1899-1910: Radon - The book of science

Radon
Atomic number 86
Bad stuff
Commentary

Paris, Montreal, Halle, London—Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Robert Bowie Owens, Ernest Rutherford, Friedrich Ernst Dorn, André-Louis Debierne, William Ramsay, Robert Whytlaw-Gray elements

Radon

In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie
observed that radium
emanated a radioactive gas.
Later that year, Robert Bowie Owens
and Ernest Rutherford in Montreal
observed that thorium
emanated a radioactive gas.
Owens and Rutherford
called it Thorium Emanation.
In 1900, Friedrich Ernst Dorn
repeated the Curies’s experiment
and reported a Radium Emanation.
In 1903, André-Louis Debierne
observed that actinium emanated
a radioactive gas, Actinium Emanation.
The emanations were given different names
although in 1904 William Ramsey suggested
they might contain a new noble gas
and in 1910, Ramsey and Robert Whytlaw-Gray
isolated radon, determined its density and spectral pattern,
and suggested naming it niton.
Niton and the three emanations
were isotopes
of the radioactive noble gas radon.

Atomic number 86

Uranium and thorium, long-lived
radioactive elements,
were part of our Earth when it formed
and continue to decay slowly
in a chain of unstable elements
that includes radon.
Radon is the mosquito of the periodic table.
It’s released by rocks and soils,
it accumlates in unventillated areas,
and it’s not good for you.

Bad stuff

Odorless, tasteless,
invisible,
radon gas permeates
your playspace
and seriously
deteriorates
your ability to play.
I mean this.
It lurks
in your basement
and it gives you
lung cancer.
It’s not
a pretty gas.
You can’t see it.
You can’t smell it.
But it’s the product
of decay,
and it brings you closer
to your own decay.

Radium Emanation was radon-222, also called exradio, radeon, niton, and radon. Thorium Emanation was radon-220, also called exthorio, thoreon, and thoron. Actinium Emanation was radon-219, also called exactinio, actineon, akton, and actinon.