Physics

How Helium Was Discovered



Helium is a very common element in our universe. However, due to its characteristics, it’s very rarely found on Earth. This video shows how scientists in the 19th century overcame this obstacle, over the course of decades, and isolated and discovered the rare gas.

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34 Comments

  1. Total solar eclipses are not rare. They occur every 18 monts on average, or at about 2/3 of the frequency of birthdays. The true difficulty is the locations at which they may be observed are quite limited in area, widely varied in place on the earth's surface, places that are often difficult to reach.

  2. Also in the 1860s Angelo Secchi discovered the first carbon star. Another chemical discovery due to astronomy. :)
    I initially thought he was involved in helium discovery, but misremembered the details.

  3. It always amazes me how scientist back in the day made such complex discoveries without the internet, computers or modern technology and instrumentation. It's as if they simply pointed an old telescope into the sky and the ideas would come through on their own.

  4. I'm kinda interested how they actually got the emission to work. Because in the case of the uranium mineral there is no way you could fill a spectral tube with it. Did they just make an arc in a small chamber at atmospheric pressure?

  5. It is a very interesting phenomenon in the history of discovery and invention that is often seems that at least two people are working on the same problem at the same time and seem to both make similar discoveries, therefore validating each other. Or, that two people are working at difference ends of a problem and somehow manage to meet in the middle to change the world. Also this is a perfect illustration of how discovery and learning is always a step-by-step process, rarely ever happening in a glorious burst of enlightenment.

  6. โ€ฆ the pretty rainbow colors you show emanating from the prism in your diagram has the colors coming out in the wrong direction!

  7. I highly doubt this is possible BUT is there anyway for us to detect the amount of Helium that escapes our planet into outer space? Because if it occurs here on Earth then it's gotta occur at a ton of different locations throughout space as well.. Maybe.. I just can't help but be oddly curious about that

  8. I really admire your videos. They educate me and satisfy my curiosity about the development of science. I would really like you to make a video showing how the first scientists were able to determine the mass of some chemical elements. What instruments they used at a time when scientists themselves were forced to invent their own devices and methods. Would this be possible?

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