometer for the first time in the study of the chromosphere around the sun and noticed among other bright stripes a yellow one.  Lockyer wrote “ …so then we knew we were not dealing with hydrogen:; hence we had to do with an element which we could not get in our laboratories, and therefore I took upon myself the responsibility of coining the word helium, in the first instance for labarotary use..” Helium existence was not accepted until William Ramsey isolated it in 1895. Ramsey had codiscovered also noble gas argon in 1894.

Definition
Helium (He)  is chemical element  with atomic number 2 and atomic mass 4.002602. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless element and is the lighter of the noble gases. It is also the second most abundant element in the observable universe. 

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