Helium is known as He on the periodic table. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe and was discovered on the sun before it was found on the earth. It has been detected in great abundance in hotter stars and it is an important component in both the proton-proton reaction and the carbon cycle, which accounts for the energy of the sun and stars.
Helium is commercially recovered from natural gas deposits.
Configuring Helium Wallets for Validators - Additional wallet commands for use with validators. Scores and Penalties - Overview of validator scores and penalties. Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting help and additional resources. Test Cases - Test cases and areas of focus for the Testnet. After the crash of the hydrogen-filled R101, in which most of the crew died in the subsequent fire rather than the impact itself, Hindenburg designer Hugo Eckener sought to use helium, a non. Helium usually makes up a minuscule portion of natural gas, but can make up as much as 10 percent of natural gas in some fields. A helium content of 0.3 percent or more is considered necessary for commercial helium extraction. In 2012, helium was recovered at 16 extraction plants, from gas wells in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. Common Uses of Helium. Evidence shows that the human voice can be changed with a bit of. The largest use of helium is in cryogenics, where the element’s extremely low boiling point and low density make it a valuable tool forwell, freezing stuff (and people). Helium is used as a protective gas when growing silicon crystals for semiconductor applications.
Helium is used as an inert shield for arc welding to pressurize the fuel tanks of liquid fueled rockets and in supersonic wind tunnels. Helium is combined with oxygen to create a nitrogen free atmosphere for deep sea divers so that they will not suffer from a condition known as nitrogen narcosis. Liquid helium is an important cryogenic material and is used to study superconductivity and to create superconductive magnets.
Liquid helium’s use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) continues to increase as the medical profession accepts and develops new uses for the equipment.
The most readily recognized use for helium gas is to inflate blimps, scientific balloons and party balloons. Did you know it would take 6000 helium balloons to lift a 37/38kg child into the air?
In everyday life Helium is use for:
Airships | |
As helium is lighter than air it can be used to inflate airships, blimps and balloons, providing lift. Although hydrogen is cheaper and more buoyant, helium is preferred as it is non-flammable and therefore safer. | |
MRI scanners | |
Helium’s low boiling point makes it useful for cooling metals needed for superconductivity, from cooling the superconducting magnets in medical MRI scanners to maintaining the low temperature of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. | |
Deep-sea diving | |
Divers and others working under pressure use mixtures of helium, oxygen and nitrogen to breathe underwater, avoiding the problems caused by breathing ordinary air under high pressure, which include disorientation. | |
Rockets | |
As well as being used to clean out rocket engines, helium is used to pressurise the interior of liquid fuel rockets, condense hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel, and force fuel into the engines during rocket launches. | |
Dating | |
Helium can be used to estimate the age of rocks and minerals containing uranium and thorium by measuring their retention of helium. | |
Telescopes | |
The gas is used in solar telescopes to prevent the heating of the air, which reduces the distorting effects of temperature variations in the space between lenses. Inhaling helium temporarily changes the sound of a person’s voice. Though helium is non-toxic, breathing it can result in asphyxiation due to oxygen deprivation. |
Sources: http://www.randburgballoons.co.za/about.html
Like most blockchains, Helium has a system of transaction fees. All transactionsin the Helium blockchain are paid in Data Credits (DCs). Data Credits areproduced via burning some amount of HNT
using an on-chain transaction. Andthanks to a system called 'Implicit Burn', users (typically) don't need tomanually supply DCs
to pay fees. As long as the Helium wallet being used tosubmit the transaction contains enough HNT
to burn to DCs
to fund thetransaction, the burn will happen implicitly, requiring no user intervention.
Transaction Fee Schedule
The following is a list of the current set of fees required for varioustransactions, along with their details. Transaction fees are paid in DataCredits. (Note that the cost is not shown in HNT
as this number is variablebased on the current $USD/HNT price as defined by the HNT Price Oracle.)
Fee Type | Fee Description | Cost (DC) | Cost ($USD) |
---|---|---|---|
Send HNT | Transferring HNT from wallet to wallet | Variable | Variable |
Transferring Device Packet Data | Fee paid by device owner when sending or receiving sensor data. Metered per 24 bytes. | 1 | $.00001 |
Add Miner | Fee paid to add Miner to the blockchain. (Only applies to non-Helium Hotspots.) | 4000000 | $40 |
Assert Miner Location | Required when asserting a Gateway's location. (The first two assertions for Helium Hotspots are paid by Helium, Inc. ) | 1000000 | $10 |
Purchasing a blockchain OUI | Buy an OUI from the Helium blockchain | 10000000 | $100 |
Purchasing a blockchain Subnet | Buy a Subnet from the Helium blockchain | 10000000 | $100 |
Calculating the DC cost for Sending HNT
As noted above, the DC
cost of a Send
transaction is variable. The precisecost is based on the size of the transaction, in bytes. Once the size iscalculated, we apply a 5000x
multiplier. For a typical send transaction, whereone wallet is sending to one wallet(like this one here),the complete transaction is made up of the following:
Transaction Component | Component Size (Bytes) |
---|---|
Payer Wallet Key | 33 |
Payee Wallet Key | 33 |
Payer Signature | 64 |
Nonce | 3 (approximate; ranges from 2-4) |
Payment Amount | 6 (approximate; ranges from 4-8) |
- In total, this is
139
bytes. - Each
24
bytes requires one Data Credit (as is the case when you'retransferring device packet data). 139
/24
results in6
Data Credits.- We then apply our 5000x multiplier, and the result is a transaction fee
- This results in a
30000 Data Credit
cost for the above transaction.
Transaction Fees and Implicit Burn
The Helium blockchain uses something called implicit burn
when paying fees.
Implicit Burn™
The term implicit burn
was coined by Helium PM Coco 'cokes' Tang, a recognizedinnovator in the blockchain technology and terminology space.
Thanks to Implicit Burn™, if you have enough HNT in your wallet to pay thetransaction fee, the Helium Mobile Wallet (or the Helium Wallet CLI) willcalculate the DC cost of your transaction and the blockchain will automaticallyburn the precise amount of HNT to supply the required DCs for the transaction.For example:
- You need to send
10 HNT
from a Helium Wallet that contains11 HNT
- The cost for this
send
transaction is35000 DCs
- Let's assume the
HNT/$USD
Oracle Price is$.35
at the time you send theHNT
. This means that you'll need to supply a1HNT
to fund the35000 DCs
for this transaction. - When you send the
10 HNT
, the Helium Wallet automatically supplies the1 HNT
to be burned intoDCs
. - After the transaction is submitted and processed, your resulting Helium Walletbalance will be
0 HNT
.
Use Of Helium In Our Daily Life
In the above example, had you attempted to send 10.0001HNT
with only. 11 HNT
in your wallet, this transaction would have failed as burning .999 HNT
wouldonly result in 34965 DCs
, a mere 35 DCs short of the 35000
required for asend
transaction.
Use Of Helium In Medical
Failed Transactions Result in No DCs Being Spent
Use Of Helium In Everyday Life
Transactions in the Helium blockchain are atomic
. In short, this means thatthey either succeed entirely or they don't. So, if you attempt to send HNT froma Helium Wallet without enough HNT to supply the required Data Credits, thetransaction will fail after being submitted to the blockchain API by yourwallet. And your HNT
balance will be the same. No DCs
were burned (orharmed) in this failed transaction.