A colorless, odorless, inert gas that makes up about 1% of Earth's atmosphere; used in light bulbs and welding.
From Greek 'argos,' meaning 'lazy' or 'inactive.' The name was chosen because it's a 'lazy' gas that doesn't react with other elements—it's chemically inert.
When argon was discovered in 1894, scientists initially couldn't classify it on the periodic table because it didn't fit with any known element group—this led to the discovery of an entire category of 'noble gases' that transformed chemistry and revealed a hidden part of the periodic table.
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