Science is frequently a collaborative discipline. But sometimes, one person, working alone in a laboratory, makes a stunning discovery, one that changes the way scientists look at their field. One such man was Neil Bartlett, who changed the face of chemistry while working alone in the Chemistry Department of the University of British Columbia. Bartlett demonstrated in 1962 that the "inertness" of the Group VIII elements was a result of the reagents used in previous experiments, not a fundamental law of nature. Bartlett's proof that the Rare Gases were not chemically inert meant that all existing textbooks had to be rewritten.

The American Chemical Society and the Canadian Society for Chemistry designated the work of Neil Bartlett and the reactive noble gasses an International Historic Chemical Landmark at the University of British Columbia on May 23, 2006.

¹ Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 202, fn. 8.