Inert gases are chemically neutral. They don't react with anything.
So, How were they discovered?
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First of all, this is not true that noble gases does not form any compounds -- it can be done with some chemical tricks, usually using fluorine and some hell conditions. Yet, you don't need any chemistry to detect a new element -- helium was for instance first spotted in spectrum of sunligh. The isolation can also by made on physical means only; the most efficient idea is to cool down air isolating each new fraction that turns into liquid, but there are dozens other. |
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The history is summed up in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas#History . The concept of noble gas emerged from the discovery of argon. As said by mpq, the first to be seen spectroscopically was Helium. Then Argon was detected as a component of the air less reactive than nitrogen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon#History ). |
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