Opening paragraphs........................

There are the so-called inert gases in the air we breathe.  They bear curious Greek names of erudite derivation which mean "the New," "the Hidden," "the Inactive," and "the Alien."  They are indeed so inert, so satisfied with their condition, that they do not interfere in any chemical reaction, do not combine with any other element, and for precisely this reason have gone undetected for centuries.  As late as 1962 a diligent chemist after long and ingenious efforts succeeded in forcing the Alien (xenon) to combine fleetingly with extremely avid and lively fluorine, and the feat seemed so extraordinary that he was given a Nobel prize.  They are also called the noble gases - and here there is room for discussion as to whether all noble gases are really inert and all inert gases noble.  And finally, they are also called rare gases, even though one of them, argon (the Inactive), is present in the air in the considerable proportion of 1 percent, that is, twenty or thirty times more abundant than carbon dioxide, without which there would not be a trace of life on this planet.
     The little that I know about my ancestors presents many similarities to these gases...

-Primo Levi,  The Periodic Table