Much Ado About Practically Nothing ─ A History of the Noble Gases

"[This] is the story of the discovery and uses of the noble gases, a group of elements vanishingly rare on our planet, which do not react with anything, which in fact do nothing. You can't feel them, hear them, see them or smell them. But for all this, starting with the discovery of the rarest of these invisible and seemingly useless gases, they have turned out to be instrumental in understanding our universe, from determining its age to learning what makes the stars shine and perhaps to the origin of life itself. Much ado has been both caused by and focused on a group of somethings which are practically nothing---and which illustrate the ebb and flow (and the occasional tsunami) of the tide of science."---From Chapter One

The six noble gases---so called because, like the nobility, they do no work---are the rarest elements on Earth. Comprising helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon, they are colorless, odorless, invisible gases that do not react with anything, so now important could they be? The answer, it turns out, is very. But even though research on the noble gases has resulted in a wide range of scientific advances---even revolutions---this is the first book to tell the entire story.

David Fisher, who has spent fifty years doing research on these gases, interweaves his own work with the breakthroughs of other eminent scientists to show how the noble gases have changed our ideas about the universe, the sun, and our own planet, presenting fascinating accounts that reveal not only the rich histories of the gases, but also the many (and often surprising) uses to which they have been put: ranging from cosmology and the age of the earth to oil exploration, from the genesis of life to its end, from environmental poisons to the curing of psoriasis and sick dogs, and from life on Mars to cancer here on Earth.

No other group of chemical elements has been at the core of research in so many different fields. Fisher, who is also an accomplished novelist, brings this research together in an account that is at once revealing and captivating, and that will change the way we think about the noble gases and the myriad paths along which science lurches

David E. Fisher held fellowships in nuclear chemistry at Oak Ridge and Brookhaven National Laboratories before joining the faculty at Cornell University. Now Professor Emeritus of Geological Science and cosmochemistry at the University of Miami, he was the founding director of its Environmental Science Program and has been a playwright and an actor. He has taught in the departments of physics, politics, international studies, geology, and religion, and is the author of nine novels and ten works of nonfiction. He currently lives in East Orleans, on Cape Cod, with his wife, Leila