One or Several Pioneers? The Discovery of Noble‐Gas Compounds

Abstract For the general public, science history and restaurant menus share a labeling style. Like Melba peach, Soubise sauce, or tournedos Rossini, many a scientific discovery is credited to a single thinker or tinkerer. Such ultrasimplification rubs into oblivion other important contributors or codiscoverers. The discovery of noble‐gas compounds conforms to such a stereotyped and mythic view: according to the standard account, Neil S. Bartlett , then at the University of British Columbia, made it a quarter of a century ago on March 23, 1962. We do not attempt here a full and definitive history; it would be premature and we do not have the space. Rather, we shall document the concept and the earlier attempts at synthesis–they antedated Bartlett 's success by three decades. The motivation for this note may be summarized in the following questions: (1) What sort of insight and input were those of Linus Pauling ? (2) What were the likely causes for failure of the attempt by Yost and Kaye to synthesize noble‐gas fluorides in the 1930s? (3) Were there other researchers who envisioned a noble‐gas reactivity? The stated purpose of the authors was to document the (theoretical) concepts and the early attempts at synthesis of noble‐gas compounds. They summarized their motivation in the form of three questions: (1) What sort of insight and input were those of Linus Pauling ? (2) What were the likely causes for failure of the attempts by Yost and Kaye in the 1930s? (3) Were there other researchers who envisaged a noble‐gas reactivity? Finally, they recount the story of the multiple discovery of noble‐gas compounds more than a quarter of a century ago.