字詞詮 On Language: Neon 霓虹(燈), Georges Claude, Rubik’s Cube

秋惠文庫 Formosa Vintage Museum

《美麗的霓虹、涼爽的電扇、明亮家庭常愉悅、明亮店面常繁昌》日本時代花蓮港電氣株式會社廣告

Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

HKFP_Lens: Canadian photographer Greg Girard debuts a collection showing the underside of the city that he lived in for 15 years. From neon-lit streets in Tsim Sha Tsui to dive bars in Wan Chai to the hotel rooms of the soldiers and sailors who frequented them.

HKFP Lens: Greg Girard's nocturnal wanderings in Hong Kong, 1974-1989 | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

HONGKONGFP.COM

Neon is a chemical element with symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas.[10] Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton and xenon) in 1898 as one of the three residual rare inert elements remaining in dry air, after nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide were removed. Neon was the second of these three rare gases to be discovered, and was immediately recognized as a new element from its bright red emission spectrum. The name neon is derived from the Greek word, νέον, neuter singular form of νέος (neos), meaning new. Neon is chemically inert and forms no uncharged chemical compounds. The compounds of neon include ionic molecules, molecules held together by van der Waals forces and clathrates.

Back Story

Alamy

We start today on a bright note. Neon, specifically.

When Georges Claude, above, discovered a mechanism for trapping gas in a tube and zapping it with electricity, he turned the ordinary extraordinary.

Claude, who died on this date in 1960, demonstrated his invention at the Paris Motor Show in 1910 with two 40-foot neon tubes that glowed a brilliant red. Two years later

he installed the first neon advertising sign in a Parisian barbershop on the Boulevard Montmartre.

Neon signage made it to the United States in the early 1920s by way of a Los Angeles car dealership. Bigger and brighter, it turned out, was better.

“Every business in the nation that wanted to be perceived as modern in that Art Deco era had to have neon,” a neon preservationist and historian told The Times.

By the late 1960s, neon was on the outs as the first lady Lady Bird Johnson started a national “beautification” campaign and communities passed anti-neon laws. Neon flickered back to life in the 1980s, but made a strong return in the 2000s in the United States. In Hong Kong, a city known for its glow, neon lights have slowly dimmed in recent years.

Just as quickly as neon dies out, it can turn back on.

Remy Tumin wrote today’s Back Story.

喬治·克洛德發現了一個辦法，能夠將氣體堵在管子裡，通上電之後，平淡就化為了神奇——霓虹燈。

克洛德在1960年的今天去世，他在1910年的巴黎車展上，用兩個40英尺、閃著耀眼紅光的霓虹管展示了這一發明。兩年後，他在蒙馬特大道的一家巴黎理髮店安裝了世界上的第一塊霓虹廣告牌。

「在那個裝飾藝術的時代，美國每個不想被視為脫離時代的營業場所，都必須得有霓虹燈，」一名霓虹燈保護主義者、歷史學家告訴時報。