Neil BartlettDied 5 Aug 2008 at age 75 (born 15 Sep 1932).English-American chemist who formed the first compound with a noble gas element, xenon platinofluoride, XePtF6 (23 Mar 1962), a yellow-orange crystalline solid, stable at room temperature by immersing platinum fluoride in xenon gas. For a half-century since Ramsay discovered xenon, it had, with the other elements in its group on the Periodic Table, been known as an inert gas. After Bartlett's discovery, a new field of investigation was opened, and other chemists found further compounds of not only xenon, but the noble gas elements radon and krypton. The heaviest elements of the noble gases, as the least inert, were susceptible to combination with a highly reactive element. Pauling had proposed this in theoretical calculations made thirty years before Bartlett's experimental success.« |
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