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	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 18, 2008.
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The noble gases are a group of chemical elements with similar properties in the periodic table. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and the radioactive radon. Under standard conditions, the gases are all colorless, odorless, tasteless and nonflammable. The noble gases show extremely low chemical reactivity, and only a few hundred noble gas compounds have been formed.

This picture shows a gas discharge tube containing krypton.

See images of other noble gases: Helium · Neon · ArgonPhotograph: Alchemist-hp

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Isn't it true that when you inhale a certain amount of each of the noble gases, your voice changes getting deeper the heavier the element? Porygon-Z 19:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Porygon-Z474 (talk • contribs)

Would that really be relevant to the page though?-Thanks!Ooh Saad (talk) 10:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh Saad: Well you can see the similarities. There are so many videos and papers about it so I would put it in here if you have enough info. UB Blacephalon (talk) 02:33, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not only the noble gases. It also works for SF₆. This is about molar mass and not the noble gases alone, though obviously you do not want to try this stunt with reactive gases. Double sharp (talk) 09:22, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Besides helium and argon, the noble gases are pretty expensive to try it on. I think many hydrocarbons and halogenated hydrocarbons should work, though not applicable to this article. Gah4 (talk) 09:58, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We could put them all in a list of voice changing molecules. I thought only the Noble Gases were the only ones that could do that. You know, since there are videos about it. UB Blacephalon (talk) 03:12, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose a list of non-poisonous gases, and not too water soluble. I think hydrogen is safe, as long as you are not near sparks. Methane should be fine, too, and not expensive. OK, what is the heaviest gas that is safe to breathe? (Not counting loss of oxygen.) I will guess that it is a halocarbon of some kind. Halon 1301 is about the same mass as SF6. I think there are some heavier ones. Gah4 (talk) 08:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The health and safety concerns make me unwilling to actually make a statement, sorry. ;) Double sharp (talk) 08:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do the videos not count or something? I don't want to sound childish but I've seen countless videos about them. They just had to take a lot of deep breathes in between. UB Blacephalon (talk) 14:25, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no doubt there are lots of videos, and they may even be authentic of what they claim is happening:) But as an encyclopedia, we need better referencing than that. It's also kinda funny that we might say "sure, heavy noble gasses would all work, and those gases are all inert" and have videos of it "just take some deep breaths to clear the inert gas out". But it turns out xenon is biochemically active and has even been used an an inhalational anesthetic. Krypton also has some anesthetic effects. That's why we need actual reliable sources about it rather than just what "seems like it should be safe to breathe" from casual thinking.

And as others have mentioned, it's not specific to noble gases. I don't know if there's enough to justify writing a stand-alone article about this effect of gas-density. But as a start, we do have Category:Science demonstrations and some good content at Helium#Effects. DMacks (talk) 15:27, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they did say it's extremely dangerous thing to do and we could possibly do some theoretical research, too. As for reliability, what would count because I could possibly help as for getting info, although I'm not that knowledgeable about the Wikitext, so. UB Blacephalon (talk) 21:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that xenon is about $10/L. That might be one big breath or two small ones. It seems, though, that there are systems for recycling it, so you can breath it longer when it is used for anesthesia. Gah4 (talk) 03:11, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great! So can we start a list or something? UB Blacephalon (talk) 23:50, 23 December 2020 (UT

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Alkali metal which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't I add the electron configuration of Oganesson? It says that not only is it not "empirically" known but we don't know if it even is a noble gas. We know both of those. Can't I add that then? UB Blacephalon (talk) 20:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted your edit [1], editsummary: "Undid revision 995588763 by Blacephalon (talk) you correctly went to the talkpage. let's see what that produces". I am curious for that outcome; properties of oganession are largely unknown, so is its classification.

Asking @Blacephalon, Double sharp, ComplexRational, and YBG: -DePiep (talk) 22:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The heaviest element whose electron configuration has been experimentally determined is hassium. After that, we only have predictions (and in the case of Cn, Nh, and Fl, some preliminary studies, but even those don't include electron configuration). We don't actually know either of those, and anything implying we do would fail verification and be considered original research. Therefore, any mentions of it must clearly indicate that it is a predictions, or it will be removed along these lines. ComplexRational (talk) 23:20, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So why is Oganesson the 118th element if its electron configuration not 118 also? It just doesn't make sense. If thats the case how do we know that ogannesson has 118 protons if we don't actually know that, ya know? UB Blacephalon (talk) 05:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But we do know it has 118 protons and 118 electrons. We just don't know for sure how its 118 electrons are arranged. Double sharp (talk) 08:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Per ComplexRational's suggestion, I added Og, but with "predicted". Double sharp (talk) 11:26, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So we dont know anything of Oganesson? Then why dont we keep researching it and stop reaching for higher elements? UB Blacephalon (talk) 12:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, all of that is already answered by the article oganesson. We know how to make one isotope of Og (294), how long it lasts, and what it decays into. We know nothing else. And since the isotope of Og we can make lives less than a millisecond, we can't find out anything else. So we need to make a new isotope that lives longer. There are some planned attempts. Note also that these long-lived isotopes can conceivably be made as decay products of higher elements, so it's not an either-or. Double sharp (talk) 13:17, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well what's research doing now? It seems like nothing major has happened since the last 4 were named. Shouldn't we figure out oganesson first just to get more info? UB Blacephalon (talk) 16:14, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some plans are around and some experiments have been done. I haven't heard of positive results for any yet, though. Double sharp (talk) 02:48, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So what experiments have been done then? UB Blacephalon (talk) 03:35, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just read the article on oganesson. It mentions the experiments with the heavier Cf target and Cm+Ti at JINR and Riken, so far without success. Please, also remember that the groups have recently upgraded their facilities, so naturally the past years have been a bit quiet. Maybe, we will have less of a drought in the next years. Or maybe not. Double sharp (talk) 04:20, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I hope they give more info because I would love to know more about oganesson. By the way, when's the last time the article has had info added to it. UB Blacephalon (talk) 04:55, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty recently actually, when predictions of Og melting and boiling points were added. But only predicted by theory, no experiments. So in terms of experimental knowledge we have not advanced since the last Og atom was made a few years ago. ;) Double sharp (talk) 05:26, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see predicted melting and boiling points for Og in the section Physical and atomic properties. The only predicted value for Og in the table now is for ionization energy. Dirac66 (talk) 14:02, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My bad, was only at oganesson, not here. Added.

P.S. Predicted density for Og is very high for the group because the m.p. and b.p. should rise above room temperature. Double sharp (talk) 14:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, a lot of table and paragraphs don't include radon or oganesson. Is there a reason for this? UB Blacephalon (talk) 23:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Because they are radioactive with short half-lives and thus hard to investigate? Double sharp (talk) 03:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But don't predictions count? UB Blacephalon (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You have a point. Added some chemistry of Rn (experimentally known) and Og (predicted). Double sharp (talk) 09:14, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks! So what about other elements in the pnictogens or halogens? Are they going to be similar to this? UB Blacephalon (talk) 17:24, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I hope they do. Also I've noticed that the group 6 and 7 pages looked a bit empty. I'm not sure how to fill those in. UB Blacephalon (talk) 23:42, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am reviewing this (old or very old) FA as part of WP:URFA/2020, an effort to determine whether old featured articles still meet the featured article criteria. The article has MOS:SANDWICHing throughout (between images, tables, and infobox) that should be addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:56, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]