Discovery of neon

Neon was discovered in 1898 by the British chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers at University College London. Having already found argon, and shortly before discovering krypton, they cooled air until it turned liquid and then studied the gases that boiled off at different temperatures. When they examined one fraction with a spectroscope, they saw brilliant red-orange lines that matched no known element. The name comes from the Greek word neos, meaning new, and is said to have been suggested by Ramsay's young son. Neon is a colourless noble gas that is very rare in the atmosphere. Its glow in a vacuum tube was turned into commercial lighting by the French engineer Georges Claude around 1910, and neon signs became a symbol of the modern city.

Open on the timeline