Editing Neon (section)

==History==
[[File:NeTube.jpg|thumb|left|Neon [[gas-discharge lamp]]s forming neon's element symbol]]
Neon was discovered in 1898 by the British chemists Sir [[William Ramsay]] (1852–1916) and [[Morris Travers]] (1872–1961) in [[London]].<ref name="RamsayTravers1898"/> Neon was discovered when Ramsay chilled a sample of air until it became a liquid, then warmed the liquid and captured the gases as they boiled off. The gases [[nitrogen]], [[oxygen]], and [[argon]] had been identified, but the remaining gases were isolated in roughly their order of abundance, in a six-week period beginning at the end of May 1898. The first remaining gas to be identified was [[krypton]]; the next, after krypton had been removed, was a gas which gave a brilliant red light under spectroscopic discharge. This gas, identified in June, was named "neon", the Greek analogue of the Latin {{Lang|la|novum}} ('new')<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/elem/e01000.html |title=Neon: History |access-date=27 February 2007 |publisher=Softciências |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070314232318/http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/elem/e01000.html |archive-date=14 March 2007 }}</ref> suggested by Ramsay's son. The characteristic brilliant red-orange color emitted by gaseous neon when excited electrically was noted immediately. Travers later wrote: "the blaze of crimson light from the tube told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SJIk9BPdNWcC&pg=PA287|title=Discovery of the Elements: Third Edition (reprint)|last=Weeks|first=Mary Elvira|date=2003|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|isbn=978-0-7661-3872-8|page=287|author-link=Mary Elvira Weeks|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150322191804/http://books.google.com/books?id=SJIk9BPdNWcC&pg=PA287|archive-date=22 March 2015|url-status=live}}<!--This is an important quote. It eliminates the many claims that Claude was the first to note the brilliant emission of neon. The probable original source is Travers' 1928 book: {{cite book |title=The Discovery of the Rare Gases |url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryofrareg0000trav |url-access=registration |last=Travers |first=Morris W. |publisher=Edward Arnold & Co. |location=London |year=1928}}--></ref>

A second gas was also reported along with neon, having approximately the same density as argon but with a different spectrum – Ramsay and Travers named it ''metargon''.<ref name="Nobel">
{{cite web
 |url         = https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1904/ramsay-lecture.html
 |title       = Nobel Lecture – The Rare Gases of the Atmosphere
 |last        = Ramsay
 |first       = Sir William
 |date        = 12 December 1904
|website     = nobelprize.org
 |publisher   = Nobel Media AB
 |access-date = 15 November 2015
|url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20151113111406/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1904/ramsay-lecture.html
 |archive-date = 13 November 2015
}}
</ref><ref name="RamsayTravers1898"/> However, the subsequent spectroscopic analysis revealed it to be argon contaminated with [[carbon monoxide]]. Finally, the same team discovered [[xenon]] by the same process, in September 1898.<ref name="Nobel" />

Neon's scarcity precluded its prompt application for lighting along the lines of [[Moore tube]]s, which used [[nitrogen]] and which were commercialized in the early 1900s. After 1902, [[Georges Claude]]'s company [[Air Liquide]] produced industrial quantities of neon as a byproduct of his air-liquefaction business. In December 1910 Claude demonstrated modern [[neon lighting]] based on a sealed tube of neon. Claude tried briefly to sell neon tubes for indoor domestic lighting, due to their intensity, but the market failed because homeowners objected to the color. In 1912, Claude's associate began selling neon discharge tubes as eye-catching [[neon sign|advertising signs]] and was instantly more successful. Neon tubes were introduced to the U.S. in 1923 with two large neon signs bought by a Los Angeles Packard car dealership. The glow and arresting red color made neon advertising completely different from the competition.<ref>{{cite news
 |url         = http://nymag.com/shopping/features/41814/
 |title       = Neon: A Brief History
 |last        = Mangum
 |first       = Aja
 |access-date = 20 May 2008
 |date        = 8 December 2007
|newspaper   = New York Magazine
 |url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080415165748/http://nymag.com/shopping/features/41814/
 |archive-date = 15 April 2008
}}</ref> The intense color and vibrancy of neon equated with American society at the time, suggesting a "century of progress" and transforming cities into sensational new environments filled with radiating advertisements and "electro-graphic architecture".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Golec |first=Michael J. |year=2010 |title=Logo/Local Intensities: Lacan, the Discourse of the Other, and the Solicitation to "Enjoy" |journal=Design and Culture |volume=2 |issue=2|pages=167–181 |doi=10.2752/175470710X12696138525622 |s2cid=144257608 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Electro-Graphic Architecture |last=Wolfe |first=Tom |date=October 1968 |work=Architecture Canada }}</ref>

Neon played a role in the basic understanding of the nature of atoms in 1913, when [[J. J. Thomson]], as part of his exploration into the composition of [[canal rays]], channeled streams of neon ions through a magnetic and an electric field and measured the deflection of the streams with a photographic plate. Thomson observed two separate patches of light on the photographic plate (see image), which suggested two different parabolas of deflection. Thomson eventually concluded that some of the [[atom]]s in the neon [[gas]] were of higher mass than the rest. Though not understood at the time by Thomson, this was the first discovery of [[isotope]]s of [[Stable isotope|stable]] atoms. Thomson's device was a crude version of the instrument we now term a [[mass spectrometer]].