Ida Tacke Noddack
1896-1979
1896-1979
Discovered element 75, rhenium, with W. Noddack and O. Berg.
{In the same paper, "Die Ekamangane" published in 1925, that the discovery of rhenium was announced Berg, Noddack and Tacke reported evidence for an element 43 which they named masurium. This element was later (1937) found by C. Perrier and E. Segre in a molybdenum foil irradiated in the Berkeley cyclotron, and named technetium. The discovery of element 43 by Berg, Noddack and Tacke in naturally occuring rock was and is disputed because all known isotopes of this element are unstable with half-lives much less than the age of the earth; for discussions see e.g., P. H. M. Van Assche, Nuc. Phys A480:205(1988) and G. Herrmann, Nuc. Phys. A505: 352 (1989).}
Proposed in 1934 a process now known as fission. On the basis of observations reported by E. Fermi, she suggested that uranium bombarded by neutrons might break up into several heavy fragments - isotopes of known elements. Her paper suggested this might explain his observations rather than the presence of transuranic element 93. Work of Meitner, Hahn and Strassman confirmed production of heavy fragments in 1939; Frisch and Meitner explained the physical break up process and named it fission.
"Die Ekamangane" Naturwissenshaften 13: 567 (1925) with O. Berg and W. Noddack.
"Uber das Element 93" Zeitschrift fur Angewandte Chemie 47: 653 (1934).
First prize department of chemistry and metalurgy, Technical University, Berlin 1919
First woman to give a major address to the Society of German Chemists 1925
Justus Leibig Medal, German Chemical Society 1931, for the discovery of rhenium
Scheele Medal, Swedish Chemical Society 1934
Honorary Doctorate, University of Hamburg 1966
High Service Cross of the German Federal Republic 1966
Honorary Member, Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry
Honorary Member, International Society of Nutrition Research
1921-23 chemist, Allgemeine Electrische Gesellschaft (AEG), Berlin.
1924-25 chemist, Siemens & Halske, Berlin.
1925-35 chemist, Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, Berlin.
1935-41 research associate, Institute Physical Chemistry, Univeristy of Freiburg (Germany).
1947-55 University of Strasbourg (France).
1956-68 Institute for Geochemical Research, Bamberg (Germany).
Diplom-Ingenieur (chemistry), Technical University, Berlin-Charlottenberg 1919.
Doktor Ingenieur (chemistry), Technical University, Berlin-Charlottenburg 1921.
[29 WWWS], [96 RLS], [cim1985fh],[1I N20], [60 CCDS], [12A GKS], [47 CML], [1979 JCE]
On the failure to acknowledge Ida Noddack's 1934 suggestion that neutron bombardment might cause fragmentation (fission) of the uranium nucleus, Enrico Fermi's colleague and coworker in Rome, Emilio Segre, wrote
in Enrico Fermi: Physicist, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1970, (p.76) -
"The possibility of fission, however, escaped us, although it was called specifically to our attention by Ida Noddack, who sent us an article in which she clearly indicated the possibility of interpreting the results as splitting of the heavy atom into two approximately equal parts. The reason for our blindness is not clear. Fermi said, many years later, that the available data on mass defect at that time were misleading and seemed to preclude the possibility of fission."
and in A Mind Always in Motion, University of California Press, Los Angeles 1993, (p.91) -
"We did not seriously entertain the possibility of nuclear fission, although it had been mentioned by Ida Noddack, who sent us a reprint of her work. The reason for our blindness, shared by Hahn and Meitner , the Joilot-Curies, and everybody else working on the subject, is not clear to me even today."
A recent account of this matter is given by Teri Hopper in "She was ignored: Ida Noddack and the discovery of nuclear fission," Master's thesis, Stanford University 1990.
Nina Byers and Martha Keyes
<secwp@physics.ucla.edu
Betty Anderson
<banderso@ucla.edu