This is true for a few reasons. For example, helium atoms don’t like to make bonds with other elements or even themselves. This results in them having a very low density — much lower than the density of the particles that make up air, Toledo said.
Gold also, quite famously, doesn’t bond with other elements. It is very dense all the same. The density coming from the make up of the atom, not the behaviour of the atoms once made up.
Good God that’s bad science.
Uhm, but because He is not a metal and Ag is? Something to do with the whole sharing of electrons, which metals do with insane promiscuity, while noble gases stay faithful to their few (for He, singular) shells?
And I’d say that is behaviour of the atoms once made up, or is that hair splitting?
Au, not Ag.
Damn.
Science? What science?
Sheesh, I remember valence from O level chemistry back in the early 60s. And the simple Bohr model of the atom to go with it.
How do you know it’s He?
Could be sHe or even xHe if it so chooses.
My first chemistry lecture at university was The Reactions of the Inert Gases.
I think the point was to say “you are not schoolboys any more”.
Alas it proved to be the last really good chemistry lecture. Fortunately the labs were good.
Xe might have a chemistry, of sorts, albeit entirely artificial, especially if you attack it with Fluorine.
Helium does not.
I had to write a 5,000 word essay in third year on the chemistry of Au, Pt and Pd. It was hideous. I didn’t reach 4,000 words but I was excused on the basis no-one really could.
I imagine there’s more now but still entirely synthetic.
Jimmers
If it was possible to bond with Thulium would it be THem ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_compounds
Forget it, Jake, it’s the Washington Post.
Author of the article?
Jason Bittel writes about science for kids and adults. From the cute and cuddly to the hairy, scary and extraordinary, Bittel tries to teach people about the life all around us. He is also a former National Geographic Explorer and Knight Science Journalism Project Fellow.
The guy’s Post CV reads like it was written by a six year old for a five year old. About par for the course for journalism these days, I guess.
yeah, PJF…
Of course, none of those occur at temperatures and pressures us flimsy humans may exist at..
In fact, it’s a pretty good example of exactly why you make statements about properties of stuff while quoting the range of environmental conditions it’s valid for..
That said… yes.. some appalling bad science in the article.
@Chester: You could have written about Pt and Pd as catalysts. Plenty of chemistry there.
Of course, none of those occur at temperatures and pressures us flimsy humans may exist at..
Hey, I was told that Xenon has an exotic and artificial chemistry, and Helium doesn’t.
Naturally, I went and had a look . . .
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not a chemist, so this is a genuine question:
Hydrogen: 1 proton
Helium: 2 protons
Gold: lots of protons and neutrons
Lead: ditto
H, He are light. Au and Pb are heavy. Is this relevant /true across the Periodic table?
“H, He are light. Au and Pb are heavy. Is this relevant /true across the Periodic table?”
No. Radon is an inert gas and its atomic weight is greater than that of gold and lead.
@philip
This one does the run from “Lies-to-Children” to a bit of toe-dipping in “How Things Really Work” in a 10 minute read.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-chemistry-beta/x2eef969c74e0d802:atomic-structure-and-properties/x2eef969c74e0d802:atomic-structure-and-electron-configuration/a/the-periodic-table-electron-shells-and-orbitals-article
Xe has a chemistry in normal conditions.
I’ll grant you He(N2) is a compound (at 10 GPa!) and Na2He (at 113 GPa!!) but the rest are He molecules sitting in the gaps in lattices, like Clathrates. The article even says “Helium does not bond with the other atoms”.
The issue with catalysts @dearime, is that they are very often closely guarded trade secrets. So they don’t get written up in the scientific literature. No-one is telling anyone else how their Pd catalyst works, in case they make a better one.
You are being slightly unfair by leaving out the “or even themselves” which makes the comparison with gold invalid; metallic bonding is bonding..
“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.”
For solids and liquids, there are two factors at play in the density of the substance: the individual atomic masses of the atoms, and how tightly they are packed together.
For gases, at least ones with no polarity such as the elemental gases under discussion “how tightly they are packed together” is pretty much the definition of pressure. So under constant pressure it is only the molecular mass that matters. Of course, while N has an atomic mass of 14, it goes around as N2, so will have a molecular mass of 28, and thus be more dense than, say Ne which has an atomic mass of 20 but wafts about on its own. Noble gases (Group 0) are singletons and all other elemental gases (H, N, O, F, Cl) have their lowest-energy configuration as pairs.
To the article in point, Ar (1% of the atmosphere) is also a noble gas that doesn’t react with anything under anything resembling normal conditions, but with an atomic mass of 40 it is more dense than the N2 (28) and O2 (32) that make up the other 99% of the atmosphere. Which is why it’s still here and not buggered off into space.
You can bond Gold with hydro-chloro-nitric acid. Auric acids they’re called. Was it Niels Bohr who hid his Nobel Medal from the Nazis by dissolving it and just putting it in a jar on a shelf in the lab.
I can remember buying cyanide salts of gold for plating & cyanide’s used in extracting gold from its ores. And aqua regia (what jgh is talking about) famously dissolves it.
John @ 5.43. Joanna Lumley in her prime…..Phwoar
Damn XKCD is on form today: https://xkcd.com/2648/
Oh yes, very good that, very good indeed.
In fact it was two Nobel Prize medals that sat dissolved on a shelf throughout the war despite being sought by the Nazis.
Dissolve My Nobel Prize! Fast! (A True Story)
I don’t know about the science, but I am not sure atoms “like” things. As far as I understand it atoms are entirely impervious to the universe they “exist” in. And as far as I understand quantum mechanics and the standard models, it is debateable that atoms “exist” in any sense we might understand.
@Chester: I don’t know enough about Pd catalysts to argue with you but I used to know a little bit about Pt catalysts – they’d been around so long that there was a public literature about them.
With increased interest in fuel cells there seems to be a much bigger literature nowadays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=platinum+catalysts&go=Go&ns0=1
Wonko, Atoms… maybe.. But ions can be terribly attractive.. 😛