Question

Inert gases were discovered by...

Answer 1

Hint: This Scottish scientist was born on 2nd October 1852 in Glasgow. He discovered four noble gases, i.e., neon, argon, krypton and xenon. He was awarded the 1904 nobel prize in chemistry for discovery of these noble gases.

Complete step by step solution:
While analyzing the chromosphere of the Sun, Pierre Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer discovered a new element on 18 August 1868, and named it helium after the Greek word for the Sun. At that time, no chemical analysis was possible at that time but this gas was later found to be a noble gas.
In 1895, Lord Rayleigh discovered that samples of nitrogen from the air were of a different density than nitrogen resulting from chemical reactions. Along with Scottish scientist William Ramsay, Lord Rayleigh theorized that the nitrogen extracted from air was mixed with another gas. This leads to an experiment that successfully isolated a new element, argon, from the Greek word for ‘idle’.
William Ramsay continued his search for these gases using the method of fractional distillation to separate liquid air into several components. In 1898, he discovered the elements krypton, neon, and xenon. He named them after the Greek words for ‘hidden’, ‘new’ and ‘stranger’, respectively.
Radon was first identified in 1898 by Friedrich Ernst Dorn. It was not considered a noble gas until 1904 when its characteristics were found to be similar to those of other noble gases.
Hence, we can say that most of the noble gases were discovered by William Ramsay.

Note: The discoverers of noble gases are:

Helium	Neon	Argon	Krypton	Xenon	Radon
Pierre Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer	William Ramsay	Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay	William Ramsay	William Ramsay	Friedrich Ernst Dorn