Ida Noddack
Encyclopedia
Ida Noddack née
Ida Tacke, was a German
chemist
and physicist
. She was the first to mention the idea of nuclear fission
in 1934. With her husband Walter Noddack
she discovered element 75 rhenium
. She was nominated three times for Nobel Prize in Chemistry
.
, Lackhausen.
She was one of the first women in Germany to study chemistry. She attained a doctorate in 1919 at the Technical University of Berlin
"On higher aliphatic fatty acid
anhydrides" and worked afterwards in the field being the first woman in the industry in Germany
's chemical proofs in his 1934 neutron bombardment experiments, from which he postulated that transuranic elements might have been produced, and which was widely accepted for a few years. Her paper, "On Element 93" suggested a number of possibilities, centering around Fermi's failure to chemically eliminate all lighter than uranium
elements in his proofs, rather than only down to lead. The paper is considered historically significant today not simply because she correctly pointed out the flaw in Fermi's chemical proof but because she suggested the possibility that "it is conceivable that the nucleus breaks up into several large fragments, which would of course be isotopes of known elements but would not be neighbors of the irradiated element." In so doing she presaged what would become known a few years later as nuclear fission
. However Noddack offered no theoretical basis for this possibility, which defied the understanding at the time. The paper was generally ignored.
Later experiments along a similar line to Fermi's, by Irène Joliot-Curie
, and Pavle Savić
in 1938 raised what they called "interpretational difficulties" when the supposed transuranics exhibited the properties of rare earths rather than those of adjacent elements. Ultimately in 1939 Otto Hahn
and Fritz Strassmann
, working in consultation with long term colleague Lise Meitner
(who had been forced to flee Germany) provided chemical proof that the previously presumed transuranic elements were isotopes of barium. It remained for Meitner
and her nephew Otto Frisch utilizing Fritz Kalckar and Niels Bohr
's liquid drop hypothesis (first proposed by George Gamow
in 1935) to provide a theoretical model and mathematical proof of what they dubbed nuclear fission
(Frisch also experimentally verified the fission reaction by means of a cloud chamber, confirming the energy release).
and Masurium. Only the discovery of rhenium was confirmed. They were unable to isolate element 43 and their results were not reproducible. Their choice of the term masurium was also considered unacceptably nationalistic and may have contributed to a poor reputation amongst scientists of the day.
Artificially produced element 43 was definitively isolated in 1937 by Emilio Segrè and Carlo Perrier
from a discarded piece of molybdenum foil from a cyclotron which had undergone beta decay. It is called technetium
. No isotope of technetium has a half-life longer than 4.2 million years and was presumed to have disappeared on earth in as a naturally occurring element. In 1961 minute amounts of technetium in pitchblende produced from spontaneous 238U fission were discovered by B. T. Kenna and P. K. Kuroda.
Based on this discovery, Belgian physicist Pieter van Assche constructed an analysis of their data to show that the detection limit of Noddacks' analytical method could have been 1000 times lower than the 10−9 value reported in their paper, in order to show the Noddacks could have been the first to find measurable amounts of element 43, as the ores they had analyzed contained uranium.
Using Van Assche's estimates of the Noddacks' residue compositions NIST scientist, John T. Armstrong, to simulated the original X-ray spectrum with a computer, and claimed that the results were "surprisingly close to their published spectrum!"
Gunter Herrmann from the University of Mainz examined van Assche's arguments, and concluded they were developed ad hoc, and forced to a predetermined result.
According to Kenna and Kuroda 99technetium content expected in a typical pitchblende (50% uranium) is about 10 −10 g/kg of ore.
F. Habashi pointed out that uranium was never more than about 5% in Noddacks' columbite samples, and the amount of element 43 could not exceed 3 × 10 −11 µg/kg of ore. Such a low quantity could not be weighed, nor give X-ray lines of element 43 clearly distinguishable from the background noise. The only way to detect its presence is to carry out radioactive measurements, a technique the Noddacks did not use, but Segrè and Perrier did.
Following on the van Assche and Armstrong claims, an investigation was made into the works of Masataka Ogawa
who had made a prior claim to the Noddacks. In 1908 he claimed to have isolated element 43, calling it Nipponium. Using an original plate (not a simulation), Kenji Yoshihara determined Ogawa had not found the Period 5
Group 7 element
43 (eka-manganese), but had successfully separated Period 6
Group 7 element
75 (dvi-manganese) (rhenium
), preceding the Noddacks by 17 years.
, once by Walter Nernst and K. L. Wagner for 1933; both Noddacks were nominated by W. J. Müller for 1935 and by A. Skrabal for 1937.
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Ida Tacke, was a German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. She was the first to mention the idea of nuclear fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
in 1934. With her husband Walter Noddack
Walter Noddack
Walter Noddack was a German chemist. He, Ida Tacke , and Otto Berg reported the discovery of element 43 and element 75 in 1925.-Rhenium:...
she discovered element 75 rhenium
Rhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
. She was nominated three times for Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
.
Background
Ida Noddack was born in WeselWesel
Wesel is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district.-Division of the town:Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrighoven, Ginderich, Feldmark,Fusternberg, Büderich, Flüren and Blumenkamp.-History:...
, Lackhausen.
She was one of the first women in Germany to study chemistry. She attained a doctorate in 1919 at the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin
The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...
"On higher aliphatic fatty acid
Fatty acid
In chemistry, especially biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with a long unbranched aliphatic tail , which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have a chain of an even number of carbon atoms, from 4 to 28. Fatty acids are usually derived from...
anhydrides" and worked afterwards in the field being the first woman in the industry in Germany
Nuclear fission
Noddack correctly criticized Enrico FermiEnrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
's chemical proofs in his 1934 neutron bombardment experiments, from which he postulated that transuranic elements might have been produced, and which was widely accepted for a few years. Her paper, "On Element 93" suggested a number of possibilities, centering around Fermi's failure to chemically eliminate all lighter than uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
elements in his proofs, rather than only down to lead. The paper is considered historically significant today not simply because she correctly pointed out the flaw in Fermi's chemical proof but because she suggested the possibility that "it is conceivable that the nucleus breaks up into several large fragments, which would of course be isotopes of known elements but would not be neighbors of the irradiated element." In so doing she presaged what would become known a few years later as nuclear fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
. However Noddack offered no theoretical basis for this possibility, which defied the understanding at the time. The paper was generally ignored.
Later experiments along a similar line to Fermi's, by Irène Joliot-Curie
Irène Joliot-Curie
Irène Joliot-Curie was a French scientist, the daughter of Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. This made the Curies...
, and Pavle Savić
Pavle Savic
Pavle Savić was a Serbian physicist and chemist.Born in Thessaloniki, Savić graduated with a degree in physical chemistry from the University of Belgrade in 1932. In 1939, he received a 6 month scholarship from the French government for studying at the Institut du Radium; instead of 6 months,...
in 1938 raised what they called "interpretational difficulties" when the supposed transuranics exhibited the properties of rare earths rather than those of adjacent elements. Ultimately in 1939 Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...
and Fritz Strassmann
Fritz Strassmann
Friedrich Wilhelm "Fritz" Strassmann was a German chemist who, with Otto Hahn in 1938, identified barium in the residue after bombarding uranium with neutrons, which led to the interpretation of their results as being from nuclear fission...
, working in consultation with long term colleague Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner FRS was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize...
(who had been forced to flee Germany) provided chemical proof that the previously presumed transuranic elements were isotopes of barium. It remained for Meitner
Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner FRS was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize...
and her nephew Otto Frisch utilizing Fritz Kalckar and Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
's liquid drop hypothesis (first proposed by George Gamow
George Gamow
George Gamow , born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov , was a Russian-born theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He discovered alpha decay via quantum tunneling and worked on radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave...
in 1935) to provide a theoretical model and mathematical proof of what they dubbed nuclear fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
(Frisch also experimentally verified the fission reaction by means of a cloud chamber, confirming the energy release).
Element discovery priority
Noddack and her husband looked for the then still unknown elements 43 and 75 at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt. In 1925, they published a paper (Zwei neue Elemente der Mangangruppe, Chemischer Teil) claiming to have done so, and called the new elements RheniumRhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
and Masurium. Only the discovery of rhenium was confirmed. They were unable to isolate element 43 and their results were not reproducible. Their choice of the term masurium was also considered unacceptably nationalistic and may have contributed to a poor reputation amongst scientists of the day.
Artificially produced element 43 was definitively isolated in 1937 by Emilio Segrè and Carlo Perrier
Carlo Perrier
Carlo Perrier was an Italian mineralogist who did extensive research on the element technetium in 1936. He discovered the element along with his colleague, Emilio Segrè , in 1937....
from a discarded piece of molybdenum foil from a cyclotron which had undergone beta decay. It is called technetium
Technetium
Technetium is the chemical element with atomic number 43 and symbol Tc. It is the lowest atomic number element without any stable isotopes; every form of it is radioactive. Nearly all technetium is produced synthetically and only minute amounts are found in nature...
. No isotope of technetium has a half-life longer than 4.2 million years and was presumed to have disappeared on earth in as a naturally occurring element. In 1961 minute amounts of technetium in pitchblende produced from spontaneous 238U fission were discovered by B. T. Kenna and P. K. Kuroda.
Based on this discovery, Belgian physicist Pieter van Assche constructed an analysis of their data to show that the detection limit of Noddacks' analytical method could have been 1000 times lower than the 10−9 value reported in their paper, in order to show the Noddacks could have been the first to find measurable amounts of element 43, as the ores they had analyzed contained uranium.
Using Van Assche's estimates of the Noddacks' residue compositions NIST scientist, John T. Armstrong, to simulated the original X-ray spectrum with a computer, and claimed that the results were "surprisingly close to their published spectrum!"
Gunter Herrmann from the University of Mainz examined van Assche's arguments, and concluded they were developed ad hoc, and forced to a predetermined result.
According to Kenna and Kuroda 99technetium content expected in a typical pitchblende (50% uranium) is about 10 −10 g/kg of ore.
F. Habashi pointed out that uranium was never more than about 5% in Noddacks' columbite samples, and the amount of element 43 could not exceed 3 × 10 −11 µg/kg of ore. Such a low quantity could not be weighed, nor give X-ray lines of element 43 clearly distinguishable from the background noise. The only way to detect its presence is to carry out radioactive measurements, a technique the Noddacks did not use, but Segrè and Perrier did.
Following on the van Assche and Armstrong claims, an investigation was made into the works of Masataka Ogawa
Masataka Ogawa
was a Japanese chemist known for the discovery of rhenium, which he named nipponium.After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he studied under William Ramsay in London, where he worked on the analysis of the rare mineral thorianite...
who had made a prior claim to the Noddacks. In 1908 he claimed to have isolated element 43, calling it Nipponium. Using an original plate (not a simulation), Kenji Yoshihara determined Ogawa had not found the Period 5
Period 5 element
A period 5 element is one of the chemical elements in the fifth row of the periodic table of the elements. The periodic table is laid out in rows to illustrate recurring trends in the chemical behaviour of the elements as their atomic number increases: a new row is begun when chemical behaviour...
Group 7 element
Group 7 element
A Group 7 element is one in the series of elements in group 7 in the periodic table, which consists of manganese , technetium , rhenium , and bohrium...
43 (eka-manganese), but had successfully separated Period 6
Period 6 element
A period 6 element is one of the chemical elements in the sixth row of the periodic table of the elements, including the lanthanides...
Group 7 element
Group 7 element
A Group 7 element is one in the series of elements in group 7 in the periodic table, which consists of manganese , technetium , rhenium , and bohrium...
75 (dvi-manganese) (rhenium
Rhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
), preceding the Noddacks by 17 years.
Nobel nominations
Ida Noddack was nominated three times for Nobel Prize in ChemistryNobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
, once by Walter Nernst and K. L. Wagner for 1933; both Noddacks were nominated by W. J. Müller for 1935 and by A. Skrabal for 1937.