"Because my co-workers at that time (March 23, 1962) were still not sufficiently experienced to help me with the glassblowing and the preparation and purification of PtF₆ [platinum hexafluoride] necessary for the experiment, I was not ready to carry it out until about 7 p.m. on that Friday. When I broke the seal between the red PtF₆ gas and the colorless xenon gas, there was an immediate interaction, causing an orange-yellow solid to precipitate. At once I tried to find someone with whom to share the exciting finding, but it appeared that everyone had left for dinner!"¹

The reaction took place at room temperature "in the twinkling of an eye" and was "extraordinarily exhilarating," recalls Bartlett. He was certain that the orange-yellow solid was the world's first noble gas compound. But convincing others would prove somewhat difficult. The prevailing attitude was that no scientist could violate one of the basic tenets of chemistry: the inertness of noble gases. Bartlett insisted that he had, to the amusement and disbelief of some of his colleagues! The proof was in the new compound he had made. That orange-yellow solid was subsequently identified in laboratory studies as xenon hexafluoroplatinate (XePtF₆), the world's first noble gas compound.

Within months, other chemists successfully repeated the experiment. Although the intricate chemical details behind the reaction would take years to clarify and the formula of the colorful solid was later modified as [XeF]+[PtF₅]-, the significance of the experiment remained clear. Spurred by Bartlett's success, other scientists soon began to make new compounds from xenon and later, radon and krypton. With Bartlett's simple experiment, the old "law" of the unreactivity of the noble gases had been vanquished. The new field of noble gas chemistry, with its exciting possibilities, had been launched.

¹ Neil Bartlett, "Forty Years of Fluorine Chemistry" in Fluorine Chemistry at the Millennium, ed. R.E. Banks; (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2000), p. 39.