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Why is xenon shortened to Xe and not just X?

Best Answers

Mostly because X is a popular symbol to use for lots of mathematical quantities, both as the Latinate letter X and the Greek capital letter chi. X is also used in organic chemistry to indicate a general halogen substituent. read more

It took Travers and Ramsay many months before they could isolate enough xenon to determine its density. This is not surprising since xenon is by far the least abundant of the noble gases in the atmosphere: by volume, about 1 per cent of the air is argon, 18 parts per million neon, 5 ppm helium, 1 ppm krypton and just 0.09 ppm xenon: just a couple of millilitres in an average room. read more

Mostly because X is a popular symbol to use for lots of mathematical quantities, both as the Latinate letter X and the Greek capital letter chi. X is also used in organic chemistry to indicate a general halogen substituent. Radon is abbreviated Rn and Radium as Ra for similar reasons. read more

So that explains why xenon is a general anaesthetic agent. As it happens, that binding site is similar in size to another molecule, nitrous oxide, N2O, and nitrous oxide and xenon have similar anaesthetic properties. (Not very potent, but extremely rapid in action). read more

Xenon-129, a stable isotope that makes up about a quarter of naturally occurring xenon, turns out to be ideal for use in magnetic resonance imaging. Usually these instruments only detect hydrogen nuclei in water and fats - ideal for most tissue, but are of no use when looking at air spaces such as the lungs. read more

Related Facts

Image Answers

Ideas for "Letter Bag" - and our letter is "X"!!
Source: dcurbanmom.com

Further Research

Xe is not just for Xenon
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