Helium behaving as hydogen

[Rene]

In a 2011 article (with numerous citations) the authors reported that, "The neutral muonic helium atom may be regarded as the heaviest isotope of the hydrogen atom."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1199421

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20049-atomic-disguise-makes-helium-look-like-hydrogen/

Thus, when one of helium’s electrons is replaced by a negative muon, the muon orbits so tightly around the nucleus that it almost perfectly cancels one of the proton's charges. The remaining proton is left “exposed,” and the atom now interacts with the outside world as if it were hydrogen—with a single effective positive charge and one outer electron.

The relevance is my 2024 article "Hydrogen over helium: A philosophical position" in which I set out arguments for placing H over He.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10698-023-09496-5

I hadn’t at the time appreciated that there was such a familial relationship between these two lightest of gases.

It’s faintly satisfying when the universe seems to reach back and say, "You were onto something—there it was, hiding in plain sight, waiting to be noticed."

René