(From the Greek helios, "the sun") A colorless, odorless, chemical element, one of the noble gases, having the lowest known boiling and melting points. It is used in cryogenics, as a diluent for oxygen, in deep-sea breathing systems, for inflating balloons, as a protective gas in growing silicon and germanium crystals and in titanium and zirconium production, and as an inert gas shield for arc welding.
Heliosia Lost (fiction)
Yeah, I'm small, what's it to you? I've still got mass, and don't you forget it. They can't take my individuality, I'm my own particle! They'll never get me to interact with other molecules, not without intense pressure or cold, anyway. Myself, I'm the best Helium I can be, but not by choice of course. I guess I'm proud to have the same average kinetic energy as bigger gases for given temperatures.
You could call me an individualist. I don't just bond with any Helium that I happen upon the way Hydrogen does with its buddies. I do my own thing, you know, moving around, all my collisions are elastic. Sure, I'll bump into somebody every now and again, but I do try to keep large amounts of empty space between them and me, if you know what I mean.
So you can understand how I felt when I woke up one day to find myself and 5 moles of other Helium atoms in a two-liter container! The pressure was unbearable, must have been something like 56 atmospheres! I remember thinking to myself that it must be quite an impressive container, but only for a moment. Consultation with a friendly comrade near me revealed that we had been recruited by the U.S. Air Force.
Happy, I was not. I didn't want to work for anyone, I just mind my own business, for Pete's sake. I quickly tried to organize an escape, but the walls of the canister were too dense and thick to escape out of. I attempted the beginnings of a team effort to break the tank before I remembered that we couldn't exert any force on one another. Our outward pressure was equally distributed, and there was nothing we could do about it.
Rumors were already starting to circulate around the vessel. One that seemed likely was that we were taking over for a bunch of Hydrogen. Seemed plausible to me, those incompetents are always overreacting to everything. They'd never keep their heads in the heat of a battle. While some around me had already resigned themselves to their new position in life, the report brought me no pride as it did to them.
After what seemed like weeks in the grueling conditions of our prison, we were finally released into the area where I now find myself. Some rejoiced, but I remained levelheaded. Examination revealed that this environment too was enclosed. Escape seemed possible now, but not likely. Several have made it out, but no one has ever heard from them again. The majority of my comrades have surrendered to their apparent fate. I try to stay optimistic.
I have no control over my life. Some days it is cold, and the environment seems smaller. Some days it is warm, and everyone has more room to move around. Sometimes more Helium joins us. They're a real treat, cheerful and looking for a way out. We tell them our story, but still they think they can escape. It's enough to make me want to cry.
How do I know if the outside world even exists any more? It seems like Graham's law just doesn't hold true now, but we're all Helium in here, so there's no comparison. Maybe nothing gets by the curved walls that hold me in.
At least I'm doing something productive for my country. I never even see any guns. I just hang here, eternally occupied since I'm lighter than air. It's not a bad life, I guess. Never want for anything. Lots of companionship, everyone is just like me. Couldn't really do much on my own, could I? I'm just one atom in a big world. What is freedom anyway? Just another word.
I... I love Big Brother.
homework I have done
The second smallest and second most abundant element in the universe1. Colorless, odorless, tasteless (I assume), nonreactive, consisting of only two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons in its normal state, the lightest of the noble gasses and the first discovered.
Sources:
I wrote this in 2000, so I'm sure some of these no longer go anywhere
Unbeknownst to most people, helium is a finite, nonrenewable resource. All of the world's helium is obtained from pockets of trapped gas under the earth. Helium cannot be manufactured in laboratories using reasonable methods, and helium that escapes into the atmosphere remains there, but cannot be recaptured in significant quantities with any presently known technique. The United States has long benefited from some of the Earth's largest helium deposits, but the Federal government estimates that all major US in-ground helium deposits will be exhausted by 2015. The only option that will be left after that point will be trading for helium on the international market.
For many years, in recognition of helium's rarity, the United States government maintained a Federal Helium Reserve much like the Federal Oil Reserve. However, in 1996 a pro-business Republican Congress pushed through the Helium Privatization Act, directing the Bureau of Land Management to stop producing helium and to sell off the government's stockpile into private hands by 2005.
Today Russia has some of the world's largest remaining helium deposits. However, many these reserves are being squandered. Helium is usually mined in conjunction with natural gas, since helium and natural gas deposits usually occur together, but helium capture requires additional equipment, and helium is not a very profitable commodity, so many Russian companies simply keep the natural gas and allow the helium to escape into the atmosphere where it is effectively lost forever.
In the near future, Qatar will become the world's leading supplier of helium. The small Arab nation controls an estimated 25 percent of all remaining helium reserves, and is only just starting to exploit them, although the Qataran government has plans to aggressively pursue increased helium output, doubling production by 2010.
It would be difficult to argue that helium is essential for human life. Nevertheless, helium has a wide variety of useful applications, especially as an alternative to hydrogen in lighter-than-air travel (such as blimps), and in science experiments where its unique properties have many uses, including fiberoptic cooling, magnetic resonance imaging, and, whistling superfluid gyroscopes. Not to mention those helium balloons we all grew up with.
Enjoy sucking on those helium balloons while they last...
Helium is a commercial writing site where anyone can sign up and submit articles on many different topics. Supported by ad revenue, Helium grants writers a share of the revenue for each pageview of their articles. There is no fixed price for an article, but each article will continue to earn money from being read as long as the site is up. Helium as a site has existed since at least 2005 as Helium Knowledge, a question and answer site, but in September of 2006, it left "beta" status and launched properly as "Helium - Where Knowledge Rules".
Based out of Andover, Massachusetts, Helium is run by Mark Ranalli, President and CEO of the company, as well as at least twelve other management staff. Many other people work both behind the scenes and directly with the writers, however. Jim Logan, aka. Jimzee, works at the help desk and, until recently, answered many user questions on the forums. Barbara Whitlock engages extensively with writers on the forums and is constantly helping and encouraging them there and by email to write quality articles. Janice Brand is the Director of Content and works hard to edit and approve new titles. There are many others as well, but those four in particular are the ones that communicate with the writers on the forums or by email most often.
Helium is similar to E2 in that multiple articles can exist for any title. However, writers cannot create new titles themselves; they must submit an article with a new title to an editing process to have the title approved. This is necessary because articles under the same title are directly compared to give each article a ranking. Titles have to be carefully chosen so that later articles submitted for comparison actually have a basis for comparison. Unlike E2, pieces must directly pertain to their topic so that articles that are compared to each other are about the same thing. Titles are intended to be search-engine optimized (SEO) so they cannot be frivolous or metaphorical.
The primary focus of the site is non-fiction. Many articles are product reviews or how-tos or opinion pieces, although there is a section for creative writing and poetry as well. Each non-fiction article is intended to be a relatively short piece on an individual topic rather than a comprehensive description of every possible piece of information like on E2.
The writers themselves determine the rankings of articles by rating pairs of articles to determine which is better. The rating system gives raters one semi-random pair of articles under the same title at a time. Writers cannot choose which articles to rate because the system is intended to be completely anonymous. It appears to be somewhat random, but in reality, the system is set up to produce articles that both need to be rated and that belong to writers who rate. In other words, rating articles helps your own articles to be rated more often.
Once an article is submitted on Helium, it cannot be directly deleted or edited. The only method for editing an article is the "leapfrog" method, where a new version of an article is submitted for comparison to the existing version. After three ratings, similar to the normal ratings to rank two separate articles, the better version is retained, whichever was ranked higher.
The site has a lot of potential, but it is really still in its infancy, and there are a number of problems that have yet to be fixed. One problem is the rating system itself. The anonymity would appear to be eminently fair, but due to the huge volume of articles on the site, many of them heritage submissions from the "Helium Knowledge" time, the system takes a long time to rate current articles. In addition, the mathematics of the pair system indicate that a title with too many articles will have a large number of possible pairs that each must be rated several times in order to gain an accurate ordering of the articles. Theoretically, the best articles are supposed to "rise to the top," but due to the inefficiency of the rating system, many good articles languish at lower rankings while poor articles maintain the top slots.
Another problem is the presence of many poor articles in the first place. Many are very short submissions written in response to the question and answer format that existed on the beta site. Now that the focus has shifted to solid articles, these poor articles are out of place and should really be deleted if Helium wants to maintain its image as a site for knowledge. The staff wants to preserve an inclusive atmosphere by not deleting anything that has already been submitted, however, unless it is actually offensive in some way. So the older submissions remain on the site.
Similar to E2, anything can be submitted to an existing title with no immediate moderation, so even without the poor submissions from the old site, a related problem is the presence of off-topic articles. Oddly enough, there are several places where well-written articles have been submitted to a completely wrong title or category. Despite the extensive staff presence, Helium is relying heavily on its writers to flag inappropriate articles, including these off-topic submissions, so that they can be handled by staff.
The best part of the site is really the way that the staff members quickly respond to writers. As mentioned, there are a few staff members that spend quite a lot of time on the community boards responding to questions and concerns. Helium in general is also very responsive to email. Specific technical or article issues can be sent to the help desk and will usually get a response within a day or two. Suggestions about inappropriate or misplaced articles or errors in titles will usually be carried out promptly. While they don't make every change or provide every piece of information requested, Helium has one of the most responsive group of staff of any commercial website.
The site has potential and is constantly changing and being updated, so it will be interesting to see where it goes in the next year or two. Most likely, significant changes will have to be made to satisfy those that are concerned about quality. Without those changes, only time will tell whether the site will thrive. In the meantime, it is a good place to practice writing and earn a little money on the side.
He"li*um (?), n. [NL., fr. Gr. &?; the sun.] (Chem.)
A gaseous element found in the atmospheres of the sun and earth and in some rare minerals.
© Webster 1913
He"li*um (hE"li*um), n. [NL., fr. Gr. "h`lios the sun.] (Chem.)
An inert, monoatomic, gaseous element occurring in the atmosphere of the sun and stars, and in small quantities in the earth's atmosphere, in several minerals and in certain mineral waters. Symbol, He; at. wt., 4. Helium was first detected spectroscopically in the sun by Lockyer in 1868; it was first prepared by Ramsay in 1895. Helium has a density of 1.98 compared with hydrogen, and is more difficult to liquefy than the latter. Chemically, it belongs to the argon group and cannot be made to form compounds. It is a decomposition product of the radium emanation.
printable version chaos
Everything2 Help
