» Sam Kean's Disappearing Spoon: Helium

To most, helium is a noble gas which makes our voice sound funny when we inhale it.  In reality, helium is the element that helped Ernest Rutherford figure out the age of earth.  In 1895, Rutherford found that one element could mutate into another through the process of radioactive decay, a discovery that earned him the Nobel Prize.  Further investigation proved that one of the products of that process was an alpha particle, which is a positively charged helium atom.

Topics: Periodic Table, Helium, element, Rutherford, alpha particle, radioactive decay
Duration: 4:40

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