Term: helium
Literally
meaning: “pertaining
to sun”
Origin: Anc Greek
?çλιος (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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