Abstract
The story of the discovery of helium, as we have seen, had many participants, and had the dramatic elements of interesting coincidences and rivalries. It is a singular story, unparalleled and unlike that of all other elements, most of which had a single discoverer or a single team. It is no wonder that the story would get exaggerated, even inaccurately, at times.
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Notes
- 1.
Charles A. Young, “Helium, its identification and properties,” Popular Science Monthly, January (1896), 339.
- 2.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, “The story of two atoms,” The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 64 (1947), 314.
- 3.
Helge Kragh, “The solar element: a reconsideration of Helium’s early history,” Annals of Science, Vol. 66 (2009),158.
- 4.
John Waller, Leaps in the dark: The making of scientific reputations (Oxford University Press: New York, 2004).
- 5.
Alberto Martinez, Science Secrets: The Truth about Darwin’s Finches, Einstein’s Wife, and Other Myths (University of Pittsburgh Press: 2011), 9.
- 6.
Ibid., 9–11.
- 7.
Ibid., 126–127.
- 8.
John Waller, 2004, Ibid., 4.
- 9.
Joseph Agassi, Science and its history: a reassessment of the historiography of science (Springer: 2008), xviii.
- 10.
John Waller, Fabulous science: Fact and fiction in the history of scientific discovery (Oxford University Press: 2002), 104.
- 11.
Ibid., 13.
- 12.
Ibid., 110.
- 13.
A. J. Meadows, Science and controversy (The MIT Press:1972), 54–55.
- 14.
M. A. Sutton, 1974, “John Herschel and the development of spectroscopy in Britain,” The British Journal of the History of Science, Vol. 7 (1974), 42–60; also, “Spectroscopy, historiography and myth: the Victorians vindicated,” History of Science, Vol. 24 (1986), 425–432.
- 15.
F. A. J. L. James, “The creation of a Victorian myth: The historiography of spectroscopy,” History of Science, Vol. 23 (1985), 1–24; “The establishment of spectro-chemical analysis as a practical method of qualitative analysis,” Ambix, Vol. 30 (1983), 30–53.
- 16.
Gustav Kirchhoff, “Contributions towards the history of spectrum analysis and of the analysis of the solar atmosphere,” Phil. Mag., 4th series, Vol. 25 (1863), 250–262.
- 17.
John Waller, 2004, Ibid., 6.
- 18.
John Lankford, ‘Amateurs and Astrophysics: A Neglected Aspect in the Development of a Scientific Specialty,’ Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11 (1981), 285–286.
- 19.
A few months his death from cancer, he requested the government for an assistant whom he could teach his code so that his records would not go waste. This assistant, Mitchie Smith, later became the next director of Madras Observatory.
- 20.
John Waller, 2002, Ibid., 173.
- 21.
Ibid., 295–296.
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Nath, B.B. (2013). The Folklore and Reality of the Discovery of Helium. In: The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5363-5_13
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