What is neon anyway?
Good question you have there. Neon was originally discovered in 1898 by the British chemists Sir William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers. It was immediately recognized as a new element by its unique glow when electrically stimulated. The French were the first to actually make a neon advertising sign illuminate. Neon itself is an inert gas of Group 0 (noble gases) of the periodic table. Colorless, odorless, tasteless, and lighter than air, neon gas occurs in minute quantities in the Earth’s atmosphere and trapped within the rocks of the Earth’s crust. Though neon is about 3-1/2 times as plentiful as helium in the atmosphere, dry air contains only 0.0018 percent neon by volume. Neon liquefies at -246.048 C (-411 F) and freezes at a temperature only 21/2 lower. The gas is produced industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air; the most volatile fraction is composed of a mixture of helium, neon, and nitrogen. Nitrogen is removed by condensation under increased pressure and reduced
