Abstract
The trouble with identifying helium with some material became compounded in 1869. There was a total solar eclipse that year on August 7, visible from many places in the United States. Charles A. Young and William Harkness independently discovered a new spectral line that added to the conundrum of the D3 line. They had been successful in getting a spectrum of the coronal light for the first time, and they both noticed a bright green line.
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Notes
- 1.
Joseph N. Lockyer, “Remarks on the recent Eclipse of the Sun as observed in the United States,” Proc. Roy. Soc., Vol. 18 (1870), 181–182.
- 2.
Kirchhoff was beginning to agree with this view around this time. Roscoe wrote to Lockyer after a visit to Heidelberg that Kirchhoff seemed ‘willing to accept as possible your theory of the absorption taking place below the chromospheres, but in general expresses himself with caution as to the physical condition.’ (A. J. Meadows, Science and controversy: A biography of Sir Norman Lockyer (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass: 1972), 64.)
- 3.
A. J. Meadows, Ibid., 66.
- 4.
As quoted in Report of the council, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 31 (1871), 118.
- 5.
Charles A. Young, “Preliminary catalogue of the bright lines the spectrum of the chromosphere,” The American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. 2 (1871), 335.
- 6.
Helge Kragh, “The solar element: a reconsideration of Helium’s early history,” Annals of Science, Vol. 66 (2009), 167.
- 7.
As quoted in Joseph N. Lockyer, The Sun’s place in Nature (Macmillan: 1897), 195.
- 8.
The green line at 5,000 Å was later shown to arise from an oxygen atom that was stripped off two of its electrons, by Ira Bowen in 1928. This line was not seen in laboratory experiments as it is a ‘forbidden’ transition and are very improbable in high density laboratory situation. It requires a low density gas that is available in certain astronomical situations.
- 9.
There is considerable confusion about what Aristotle actually thought about elements. H. R. King started a debate in 1956 claiming that Aristotle never subscribed to the ‘first matter’ idea (Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 17 (3) (1956), 370), drawing rebuttal from F. Solmsen (1958) and H. M. Robinson (1974).
- 10.
C. J. F. Williams, Aristotle’s De Generatione et Corruptione (Oxford :1982), 211.
- 11.
D. Devorkin, “Stellar evolution and the origin of the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram,” in The General history of astronomy, Vol 4 (Cambridge University Press:1984), 93.
- 12.
A. J. Meadows, Ibid., 150.
- 13.
F. W. Clarke, “Evolution and the spectroscope,” Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 2 (1873), 320–326.
- 14.
See, W. H. Brock, William Crookes (1832–1919) and the commercialization of science (Ashgate: 1988), 312.
- 15.
W. H. Brock, Ibid., 316.
- 16.
William Crookes, Nature, Vol. 34 (1996), 433.
- 17.
Helge Kragh, Ibid., 170.
- 18.
Luigi Palmieri, Rend. R. Accad. Di Napoli, Vol. 20 (1881), 233.
- 19.
R. Nasini, F. Anderlini, Atti Rend. Accad. Lincei, Roma, Vol. 13 (1904), 368; see also B. Dales, “Review of analytical work done abroad in 1904,” Journal of American Chemical Society, Vol. 27 (1905), 1332.
- 20.
Helge Kragh, Ibid., 167.
- 21.
R. Copeland, “Note on the visible spectrum of the Great Nebula in Orion,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 48 (1888), 360–362.
- 22.
Helge Kragh, Ibid., 166.
- 23.
This refers to Jean Servais Stas who did chemical tests in order to prove Prout’s hypothesis, but his results showed otherwise (as reported in 1860).
- 24.
D. I. Mendeleev, “The periodic law of the chemical elements,” Journal of the chemical Society (London), Vol. 55 (1889), 634–656.
- 25.
Incidentally, Mendeleev was not unfamiliar with astronomical observations. He had once flown in a hydrogen aerostat in order to observe the corona during a total solar eclipse in 1887 in Russia, but it became cloudy during the eclipse.
- 26.
Mendeleev changed his opinions on spectroscopic identification of elements later in his life. In 1903, eight years after the discovery of helium, and when Mendeleev was almost seventy, he suggested two new elements ‘newtonium’ and ‘coronium’ that he thought had atomic weight less than that of hydrogen. He claimed that the discovery of noble gases including helium suggested two new noble gases that were homologous to helium and neon. Furthermore, he thought this ‘newtonium’ also could be the ‘ether’, and the lightest noble gas (with atomic weight 0.17 times that of hydrogen). The atomic weight of ‘coronium’ was judged to be 0.4. He defended the last element stating that it had been observed in the solar spectrum, a stance that was contrary to his attitude back in 1889. (J. W. van Spronsen, “Mendeleev as a speculator,” J. Chem. Educ., Vol. 58 (1981), 790.
- 27.
Helge Kragh, ibid, 172.
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Nath, B.B. (2013). The Ghost Element That Refused To Be Identified. In: The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5363-5_11
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