The noble gases (Group 18) are located in the far right of the periodic table and were previously referred to as the "inert gases" due to the fact that their filled valence shells (octets) make them extremely nonreactive. The noble gases were characterized relatively late compared to other element groups.
The History
The first person to discover the noble gases was Henry Cavendish in the late 180th century. Cavendish distinguished these elements by chemically removing all oxygen and nitrogen from a container of air. The nitrogen was oxidized to NO2 by electric discharges and absorbed by a sodium hydroxide solution. The remaining oxygen was then removed from the mixture with an absorber. The experiment revealed that 1/120 of the gas volume remained un-reacted in the receptacle. The second person to isolate, but not typify, them was William Francis (1855-1925). Francis noted the formation of gas while dissolving uranium minerals in acid.
Argon
In 1894, John William Strutt discovered that chemically-obtained pure nitrogen was less dense than the nitrogen isolated from air samples. From this breakthrough, he concluded that another, unknown gas was present in the air. With the aid of William Ramsay, Strutt managed to replicate and modify Cavendish's experiment to better understand the inert component of air in his original experiment. The researchers' procedure differed from the Cavendish procedure: they removed the oxygen by reacting it with copper, and removed the nitrogen in a reaction with magnesium. The remaining gas was properly characterized and the new element was named "argon," which originates from the Greek word for "inert."
Helium
Helium was first discovered in 1868, manifesting itself in the solar spectrum as a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49 nanometers. This discovery was made by Pierre Jansen. Jansen initially assumed it was a sodium line. However, later studies by Sir William Ramsay (who isolated helium on Earth by treating a variety of rare elements with acids) confirmed that the bright yellow line from his experiment matched up with that in the spectrum of the sun. From this, British physicist William Crookes identified the element as helium.
Neon, Krypton, Xenon
These three noble gases were discovered by Morris W. Travers and Sir William Ramsay in 1898. Ramsay discovered neon by chilling a sample of the air to a liquid phase, warming the liquid, and capturing the gases as they boiled off. Krypton and xenon were also discovered through this process.
Radon
In 1900, while studying the decay chain of radium, Friedrich Earns Dorn discovered the last gas in Group 18: radon. In his experiments, Dorn noticed that radium compounds emanated radioactive gas. This gas was originally named niton after the Latin word for shining, "nitens". In 1923, the International Committee for Chemical Elements and International Union of Pure Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) decided to name the element radon. All isotopes of radon are radioactive. Radon-222 has the longest half-life at less than 4 days, and is an alpha-decay product of Radium-226 (part of the U-238 to Pb-206 radioactive decay chain).
The Electron Configurations for Noble Gases
Helium 1s2
Neon [He] 2s2 2p6
Argon [Ne] 3s2 3p6
Krypton [Ar] 3d10 4s2 4p6
Xenon [Kr] 4d10 5s2 5p6
Radon [Xe] 4f14 5d10 6s2 6p
Explanation:
