All gas and vapour

Acentury ago this year, two British scientists, the physicist Lord Rayleigh and the Chemist Sir William Ramsay, announced their discovery of the gas argon. In the following year, Ramsay confirmed the existence of helium on earth and, over the next four years with the assistance of the chemist Morris Travers, successfully unveiled the remaining inert gases in the atmosphere: neon, krypton and xenon.