Element History

The Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay and his British student Morris Travers discovered krypton on May 30, 1898. It was found after evaporating almost all components of liquid air. Ramsay later discovered xenon and neon in the same way. The word krypton comes from the Greek word "kryptos", meaning hidden, referencing the way krypton is obtained. In 1960, the length of the meter was defined in terms of the spectral line of krypton-86, one of krypton's 15 isotopes. It was determined that a meter is equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of krypton-86's spectral line.