The section on the use of helium in diving is a bit misleading. Helium in itself does not protect against oxygen toxicity - reducing the amount of oxygen in the mix is what does that. You can achieve this by mixing helium with air and thus diluting the percentage oxygen in the mix, but there is nothing special about helium for this purpose. Helium also does not help reduce decompression time (at least for sports mixed-gas divers, I can't speak for military or commercial uses). Decompression theory is not an exact science, but many models will actually give a longer deco time if you replace nitrogen with helium. The key variable to deco timing is the percentage of oxygen in the mix (so when you reduce the oxygen percentage to avoid an oxygen tox, the trade-off is longer decompression times). The main reason for using helium in a deep diving mix is to reduce Nitrogen Narcosis. N.B. as well as the cost (helium is expensive) one of the problems of using Heliox as a dive gas is that it can affect your nervous system at depth (High Pressure Nervous Syndrome). For this reason, sports divers will normally stick with Trimix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodgerclarke ( talk • contribs) 09:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
This page is being recked by spammers - I think we should go back to a point before vandalism and then lock the page if possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxfoil ( talk • contribs) 18:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC) What 'spammers' are you referring to? You're not being specific 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)LeucineZipper
Because it is lighter than air, airships and balloons are inflated with helium for lift. In airships, helium is preferred over hydrogen because it is not inflammable and has 92.64% of the buoyancy (or lifting power) of the alternative hydrogen (see calculation.)
75.181.46.158 ( talk) 01:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The picture of an empty vial in the infobox is IMHO not only useless but may lead to a false impression that helium forms a kind of a bubble in the vial. And it looks beige rather than colorless in the picture. These hold for pictures of other colorless gases, too. In my opinion these pictures should be removed ASAP. Regards, Michał Sobkowski ( talk) 08:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
No mention in the article about the amount of helium left in the earth? I read in Wired that we had about a nine year supply at the rate we were using it currently, is this true? KiwiTallGuy ( talk) 10:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
See the section on Natural Abundance, last paragraph. Chemist Lee Sobotka says (see reference cited) that the largest reserve in Texas has an eight-year supply at current rates, but there is more elsewhere. The reference also says that Sobotka believes that Russia will be the world's major source of helium in 30 years. Dirac66 ( talk) 13:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
There is more information in this article on liquid helium than there is in the Liquid helium article which is little more than a stub. I would think either a merge into Helium of a split out into Liquid helium would be in order. SpinningSpark 19:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Helium’s symbol on the periodic table is He. Its atomic number is 2 and its atomic weight is 4. It is the second lightest element after hydrogen. In its most common form, Helium 4, it has 2 Protons, Neutrons and electrons, though in its second and rare form, helium 3, it only contains one neutron. Helium has the lowest melting and boiling points of all elements being –272.2 C for the melting point and –268.93 C for the boiling point. Most of the time it is in it usual form, gas. Helium is colourless, odourless, tasteless, non-toxic, unreactive, 6 time lighter than the air we breath and part of the noble gas group of the periodic table.
Helium was first discovered by Pierre Janssen on the 18th of August 1868 when he came across a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49nm[nanometers], in the spectrum of the chromosphere of the sun while observing an eclipse of the sun in India. Helium was then discovered by Joseph Lockyer on the 20th of October that same year while observing outer space. Lockyer concluded that it was caused by an unknown element, after unsuccessful testing to see if it were some new type of hydrogen.
Did you know that Helium was the first element discovered in space, before it was discovered on Earth? Also, I bet you didn’t know that Lockyer and an English chemist Edward Frankland, named the element after the Greek word for sun, Helios (written in Greek as it shows on the board). Most helium on earth is stored in the natural gas field in the US. In the modern universe almost all new helium is created as a result of the nuclear fusion in stars.
Helium is commonly used to change the pitch of a person’s voice however it is not a gas that is already in our body so it could be dangerous if too much is inhaled. One danger is as bad as death by asphyxiation (a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body) within minutes if breathing pure helium continuously. Helium is also used to inflate balloons and to make them rise to the roof or even further if released. These are common at special events, parties and celebrations. Helium is used for many other less common uses for example cryogenics (the study of very low temperatures), Deep-sea breathing gas, Cool superconducting magnets, Helium dating (a method of determining the age of a substance), Providing lift in airships such as blimps and all kinds of non-rigid airships, and as a protective gas for many industrial uses (eg. arc welding and growing silicon wafers) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maddyson 961 ( talk • contribs) 11:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any specific information here that is not already covered in the Wikipedia article. Please clarify exactly what changes you want made. DMacks ( talk) 14:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
The last revision by User:Cryptic C62 was useful in bringing the references for high pressure nervous syndrome and the effect of easier breathing using heliox. However, these are concerns manifested principally below 150 m. The edit removed the mention of trimix which is the gas of choice for the 40 m to 150 m range. Since the majority of deep diving is in the latter range, we have lost the principal diving use of helium and substituted its use in exoteric scenarios that is really only of relevance in the field of extreme diving. In my humble opinion, it is also a mistake to take out the mention of "narcosis", since that is what it is known as (I've never heard a diver complaining that s/he had suffered from "pressure-induced neurological symptoms"). Perhaps one interpretation of WP:SPADE might be "Don't use over-technical language when plain language will do"?
As much as I dislike expanding a FA into topics it's not really about, I'll try to re-instate the use of helium in trimix to avoid nitrogen narcosis and do my best to leave in the HPNS. -- RexxS ( talk) 21:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
colour? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.186.110 ( talk) 20:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I am no expert on this and i am not debating the factual accuracy of it. In the applications section it says that it affects one's timbre but not pitch. But in the biological effect section it says that it changes the timbre in a high pitched way. How is this possible? Better let someone change it before it loses it's FA status. -- Stinkypie ( talk) 14:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Helium gas has faster speed of sound than air, therefore as frequency is inversely proportional to the speed of sound – it is the frequency that will change. Therefore the pitch of the voice will change (to a higher pitch). 00:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaniss2 ( talk • contribs)
Should there be something mentioning its non-renewability? I'm no expert, but perhaps it deserves a mention somewhere, now we're in this environmentally conscious world. Greeny-- 210.50.186.57 ( talk) 06:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I wanted to bring attention to an article on the helium atom, which currently has few articles linking to it. I think it makes sense for something in this article to link to helium atom, but I wouldn't know where to insert this information. Thank you. Loves Macs (talk) 00:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I believe that the density of Liquid Helium given in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium is incorrect as 0.176 g / litre. To the best of my knowledge (and I buy the stuff by the kg), 1 litre of Liquid Helium has a mass of 0.125 kg.
Sincerely,
Andy Soper +27 82 56 27037 a.soper@ru.ac.za —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.231.129.50 ( talk) 14:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Compounds section says:
Are you sure? Or is the stmt simply and hillariously jumping between our mental image of the chemical properties and the chemical properties themselves? Or do we believe in magic and mind's control over matter? ... said: Rursus ( bork²) 18:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Am I incorrectly assuming that the Big Bang is still theoretical? I was unaware that helium could indeed be produced by a theoretical model of the creation of the universe. I would assume there would be 100% evidence for the Big Bang being the correct model of creation of the universe before stating that Helium was produced in the Big Bang, instead of being theoretically produced in it. Can we get clarification for the reason this wording was chosen?
In this article, the word "elegant" is misspelled "elligant".
All the common element articles are excessively IP vandalized, and it's starting now again. S B H arris 18:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Correction to the opening paragraph of the main article: Helium is believed to make up 24 percent of the elemental (i.e., baryonic) mass of the universe (consisting of protons, neutrons, etc.), not the total mass. Most of the mass of the universe is currently believed to be non-baryonic, namely dark matter and dark energy. Compare the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia main article on "Hydrogen". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.2.195 ( talk) 06:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
The last sentence of the first paragraph of Helium#Compounds says, "If confirmed by experiment such compounds will end helium's chemical nobility, and the only remaining noble element will be neon." This seems to be a strange thing to say. For one thing, as has been previously pointed out under " Funny stmt", our experimental confirmation of helium compounds will not change helium's inertness itself—it will only modify whether we believe it is inert or not. Additionally, I don't know whether "nobility" is the right term here. We still refer to all of the group 18 elements as noble gases, even though we know some of them form chemical compounds, right? I don't feel comfortable enough with my meager grasp of chemistry to change the sentence itself, so could someone address this, please? — Bkell ( talk) 17:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
The article says that "only the very heaviest stars" produce helium ("at the very end of their lives"). Does anyone have the percentage of such stars? It's not like they are all 'blue supergiants', I have read that even type K will engage in some helium burning, which includes nearly all of those stars that expired by now. But these really are less abundant than less massive stars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC) 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)LeucineZipper
The first picture under the heading "Characteristics" (the big one which shows the electron distribution and the nucleus with a black bar that is one Å) does not look like it is to scale, yet gives the impression that it is. For it to be to scale you would have to fit 100,000 of the pink dots in the center side by side on the black line. To me it looks like you might be able to fit 100 times at the most. If I'm right, I think someone should clarify in the text that the size of the electron cloud and the nucleus isn't to scale in the picture, or another picture should be chosen.
On a slightly different, more uncertain note, I thought the electron distribution would look different. In the picture it seems like it just steadily decreases outwards from a maximum at the nucleus, but I thought there was a region of low probability around the center, climbing from 0 at the nucleus to a maximum some distance out and then decreasing like in the picture. This might also be because of strange scales in the pic though. -- Knuthove 22:14, June 1, 2010 (UTC)
"In 2000[update], the U.S. has proven helium reserves, in such gas well complexes, of about 147 billion standard cubic feet (42 billion SCM). This is enough helium for about 25 years of world use, or 35 years of U.S. use, although factors in saving and processing impact effective reserve numbers.[78][79]"
First of all, there are 35.3 cu ft in 1 m^3, so either the 147 figure or the 42 figure is obviously wrong. Further, neither of the two references given mentions EITHER figure. Neither reference is a primary or authoritative reference, anyway.
Somebody with the time, either fix this or rip it out.
Fnj2 ( talk) 06:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
{{Edit semi-protected}}
On 18-08-1868, a solar eclipse day a French scientist Janssen took spectrometer readings from this fort Vijaydurg, one of the oldest forts on sindhudurga coast of India. The stone benches he used for taking the readings are known as “saheb’s kattas” in local language. These spectrometer readings helped in detecting the presence of “Helium”, one of the basic elements on Sun http://www.konkanonline.com/Sindhudurg/Vijaydurg-Fort.html
Interesting. The date is the same, and eclipses last such a sort time that he can't have the data from two sites. The article states that it was the eclipse of Guntur, India, but that doesn't mean that the total-eclipse ground track was ONLY at Guntur. These things pass in a linear arc typically for long distances. Janssen may well have been somewhere near, like Vijaydurg fort, in which case it's a simple matter to put in " Vijaydurg fort, during the Guntur, India eclipse of 18 Aug, 1868." I'd like another cite (the WP article on Vijaydurg fort says the same, but uses the same cite), and will look at the web to see if this is mention in any chem histories. How far is Vijaydurg from Guntur, anyway?
This [4] cite gives Vijaydurg fort as the location of the English Platform from which the Englishman J. Norman Lockyear took eclipse readings in 1898. But that isn't right for many reasons, as Lockyear took his readings in 1868, the same year as Janssen, but several months later and not necessarily during an eclipse (evidence is that it was not). This grows ever more mysterious. There was an important eclipse in India in 1898, but none of these helium people took part in that, even if the English did build a "platform". And I very much doubt it would have been in the same part of India anyway.
The wiki article on the eclipse of 18 Aug, 1868, here [5] concludes on the basis of Wikibios that Janssen was in Guntur and Lockyear in Vijaydurg. But that does not make sense, as Lockyear observed helium in non-eclipse situation a month after Janssen, and was not in India at all, but at home in the UK (I just confirmed that). Nevertheless, Janssen's report from India and Lockyear's from the UK arrived at the French Academy on the same day, so they are often treated as codiscoverers. Interestingly, Janssen had constructed the first spectroheliograph soon after the eclipse, and proven to himself that he could see the helium line at the Sun's limb, without needing an eclipse, starting very soon after the eclipse. So he also knew this before Lockyear independently discovered the fact.
Janssen (head of the French team to go to India for the eclipse of 18 Aug 1868) most certainly DID go to India, and saw the Aug 18, 1868 eclipse there at a "camp" near Guntur (Guntoor) town (that might be Vijaydurg fort, or it might not). There was a also a British team there for the same purpose, led by a Col. Tennant, in the same area and the same track, that also saw the eclipse and the helium line (TENNANT might have been at Vijaydurg, especially if the platform there is really an "English platform" for observing that eclipse, and not a French one). The eclipse track was said to have passed through the modern state of Andhra Pradesh [6]. The camps could have been anywhere in the track. Here is more [7] This traveler is unaware that Lockyear didn't go to India. But if these are English platforms perhaps they were built by the Tennant English team, and Lockyear is known to have looked at both the French and the English results (which both showed the helium line) and conclude (from England) that a new element was present, and not sodium. S B H arris 01:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
There are two article of Jansen describing his trip to the eclips and two biographies:
If they do not mention anything ....... -- Stone ( talk) 09:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Even James Francis Tennant was not there, but in book [9] it is said that one JPEC sponsored expedition made camp and an abandoned coastal for. -- Stone ( talk) 15:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
[11] states that Maunder in 1898 could not go to Viziadrug because Lockyer was observing there.-- Stone ( talk) 20:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the definitive word on where Janssen was for the 1868 Indian eclipse, in which the first use of a spectroscope on an eclipse discovered helium-- he was indeed in Guntur, not in Vijaydurg fort. We still don't know where "Col. Tennant" and the English team in India for 1868 were. I'm not even sure that the "Col. Tennant" who led the English eclipse team to India in 1868 is the same James Francis Tennant, scientist. He may be. But if James F. Tennant, scientist, wasn't in India to see the elicpse of 1868, then these are two different Tennants. S B H arris 01:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The eclipse of 1898 30 years later, was one in which Lockyear participated directly from India. Apparently he did build the platform at Vijaydurg fort for this, but he wasn't interested in finding helium-- all that had been long settled. But the rumors that Vigjaydurg had something to do with finding helium in India persist, due the confusion between the eclipses of 1868 and 1898, and Lockyear (codiscoverer of helium) being personally present in India in Vijaydurg IN 1898 for the eclipse of that year (he hadn't been to India in 1868). You didn't write it wrong. Your source says Viziadrug and that's simply another name for Vijaydurg. Lockyear was there, 30 years after helium's discovery, doing something else with THAT eclipse. S B H arris 09:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I think when I read the Lockyear article he makes clear that the eclipse data from India was not used for his findings of Helium. Neither was the data from Jannsen nor from any other eclipse source. He said that all he needed was derived from his own data collected in his garden in London.
One book I mentioned above states for the 1868 eclipse one JPEC sponsored expedition made camp and an abandoned coastal fort the path of the eclipse is going over Vijaydurgand they only used places which were either reachable by train or had a harbour. This makes clear that even in 1868 it might be possible to have some English astronomers at the fort. The platform might be from the 1868 or 1898 expedition, but helium was neither discovered there nor was data used from this expedition for the discovery.-- Stone ( talk) 11:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC) After a long look into the literature on that topic the edit request finally is declined.-- Stone ( talk) 11:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
What color is Helium II liquid? Does anyone have access to a link to a color photograph of it? Keraunos ( talk) 05:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
This is a black and white photo, but there's no reason to think it's colored. It's described as colorless, just as helium I is. Actually, on closer look the color photo used in this article is a closeup of THIS photo, so the color photo shows superfluid helium already. I'll re-label it. S B H arris 23:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Can someone please add this info in the article? It says it's semi-protected and I don't know how to edit it Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1305386/Earths-helium-reserves-run-25-years.html
Thanks!
I think reading:
Reserve, Committee on Understanding the Impact of Selling the Helium; Board, National Materials Advisory; Council, National Research (2010-06-30). Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve. ISBN 9780309149792.
makes me think we still have some helium.
And: The helium is produced by alpha decay in the earth's interior so there will be always new helium we can use.
-- Stone ( talk) 22:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
It seems to me that it would be useful to have an image of helium being wasted uselessly. The photo of the Flying house reenactment of the movie "Up" seems perfect for this. Perhaps someone can upload it to wikimedia commons ? 91.182.130.233 ( talk) 10:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Liquid density of Helium at M.P. is 0.125 instead of 0.145. Can be verified by using a number of external sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.194.251.123 ( talk) 18:13, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
Current Infobox text: "Appearance: [...] exhibiting a purple glow when placed in a high voltage electric field"
Which image and color is "correct"? -- Cybercobra (talk) 07:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
erm... "two Swedish chemists, Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langlet, emanating from the uranium ore cleveite"?? Neat trick! Can this be rephrased? Plantsurfer ( talk) 22:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I think the following paragraph:
"By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.[4][28] The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996"[29] (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to start emptying the reserve by 2005."
would be clearer if phrased:
"By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.[4][28] The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996"[29] (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to empty the reserve, starting no later than 2005."
As it is it can be read that the plan was that the reserve would be emptied by 2005. Thanks. Peculiarist ( talk) 03:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Can the following phrase "thus an Earthly helium balloon is essentially a bag of retired alpha particles." be made a bit more encyclopdedic? (For want of a better word) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.132.66 ( talk) 17:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
In the liquid helium section of this article, it is stated that the bulk modulus of LHe is ~50MPa, and there's a reference to an article discussing solid helium. I believe this is incorrect and that figure probably relates to solid helium. A more commonly assumed/cited bulk modulus of liquid helium is 268 Bar (~27MPa), according to Pressure-volume-temperature relations in liquid and solid4He - E.R. Grilly, J. Low Temp. Phys. 11, 33 (1973). http://www.springerlink.com/content/m3175u35hgnq0127/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.174.73 ( talk) 20:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
How can this be true? What then is the least reactive element?
Asgrrr ( talk) 13:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
This must be wrong then, or confusingly worded:
"Helium is the least reactive noble gas after neon and thus the second least reactive of all elements"
Does it mean that Neon is more reactive than Helium, therefore Helium is "after" Neon, or the other way around? This is not good wording.
Asgrrr ( talk) 15:06, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Surprisingly enough, this is actually disputed. That helium is a noble gas is not in question; what has been disputed is that helium is in the same group as neon, argon, etc.
Charles Janet's 1928 table had helium over beryllium, and some chemists actually have published journal articles supporting this placement (e.g. Henry Bent (here), quoted by his daughter here, Felice Grandinetti here, Wojciech Grochala here, Mikhail Kurushkin here). And there has been some discussion of it, not just from supporters, (e.g. here), which is evidence that this is something that should be taken seriously (yes, I know it sounds chemically ridiculous, but is it really that much worse-looking at first glance than hydrogen over lithium?). Eric Scerri has also discussed this very issue (helium over neon vs beryllium), though he did write that "This move can be justified on the basis of the outer-electron structure of helium, which possesses two such electrons, as do the members of the alkaline earth group. From a chemical point of view, the placement of helium among these metals amounts to complete heresy."
Perhaps a brief note about this small controversy, that after all does have over ninety years of helium-over-beryllium as an idea (albeit one never getting anywhere with most chemists for obvious reasons) is warranted. (After all, Greenwood and Earnshaw did "float" helium like you often see hydrogen.)
(P.S. A brief disclaimer that I myself support helium over beryllium. In my opinion, placement of elements is about electronic structure that explains chemistry, not about correlations in the final chemical behaviour that is a lot of steps removed from the origins even if still related. Otherwise we have trouble explaining nitrogen and bismuth in the same group: N is strongly nonmetallic, Bi is definitely metallic (even if a weak metal), and the oxidation states favoured are different (N: +5/-3, Bi: +3). But of course, my reason for suggesting this is that this has gotten serious coverage in journals. ^_^) Double sharp ( talk) 08:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
H | He | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
13.6 | 24.6 | ||||||
Li | Be | B | C | N | O | F | Ne |
5.39 | 9.32 | 8.30 | 11.3 | 14.5 | 13.6 | 17.4 | 21.6 |
Na | Mg | Al | Si | P | S | Cl | Ar |
5.14 | 7.65 | 5.99 | 8.15 | 10.5 | 10.4 | 13.0 | 15.8 |
K | Ca | Ga | Ge | As | Se | Br | Kr |
4.34 | 6.11 | 6.00 | 7.90 | 9.79 | 9.75 | 11.8 | 14.0 |
Rb | Sr | In | Sn | Sb | Te | I | Xe |
4.18 | 5.69 | 5.79 | 7.34 | 8.61 | 9.01 | 10.5 | 12.1 |
Cs | Ba | Tl | Pb | Bi | Po | At | Rn |
3.89 | 5.21 | 6.11 | 7.42 | 7.29 | 8.42 | 9.32 | 10.7 |
To clarify: I simply suggest adding a brief footnote after talking about the group placement of helium reading:
"Some authors, including Henry Bent, Wojciech Grochala, and Mikhail Kurushkin, have questioned the placement of helium over neon at the head of the noble gas group, suggesting that it should be moved to go over beryllium in group 2: this placement dates back to Charles Janet's 1928 periodic table. (Even earlier, Irving Langmuir had placed helium both over neon and over beryllium in his 1919 periodic table.) They point to, among other arguments, the 1s2 configuration of helium with no p-electrons, the principle of first-element distinctiveness (s >> p > d > f), the lower capacity for chemical bonding expected of neon compared to helium, and consistency between trends of group 1 and group 2 elements.[cites] However, the vast majority of published periodic tables place helium over neon due to their strongly similar chemical inertness."
In other words, we mention that this has been argued about, but just briefly, reflecting that this is very much a minority view that is only worth commenting on because it has adherents notable enough for articles. ( Eric Scerri is another one, but he has changed his mind about it before. Janet's table is from 1928, incidentally!) Does that seem reasonable? Double sharp ( talk) 06:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Another paper. Putting helium over beryllium, either instead of or in addition to over neon, is very old indeed ( Irving Langmuir put He in both places in 1919 already, which is something I've added to my proposed footnote above). This is surely something serious enough to devote a footnote to, even if it looks chemically awkward at first glance. Double sharp ( talk) 15:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@ RexxS and Gah4: I have added a footnote to the article discussing this issue, reading as follows; no other change has been made.
“ | Some authors dispute the placement of helium in the noble gas column, preferring to place it above beryllium with the alkaline earth metals. They do so on the grounds of helium's 1s2 electron configuration, which is analogous to the ns2 valence configurations of the alkaline earth metals; trends in normalized ionization potentials and electron affinities; the slightly greater predicted reactivity of helium compared to neon, breaking the noble gas trend; the analogies of predicted helium compounds to beryllium compounds (neon analogues are usually predicted to be unstable); the hcp crystal structure of solid helium, matching beryllium and magnesium but not neon and argon; the idea that the periodic table should be based on the electron configurations and chemical elements rather than simple substances; and the trend of first-row anomalies in the periodic table (s >> p > d > f). Advocates of this form include Charles Janet, Henry Bent, Wojciech Grochala, Felice Grandinetti, and Mikhail Kurushkin; it has been discussed as well by Eric Scerri, and Irving Langmuir in 1919 placed helium both over beryllium and over neon in his periodic table. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] However, most chemists prefer to place helium with the other noble gases, as its extraordinary inertness is extremely close to that of the other light noble gases neon and argon. [6] | ” |
References
I hope this is acceptable; if not, we can discuss further. Double sharp ( talk) 09:08, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Helium has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Short version: Change source [92] to this scientific paper: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00231630/document
Long version: Hi. I noticed that the info about helium's solidification pressure at room temperature (114,000 ATM) doesn't have the best source. It's some sort of kid's science fact website, so I felt a scientific paper would be more appropriate. After a few minutes, I found a paper: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00231630/document (free to access). I checked with the wiki and the paper matches the solidification pressure of 114 ATM, or 115 Bar. I hope you find this additional source helpful. -Sam Pencatpigpus ( talk) 19:09, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I question the propriety of this paragraph: On July 13, 2017
CBS News reported that a political operative who reportedly attempted to recover e-mails missing from the Clinton server,
Peter W. Smith, "apparently" committed suicide in May at a hotel room in Rochester, Minnesota and that his death was recorded as "asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium".
[1] More details followed in the
Chicago Tribune.
[2]
The latter source flat-out says it was suicide while our article puts scare quotes and at no point is it explained what "GOP" or "Clinton server" are or why they are relevant to an article about an element. I see that
suicide by helium inhalation is unfortunately rather common and even has some press coverage on Google, so it's not clear whether a whole paragraph is warranted at all per
WP:UNDUE
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
20:45, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
References
This very interesting picture is taken from an excellent video demonstration presented here. I have no idea what I'm doing here, but I know I spent hours looking for this video through the wikis for superfluidity, second sound, etc. which all contain stills from this video but no attribution. I'm not sure how to add it in, but I think this video - especially the original if it can be found (this uploader added a splash and some short overlays) is an excellent reference and his clearly delivered information coupled with excellent videography helped me understand concepts I have struggled with for a while. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.186.78 ( talk) 05:29, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Helium has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
give me 10k i will edit this 37.40.227.29 ( talk) 13:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Just like is done for the Melting-point. If feels a bit inconsistent now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koitus~nlwiki ( talk • contribs) 20:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Helium was once also produced by fractional distillation of air, and may still be in some parts of the world. In the UK in the post-war period, for example, there were two common varieties of industrial Helium, the expensive US Helium was the purer, while the locally produced variety was from air liquification. Andrewa ( talk) 19:12, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
See also https://euchems2010.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/put-down-that-helium-an-interview-with-nobel-laureate-robert-richardson/ for some other stuff of interest. Andrewa ( talk) 01:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Definitely oxygen can be liquified without liquid helium, usually fractional distillation of liquid air. Hydrogen can be liquified without helium also, but maybe it is easier with helium. Gah4 ( talk) 01:19, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Location and Abundance of 3HE since 2020,advanced usages for Propulsion in Spaceflight feasibly. (Theory). 159.235.169.232 ( talk) 03:47, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
There is a ref poking out in the "Conservation advocates" section. That is not how it is done!!! Also. no point having an acrynym if it is not going to ne used.. 103.21.175.235 ( talk) 03:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The section on the use of helium in diving is a bit misleading. Helium in itself does not protect against oxygen toxicity - reducing the amount of oxygen in the mix is what does that. You can achieve this by mixing helium with air and thus diluting the percentage oxygen in the mix, but there is nothing special about helium for this purpose. Helium also does not help reduce decompression time (at least for sports mixed-gas divers, I can't speak for military or commercial uses). Decompression theory is not an exact science, but many models will actually give a longer deco time if you replace nitrogen with helium. The key variable to deco timing is the percentage of oxygen in the mix (so when you reduce the oxygen percentage to avoid an oxygen tox, the trade-off is longer decompression times). The main reason for using helium in a deep diving mix is to reduce Nitrogen Narcosis. N.B. as well as the cost (helium is expensive) one of the problems of using Heliox as a dive gas is that it can affect your nervous system at depth (High Pressure Nervous Syndrome). For this reason, sports divers will normally stick with Trimix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodgerclarke ( talk • contribs) 09:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
This page is being recked by spammers - I think we should go back to a point before vandalism and then lock the page if possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxfoil ( talk • contribs) 18:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC) What 'spammers' are you referring to? You're not being specific 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)LeucineZipper
Because it is lighter than air, airships and balloons are inflated with helium for lift. In airships, helium is preferred over hydrogen because it is not inflammable and has 92.64% of the buoyancy (or lifting power) of the alternative hydrogen (see calculation.)
75.181.46.158 ( talk) 01:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The picture of an empty vial in the infobox is IMHO not only useless but may lead to a false impression that helium forms a kind of a bubble in the vial. And it looks beige rather than colorless in the picture. These hold for pictures of other colorless gases, too. In my opinion these pictures should be removed ASAP. Regards, Michał Sobkowski ( talk) 08:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
No mention in the article about the amount of helium left in the earth? I read in Wired that we had about a nine year supply at the rate we were using it currently, is this true? KiwiTallGuy ( talk) 10:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
See the section on Natural Abundance, last paragraph. Chemist Lee Sobotka says (see reference cited) that the largest reserve in Texas has an eight-year supply at current rates, but there is more elsewhere. The reference also says that Sobotka believes that Russia will be the world's major source of helium in 30 years. Dirac66 ( talk) 13:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
There is more information in this article on liquid helium than there is in the Liquid helium article which is little more than a stub. I would think either a merge into Helium of a split out into Liquid helium would be in order. SpinningSpark 19:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Helium’s symbol on the periodic table is He. Its atomic number is 2 and its atomic weight is 4. It is the second lightest element after hydrogen. In its most common form, Helium 4, it has 2 Protons, Neutrons and electrons, though in its second and rare form, helium 3, it only contains one neutron. Helium has the lowest melting and boiling points of all elements being –272.2 C for the melting point and –268.93 C for the boiling point. Most of the time it is in it usual form, gas. Helium is colourless, odourless, tasteless, non-toxic, unreactive, 6 time lighter than the air we breath and part of the noble gas group of the periodic table.
Helium was first discovered by Pierre Janssen on the 18th of August 1868 when he came across a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49nm[nanometers], in the spectrum of the chromosphere of the sun while observing an eclipse of the sun in India. Helium was then discovered by Joseph Lockyer on the 20th of October that same year while observing outer space. Lockyer concluded that it was caused by an unknown element, after unsuccessful testing to see if it were some new type of hydrogen.
Did you know that Helium was the first element discovered in space, before it was discovered on Earth? Also, I bet you didn’t know that Lockyer and an English chemist Edward Frankland, named the element after the Greek word for sun, Helios (written in Greek as it shows on the board). Most helium on earth is stored in the natural gas field in the US. In the modern universe almost all new helium is created as a result of the nuclear fusion in stars.
Helium is commonly used to change the pitch of a person’s voice however it is not a gas that is already in our body so it could be dangerous if too much is inhaled. One danger is as bad as death by asphyxiation (a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body) within minutes if breathing pure helium continuously. Helium is also used to inflate balloons and to make them rise to the roof or even further if released. These are common at special events, parties and celebrations. Helium is used for many other less common uses for example cryogenics (the study of very low temperatures), Deep-sea breathing gas, Cool superconducting magnets, Helium dating (a method of determining the age of a substance), Providing lift in airships such as blimps and all kinds of non-rigid airships, and as a protective gas for many industrial uses (eg. arc welding and growing silicon wafers) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maddyson 961 ( talk • contribs) 11:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any specific information here that is not already covered in the Wikipedia article. Please clarify exactly what changes you want made. DMacks ( talk) 14:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
The last revision by User:Cryptic C62 was useful in bringing the references for high pressure nervous syndrome and the effect of easier breathing using heliox. However, these are concerns manifested principally below 150 m. The edit removed the mention of trimix which is the gas of choice for the 40 m to 150 m range. Since the majority of deep diving is in the latter range, we have lost the principal diving use of helium and substituted its use in exoteric scenarios that is really only of relevance in the field of extreme diving. In my humble opinion, it is also a mistake to take out the mention of "narcosis", since that is what it is known as (I've never heard a diver complaining that s/he had suffered from "pressure-induced neurological symptoms"). Perhaps one interpretation of WP:SPADE might be "Don't use over-technical language when plain language will do"?
As much as I dislike expanding a FA into topics it's not really about, I'll try to re-instate the use of helium in trimix to avoid nitrogen narcosis and do my best to leave in the HPNS. -- RexxS ( talk) 21:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
colour? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.186.110 ( talk) 20:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I am no expert on this and i am not debating the factual accuracy of it. In the applications section it says that it affects one's timbre but not pitch. But in the biological effect section it says that it changes the timbre in a high pitched way. How is this possible? Better let someone change it before it loses it's FA status. -- Stinkypie ( talk) 14:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Helium gas has faster speed of sound than air, therefore as frequency is inversely proportional to the speed of sound – it is the frequency that will change. Therefore the pitch of the voice will change (to a higher pitch). 00:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaniss2 ( talk • contribs)
Should there be something mentioning its non-renewability? I'm no expert, but perhaps it deserves a mention somewhere, now we're in this environmentally conscious world. Greeny-- 210.50.186.57 ( talk) 06:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I wanted to bring attention to an article on the helium atom, which currently has few articles linking to it. I think it makes sense for something in this article to link to helium atom, but I wouldn't know where to insert this information. Thank you. Loves Macs (talk) 00:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I believe that the density of Liquid Helium given in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium is incorrect as 0.176 g / litre. To the best of my knowledge (and I buy the stuff by the kg), 1 litre of Liquid Helium has a mass of 0.125 kg.
Sincerely,
Andy Soper +27 82 56 27037 a.soper@ru.ac.za —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.231.129.50 ( talk) 14:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Compounds section says:
Are you sure? Or is the stmt simply and hillariously jumping between our mental image of the chemical properties and the chemical properties themselves? Or do we believe in magic and mind's control over matter? ... said: Rursus ( bork²) 18:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Am I incorrectly assuming that the Big Bang is still theoretical? I was unaware that helium could indeed be produced by a theoretical model of the creation of the universe. I would assume there would be 100% evidence for the Big Bang being the correct model of creation of the universe before stating that Helium was produced in the Big Bang, instead of being theoretically produced in it. Can we get clarification for the reason this wording was chosen?
In this article, the word "elegant" is misspelled "elligant".
All the common element articles are excessively IP vandalized, and it's starting now again. S B H arris 18:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Correction to the opening paragraph of the main article: Helium is believed to make up 24 percent of the elemental (i.e., baryonic) mass of the universe (consisting of protons, neutrons, etc.), not the total mass. Most of the mass of the universe is currently believed to be non-baryonic, namely dark matter and dark energy. Compare the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia main article on "Hydrogen". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.2.195 ( talk) 06:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
The last sentence of the first paragraph of Helium#Compounds says, "If confirmed by experiment such compounds will end helium's chemical nobility, and the only remaining noble element will be neon." This seems to be a strange thing to say. For one thing, as has been previously pointed out under " Funny stmt", our experimental confirmation of helium compounds will not change helium's inertness itself—it will only modify whether we believe it is inert or not. Additionally, I don't know whether "nobility" is the right term here. We still refer to all of the group 18 elements as noble gases, even though we know some of them form chemical compounds, right? I don't feel comfortable enough with my meager grasp of chemistry to change the sentence itself, so could someone address this, please? — Bkell ( talk) 17:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
The article says that "only the very heaviest stars" produce helium ("at the very end of their lives"). Does anyone have the percentage of such stars? It's not like they are all 'blue supergiants', I have read that even type K will engage in some helium burning, which includes nearly all of those stars that expired by now. But these really are less abundant than less massive stars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC) 24.184.234.24 ( talk) 19:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)LeucineZipper
The first picture under the heading "Characteristics" (the big one which shows the electron distribution and the nucleus with a black bar that is one Å) does not look like it is to scale, yet gives the impression that it is. For it to be to scale you would have to fit 100,000 of the pink dots in the center side by side on the black line. To me it looks like you might be able to fit 100 times at the most. If I'm right, I think someone should clarify in the text that the size of the electron cloud and the nucleus isn't to scale in the picture, or another picture should be chosen.
On a slightly different, more uncertain note, I thought the electron distribution would look different. In the picture it seems like it just steadily decreases outwards from a maximum at the nucleus, but I thought there was a region of low probability around the center, climbing from 0 at the nucleus to a maximum some distance out and then decreasing like in the picture. This might also be because of strange scales in the pic though. -- Knuthove 22:14, June 1, 2010 (UTC)
"In 2000[update], the U.S. has proven helium reserves, in such gas well complexes, of about 147 billion standard cubic feet (42 billion SCM). This is enough helium for about 25 years of world use, or 35 years of U.S. use, although factors in saving and processing impact effective reserve numbers.[78][79]"
First of all, there are 35.3 cu ft in 1 m^3, so either the 147 figure or the 42 figure is obviously wrong. Further, neither of the two references given mentions EITHER figure. Neither reference is a primary or authoritative reference, anyway.
Somebody with the time, either fix this or rip it out.
Fnj2 ( talk) 06:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
{{Edit semi-protected}}
On 18-08-1868, a solar eclipse day a French scientist Janssen took spectrometer readings from this fort Vijaydurg, one of the oldest forts on sindhudurga coast of India. The stone benches he used for taking the readings are known as “saheb’s kattas” in local language. These spectrometer readings helped in detecting the presence of “Helium”, one of the basic elements on Sun http://www.konkanonline.com/Sindhudurg/Vijaydurg-Fort.html
Interesting. The date is the same, and eclipses last such a sort time that he can't have the data from two sites. The article states that it was the eclipse of Guntur, India, but that doesn't mean that the total-eclipse ground track was ONLY at Guntur. These things pass in a linear arc typically for long distances. Janssen may well have been somewhere near, like Vijaydurg fort, in which case it's a simple matter to put in " Vijaydurg fort, during the Guntur, India eclipse of 18 Aug, 1868." I'd like another cite (the WP article on Vijaydurg fort says the same, but uses the same cite), and will look at the web to see if this is mention in any chem histories. How far is Vijaydurg from Guntur, anyway?
This [4] cite gives Vijaydurg fort as the location of the English Platform from which the Englishman J. Norman Lockyear took eclipse readings in 1898. But that isn't right for many reasons, as Lockyear took his readings in 1868, the same year as Janssen, but several months later and not necessarily during an eclipse (evidence is that it was not). This grows ever more mysterious. There was an important eclipse in India in 1898, but none of these helium people took part in that, even if the English did build a "platform". And I very much doubt it would have been in the same part of India anyway.
The wiki article on the eclipse of 18 Aug, 1868, here [5] concludes on the basis of Wikibios that Janssen was in Guntur and Lockyear in Vijaydurg. But that does not make sense, as Lockyear observed helium in non-eclipse situation a month after Janssen, and was not in India at all, but at home in the UK (I just confirmed that). Nevertheless, Janssen's report from India and Lockyear's from the UK arrived at the French Academy on the same day, so they are often treated as codiscoverers. Interestingly, Janssen had constructed the first spectroheliograph soon after the eclipse, and proven to himself that he could see the helium line at the Sun's limb, without needing an eclipse, starting very soon after the eclipse. So he also knew this before Lockyear independently discovered the fact.
Janssen (head of the French team to go to India for the eclipse of 18 Aug 1868) most certainly DID go to India, and saw the Aug 18, 1868 eclipse there at a "camp" near Guntur (Guntoor) town (that might be Vijaydurg fort, or it might not). There was a also a British team there for the same purpose, led by a Col. Tennant, in the same area and the same track, that also saw the eclipse and the helium line (TENNANT might have been at Vijaydurg, especially if the platform there is really an "English platform" for observing that eclipse, and not a French one). The eclipse track was said to have passed through the modern state of Andhra Pradesh [6]. The camps could have been anywhere in the track. Here is more [7] This traveler is unaware that Lockyear didn't go to India. But if these are English platforms perhaps they were built by the Tennant English team, and Lockyear is known to have looked at both the French and the English results (which both showed the helium line) and conclude (from England) that a new element was present, and not sodium. S B H arris 01:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
There are two article of Jansen describing his trip to the eclips and two biographies:
If they do not mention anything ....... -- Stone ( talk) 09:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Even James Francis Tennant was not there, but in book [9] it is said that one JPEC sponsored expedition made camp and an abandoned coastal for. -- Stone ( talk) 15:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
[11] states that Maunder in 1898 could not go to Viziadrug because Lockyer was observing there.-- Stone ( talk) 20:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the definitive word on where Janssen was for the 1868 Indian eclipse, in which the first use of a spectroscope on an eclipse discovered helium-- he was indeed in Guntur, not in Vijaydurg fort. We still don't know where "Col. Tennant" and the English team in India for 1868 were. I'm not even sure that the "Col. Tennant" who led the English eclipse team to India in 1868 is the same James Francis Tennant, scientist. He may be. But if James F. Tennant, scientist, wasn't in India to see the elicpse of 1868, then these are two different Tennants. S B H arris 01:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The eclipse of 1898 30 years later, was one in which Lockyear participated directly from India. Apparently he did build the platform at Vijaydurg fort for this, but he wasn't interested in finding helium-- all that had been long settled. But the rumors that Vigjaydurg had something to do with finding helium in India persist, due the confusion between the eclipses of 1868 and 1898, and Lockyear (codiscoverer of helium) being personally present in India in Vijaydurg IN 1898 for the eclipse of that year (he hadn't been to India in 1868). You didn't write it wrong. Your source says Viziadrug and that's simply another name for Vijaydurg. Lockyear was there, 30 years after helium's discovery, doing something else with THAT eclipse. S B H arris 09:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I think when I read the Lockyear article he makes clear that the eclipse data from India was not used for his findings of Helium. Neither was the data from Jannsen nor from any other eclipse source. He said that all he needed was derived from his own data collected in his garden in London.
One book I mentioned above states for the 1868 eclipse one JPEC sponsored expedition made camp and an abandoned coastal fort the path of the eclipse is going over Vijaydurgand they only used places which were either reachable by train or had a harbour. This makes clear that even in 1868 it might be possible to have some English astronomers at the fort. The platform might be from the 1868 or 1898 expedition, but helium was neither discovered there nor was data used from this expedition for the discovery.-- Stone ( talk) 11:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC) After a long look into the literature on that topic the edit request finally is declined.-- Stone ( talk) 11:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
What color is Helium II liquid? Does anyone have access to a link to a color photograph of it? Keraunos ( talk) 05:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
This is a black and white photo, but there's no reason to think it's colored. It's described as colorless, just as helium I is. Actually, on closer look the color photo used in this article is a closeup of THIS photo, so the color photo shows superfluid helium already. I'll re-label it. S B H arris 23:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Can someone please add this info in the article? It says it's semi-protected and I don't know how to edit it Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1305386/Earths-helium-reserves-run-25-years.html
Thanks!
I think reading:
Reserve, Committee on Understanding the Impact of Selling the Helium; Board, National Materials Advisory; Council, National Research (2010-06-30). Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve. ISBN 9780309149792.
makes me think we still have some helium.
And: The helium is produced by alpha decay in the earth's interior so there will be always new helium we can use.
-- Stone ( talk) 22:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
It seems to me that it would be useful to have an image of helium being wasted uselessly. The photo of the Flying house reenactment of the movie "Up" seems perfect for this. Perhaps someone can upload it to wikimedia commons ? 91.182.130.233 ( talk) 10:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Liquid density of Helium at M.P. is 0.125 instead of 0.145. Can be verified by using a number of external sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.194.251.123 ( talk) 18:13, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
Current Infobox text: "Appearance: [...] exhibiting a purple glow when placed in a high voltage electric field"
Which image and color is "correct"? -- Cybercobra (talk) 07:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
erm... "two Swedish chemists, Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langlet, emanating from the uranium ore cleveite"?? Neat trick! Can this be rephrased? Plantsurfer ( talk) 22:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I think the following paragraph:
"By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.[4][28] The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996"[29] (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to start emptying the reserve by 2005."
would be clearer if phrased:
"By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.[4][28] The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996"[29] (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to empty the reserve, starting no later than 2005."
As it is it can be read that the plan was that the reserve would be emptied by 2005. Thanks. Peculiarist ( talk) 03:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Can the following phrase "thus an Earthly helium balloon is essentially a bag of retired alpha particles." be made a bit more encyclopdedic? (For want of a better word) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.132.66 ( talk) 17:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
In the liquid helium section of this article, it is stated that the bulk modulus of LHe is ~50MPa, and there's a reference to an article discussing solid helium. I believe this is incorrect and that figure probably relates to solid helium. A more commonly assumed/cited bulk modulus of liquid helium is 268 Bar (~27MPa), according to Pressure-volume-temperature relations in liquid and solid4He - E.R. Grilly, J. Low Temp. Phys. 11, 33 (1973). http://www.springerlink.com/content/m3175u35hgnq0127/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.174.73 ( talk) 20:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
How can this be true? What then is the least reactive element?
Asgrrr ( talk) 13:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
This must be wrong then, or confusingly worded:
"Helium is the least reactive noble gas after neon and thus the second least reactive of all elements"
Does it mean that Neon is more reactive than Helium, therefore Helium is "after" Neon, or the other way around? This is not good wording.
Asgrrr ( talk) 15:06, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Surprisingly enough, this is actually disputed. That helium is a noble gas is not in question; what has been disputed is that helium is in the same group as neon, argon, etc.
Charles Janet's 1928 table had helium over beryllium, and some chemists actually have published journal articles supporting this placement (e.g. Henry Bent (here), quoted by his daughter here, Felice Grandinetti here, Wojciech Grochala here, Mikhail Kurushkin here). And there has been some discussion of it, not just from supporters, (e.g. here), which is evidence that this is something that should be taken seriously (yes, I know it sounds chemically ridiculous, but is it really that much worse-looking at first glance than hydrogen over lithium?). Eric Scerri has also discussed this very issue (helium over neon vs beryllium), though he did write that "This move can be justified on the basis of the outer-electron structure of helium, which possesses two such electrons, as do the members of the alkaline earth group. From a chemical point of view, the placement of helium among these metals amounts to complete heresy."
Perhaps a brief note about this small controversy, that after all does have over ninety years of helium-over-beryllium as an idea (albeit one never getting anywhere with most chemists for obvious reasons) is warranted. (After all, Greenwood and Earnshaw did "float" helium like you often see hydrogen.)
(P.S. A brief disclaimer that I myself support helium over beryllium. In my opinion, placement of elements is about electronic structure that explains chemistry, not about correlations in the final chemical behaviour that is a lot of steps removed from the origins even if still related. Otherwise we have trouble explaining nitrogen and bismuth in the same group: N is strongly nonmetallic, Bi is definitely metallic (even if a weak metal), and the oxidation states favoured are different (N: +5/-3, Bi: +3). But of course, my reason for suggesting this is that this has gotten serious coverage in journals. ^_^) Double sharp ( talk) 08:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
H | He | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
13.6 | 24.6 | ||||||
Li | Be | B | C | N | O | F | Ne |
5.39 | 9.32 | 8.30 | 11.3 | 14.5 | 13.6 | 17.4 | 21.6 |
Na | Mg | Al | Si | P | S | Cl | Ar |
5.14 | 7.65 | 5.99 | 8.15 | 10.5 | 10.4 | 13.0 | 15.8 |
K | Ca | Ga | Ge | As | Se | Br | Kr |
4.34 | 6.11 | 6.00 | 7.90 | 9.79 | 9.75 | 11.8 | 14.0 |
Rb | Sr | In | Sn | Sb | Te | I | Xe |
4.18 | 5.69 | 5.79 | 7.34 | 8.61 | 9.01 | 10.5 | 12.1 |
Cs | Ba | Tl | Pb | Bi | Po | At | Rn |
3.89 | 5.21 | 6.11 | 7.42 | 7.29 | 8.42 | 9.32 | 10.7 |
To clarify: I simply suggest adding a brief footnote after talking about the group placement of helium reading:
"Some authors, including Henry Bent, Wojciech Grochala, and Mikhail Kurushkin, have questioned the placement of helium over neon at the head of the noble gas group, suggesting that it should be moved to go over beryllium in group 2: this placement dates back to Charles Janet's 1928 periodic table. (Even earlier, Irving Langmuir had placed helium both over neon and over beryllium in his 1919 periodic table.) They point to, among other arguments, the 1s2 configuration of helium with no p-electrons, the principle of first-element distinctiveness (s >> p > d > f), the lower capacity for chemical bonding expected of neon compared to helium, and consistency between trends of group 1 and group 2 elements.[cites] However, the vast majority of published periodic tables place helium over neon due to their strongly similar chemical inertness."
In other words, we mention that this has been argued about, but just briefly, reflecting that this is very much a minority view that is only worth commenting on because it has adherents notable enough for articles. ( Eric Scerri is another one, but he has changed his mind about it before. Janet's table is from 1928, incidentally!) Does that seem reasonable? Double sharp ( talk) 06:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Another paper. Putting helium over beryllium, either instead of or in addition to over neon, is very old indeed ( Irving Langmuir put He in both places in 1919 already, which is something I've added to my proposed footnote above). This is surely something serious enough to devote a footnote to, even if it looks chemically awkward at first glance. Double sharp ( talk) 15:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@ RexxS and Gah4: I have added a footnote to the article discussing this issue, reading as follows; no other change has been made.
“ | Some authors dispute the placement of helium in the noble gas column, preferring to place it above beryllium with the alkaline earth metals. They do so on the grounds of helium's 1s2 electron configuration, which is analogous to the ns2 valence configurations of the alkaline earth metals; trends in normalized ionization potentials and electron affinities; the slightly greater predicted reactivity of helium compared to neon, breaking the noble gas trend; the analogies of predicted helium compounds to beryllium compounds (neon analogues are usually predicted to be unstable); the hcp crystal structure of solid helium, matching beryllium and magnesium but not neon and argon; the idea that the periodic table should be based on the electron configurations and chemical elements rather than simple substances; and the trend of first-row anomalies in the periodic table (s >> p > d > f). Advocates of this form include Charles Janet, Henry Bent, Wojciech Grochala, Felice Grandinetti, and Mikhail Kurushkin; it has been discussed as well by Eric Scerri, and Irving Langmuir in 1919 placed helium both over beryllium and over neon in his periodic table. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] However, most chemists prefer to place helium with the other noble gases, as its extraordinary inertness is extremely close to that of the other light noble gases neon and argon. [6] | ” |
References
I hope this is acceptable; if not, we can discuss further. Double sharp ( talk) 09:08, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Helium has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Short version: Change source [92] to this scientific paper: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00231630/document
Long version: Hi. I noticed that the info about helium's solidification pressure at room temperature (114,000 ATM) doesn't have the best source. It's some sort of kid's science fact website, so I felt a scientific paper would be more appropriate. After a few minutes, I found a paper: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/jpa-00231630/document (free to access). I checked with the wiki and the paper matches the solidification pressure of 114 ATM, or 115 Bar. I hope you find this additional source helpful. -Sam Pencatpigpus ( talk) 19:09, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I question the propriety of this paragraph: On July 13, 2017
CBS News reported that a political operative who reportedly attempted to recover e-mails missing from the Clinton server,
Peter W. Smith, "apparently" committed suicide in May at a hotel room in Rochester, Minnesota and that his death was recorded as "asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium".
[1] More details followed in the
Chicago Tribune.
[2]
The latter source flat-out says it was suicide while our article puts scare quotes and at no point is it explained what "GOP" or "Clinton server" are or why they are relevant to an article about an element. I see that
suicide by helium inhalation is unfortunately rather common and even has some press coverage on Google, so it's not clear whether a whole paragraph is warranted at all per
WP:UNDUE
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
20:45, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
References
This very interesting picture is taken from an excellent video demonstration presented here. I have no idea what I'm doing here, but I know I spent hours looking for this video through the wikis for superfluidity, second sound, etc. which all contain stills from this video but no attribution. I'm not sure how to add it in, but I think this video - especially the original if it can be found (this uploader added a splash and some short overlays) is an excellent reference and his clearly delivered information coupled with excellent videography helped me understand concepts I have struggled with for a while. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.186.78 ( talk) 05:29, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Helium has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
give me 10k i will edit this 37.40.227.29 ( talk) 13:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Just like is done for the Melting-point. If feels a bit inconsistent now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koitus~nlwiki ( talk • contribs) 20:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Helium was once also produced by fractional distillation of air, and may still be in some parts of the world. In the UK in the post-war period, for example, there were two common varieties of industrial Helium, the expensive US Helium was the purer, while the locally produced variety was from air liquification. Andrewa ( talk) 19:12, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
See also https://euchems2010.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/put-down-that-helium-an-interview-with-nobel-laureate-robert-richardson/ for some other stuff of interest. Andrewa ( talk) 01:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Definitely oxygen can be liquified without liquid helium, usually fractional distillation of liquid air. Hydrogen can be liquified without helium also, but maybe it is easier with helium. Gah4 ( talk) 01:19, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Location and Abundance of 3HE since 2020,advanced usages for Propulsion in Spaceflight feasibly. (Theory). 159.235.169.232 ( talk) 03:47, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
This
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There is a ref poking out in the "Conservation advocates" section. That is not how it is done!!! Also. no point having an acrynym if it is not going to ne used.. 103.21.175.235 ( talk) 03:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)