--- description: Despatches from Holland related that a Professor Keesom had solidified that rare and undemonstrative gas, helium, by a process not too costly or laborious to be adopted industrially. By some... title: Science: Solid Helium image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Science: Solid Helium by [TIME](/author/time/) Jul 12, 1926 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jul 12, 1926 4:00 AM CUT Despatches from Holland related that a Professor Keesom had solidified that rare and undemonstrative gas, helium, by a process not too costly or laborious to be adopted industrially. By some ingenious discovery he had readily reduced the gas temperature to very nearly absolute zero. The significance: solid helium, crystalline and transparent in glass tubes, would transport far more handily than the gaseous form. Helium gas is so tenuous that it would take comparatively few tubes of the solid to fill a dirigible’s bag. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6659554/science-solid-helium/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6659554/science-solid-helium/"},"headline":"Science: Solid Helium","datePublished":"1926-07-12T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T20:14:32.713Z","description":"Despatches from Holland related that a Professor Keesom had solidified that rare and undemonstrative gas, helium, by a process not too costly or laborious to be adopted industrially. By some...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6659554/science-solid-helium/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6659554/science-solid-helium/","name":"Science: Solid Helium"}}]}] ```