Ida Noddack

Ida Noddack
Born Ida Tacke
25 February 1896
Lackhausen,[1] Rhine Province, German Empire
Died 24 September 1978(1978-09-24) (aged 82)
Bad Neuenahr,[1] Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany
Residence Germany, France,[2] Turkey[2]
Citizenship Germany
Fields Chemist and physicist
Institutions Allgemein Elektrizität Gesellschaft, Berlin; Siemens & Halske, Berlin; Physikalische Technische Reichsanstalt, Berlin; University of Freiburg, University of Strasbourg; Staatliche Forschungs Institut für Geochemie, Bamberg[1]
Alma mater Technical University of Berlin[1]
Known for Rhenium, nuclear fission
Notable awards Liebig Medal
Scheele Medal[1]

Ida Noddack (25 February 1896 – 24 September 1978), née Ida Tacke, was a German chemist and physicist. She was the first to mention the idea of nuclear fission in 1934.[3] With her husband Walter Noddack she discovered element 75, rhenium. She was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[4]

Background

Ida Tacke was born in Wesel, Lackhausen 1896. She was one of the first women in Germany to study chemistry. She attained a doctorate in 1921 at the Technical University of Berlin "On higher aliphatic fatty acid anhydrides" and worked afterwards in the field, becoming the first woman to hold a professional chemist's position in the chemical industry in Germany.

She and chemist Walter Noddack were married in 1926.[5] Both before and after their marriage they worked as partners, an "Arbeitsgemeinschaft" or "work unit",[6] but with the exception of her work at the University of Strasbourg, her positions were unpaid appointments.[7]

Nuclear fission

Noddack correctly criticized Enrico Fermi'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 on Fermi's failure to chemically eliminate all lighter than uranium elements in his proofs, rather than only down to lead.[8] 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 experimental proof or 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 on December 17, 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann provided chemical proof that the previously presumed transuranic elements were isotopes of barium, and Hahn wrote these exciting results to his exiled colleague Lise Meitner, explaining the process as a 'bursting' of the uranium nucleus into lighter elements. It remained for Meitner who had been forced to flee Germany in July 1938 and her exiled nephew Otto Frisch utilizing Fritz Kalckar and Niels Bohr's liquid drop hypothesis (first proposed by George Gamow in 1935) to provide a first theoretical model and mathematical proof of what Frisch named nuclear fission (he coined this term). (Frisch also experimentally verified the fission reaction by means of a cloud chamber, confirming the energy release).[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

Element discovery priority

Ida and her husband-to-be 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 Rhenium (75) and Masurium (43). 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 was eventually named technetium due to its artificial source. No isotope of technetium has a half-life longer than 4.2 million years and was presumed to have disappeared on Earth 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 Paul K. Kuroda.[19] 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.[20] Using Van Assche's estimates of the Noddacks' residue compositions, NIST scientist John T. Armstrong, simulated the original X-ray spectrum with a computer, and claimed that the results were "surprisingly close to their published spectrum!"[21] 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.[22] 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.[23][24][25][26][27]

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.[28][29][30]

Nobel nominations

Ida Noddack was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, once by Walther Nernst and K. L. Wagner for 1933; both Noddacks were nominated by W. J. Müller for 1935 and by A. Skrabal for 1937.[4]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ida Noddack and the Missing Elements". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 2013-03-11.(subscription required)
  2. 1 2 "Ida Tacke Noddack". Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics. UCLA. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  3. ↑ "Tacke, Ida Eva". University of Alabama Astronomy Program. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  4. 1 2 Crawford, E. (May 20, 2002). The Nobel Population 1901-1950: A Census of the Nominations and Nominees for the Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. pp. 278, 279, 283, 284, 292, 293, 300, 301.
  5. ↑ Gregersen, Erik. "Ida Noddack". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  6. ↑ editors. Annette Lykknes, Donald L. Opitz, Brigitte van Tiggelen,, eds. For better or for worse? : collaborative couples in the sciences (1st ed.). [Basel]: Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-3-0348-0285-7.
  7. ↑ Nies, Allison. "Ida Tacke and the warfare behind the discovery of fission". Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  8. ↑ Noddack, Ida (1934). Über das Element 93. Angewandte Chemie. 47(37): 653-655. (On Element 93).
  9. ↑ FERMI, E. (1934). "Possible Production of Elements of Atomic Number Higher than 92". Nature. 133 (3372): 898–899. Bibcode:1934Natur.133..898F. doi:10.1038/133898a0.
  10. ↑ Noddack, Ida (September 1934). "On Element 93". Zeitschrift für Angewandte Chemie. 47 (37): 653. doi:10.1002/ange.19340473707. English Translation.
  11. ↑ Joliot-Curie, Irène; Savić, Pavle (1938). "On the Nature of a Radioactive Element with 3.5-Hour Half-Life Produced in the Neutron Irradiation of Uranium". Comptes Rendus. 208 (906): 1643.
  12. ↑ Translation in American Journal of Physics, January 1964, p. 9-15O. Hahn; F. Strassmann (January 1939). "Concerning the Existence of Alkaline Earth Metals Resulting from Neutron Irradiation of Uranium" (English Translation). Die Naturwissenschaften. 27: 11–15. Bibcode:1939NW.....27...11H. doi:10.1007/BF01488241.
  13. ↑ Bohr, N (1936). "Neutron capture and nuclear constitution". NATURE. 137 (137): 344. Bibcode:1936Natur.137..344B. doi:10.1038/137344a0.
  14. ↑ Bohr N.; Kalckar F. (1937). "On the Transmutation of Atomic Nuclei by Impact of Material Particles. I. General theoretical remarks". Matematisk-Fysiske Meddelelser Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. 14 (Nr. 10): 1.
  15. ↑ "Report Of The Third Washington Conference On Theoretical Physics". President's Papers/RG0002; Office of Public Relations. March 12, 1937. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  16. ↑ Lise Meitner, Otto Robert Frisch (Feb 11, 1939). "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction". Nature. 143 (5218): 239–240. Bibcode:1969Natur.224..466M. doi:10.1038/224466a0. Archived April 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  17. ↑ Otto Robert Frisch (Feb 18, 1939). "Physical Evidence for the Division of Heavy Nuclei under Neutron Bombardment". Nature. London. 143 (3616): 276. Bibcode:1939Natur.143..276F. doi:10.1038/143276a0. Archived January 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ↑ Niels Bohr (Feb 25, 1939). "Disintegration of Heavy Nuclei". Nature. London. 143 (3617): 330. Bibcode:1939Natur.143..330B. doi:10.1038/143330a0.
  19. ↑ Kenna, B. T.; Kuroda, P. K. (December 1961). "Isolation of naturally occurring technetium". Journal of Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry. 23 (1–2): 142–144. doi:10.1016/0022-1902(61)80098-5.
  20. ↑ By reanalysing the original experimental conditions, we conclude that the detection limit for their observing the X-rays of Z = 43 can be 1000 times lower than the 10−9 detection limit for the element Z = 75. Pieter H. M. Van Assche (4 April 1988). "The ignored discovery of the element-Z=43". Nuclear Physics A. 480 (2): 205–214. Bibcode:1988NuPhA.480..205V. doi:10.1016/0375-9474(88)90393-4.
  21. ↑ "I simulated the X-ray spectra that would be expected for Van Assche's initial estimates of the Noddacks' residue compositions. ...Over the next couple of years, we refined our reconstruction of their analytical methods and performed more sophisticated simulations. The agreement between simulated and reported spectra improved further. " Armstrong, John T. (February 2003). "Technetium". Chemical & Engineering News. 81 (36): 110. doi:10.1021/cen-v081n036.p110.
  22. ↑ Günter Herrmann (11 December 1989). "Technetium or masurium — a comment on the history of element 43". Nuclear Physics A. 505 (2): 352–360. Bibcode:1989NuPhA.505..352H. doi:10.1016/0375-9474(89)90379-5.
  23. ↑ Habashi, F. (2005). Ida Noddack (1896-1978):Personal Recollections on the Occasion of 80th Anniversary of the Discovery of Rhenium. Québec City, Canada: Métallurgie Extractive Québec. p. 59. ISBN 2-922686-08-6.
  24. ↑ Abstract: A careful study of the history of the element 43 covering a period of 63 years since 1925 reveals that there is no reason for believing the Noddacks and Berg have discovered element 43.P. K. Kuroda (16 October 1989). "A Note on the Discovery of Technetium". Nuclear Physics A. 503 (1): 178–182. Bibcode:1989NuPhA.503..178K. doi:10.1016/0375-9474(89)90260-1.
  25. ↑ P. K. Kuroda (1982). The Origin of Chemical Elements and the Oklo Phenomenon. Berlin;New York:Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-11679-2.
  26. ↑ Noddack, W.; Tacke, I.; Berg, O (1925). "Die Ekamangane". Naturwissenschaften. 13 (26): 567–574. Bibcode:1925NW.....13..567.. doi:10.1007/BF01558746.
  27. ↑ ... P. H. Van Assche and J. T. Armstrong, cannot stand up to the well-documented assertion of the well-established physicist Paul K. Kuroda (1917 2001) in his paper, "A Note on the Discovery of Technetium" that the Noddacks did not discover technetium, then known as masurium. More about this matter can be found in Kuroda's book, The Origin of Chemical Elements and the Oklo Phenomenon, and the book Ida Noddack (1896 1978). Personal Recollections on the Occasion of 80th Anniversary of the Discovery of Rhenium recently published by the writer...Fathi Habashi
    • Since the publication in this Journal of my paper on the discovery of element 43 (1), I have received a few letters questioning the correctness of the next to last paragraph, in the section entitled Nemesis....
    I am deeply indebted to George B. Kauffman, Fathi Habashi, Gunter Herrmann, and Jean Pierre Adloff, who provided me with additional information and convinced me to better consider the published material on the so-called Noddacks' rehabilitation and to correct with this letter my gross mistake, for which I apologize. Roberto Zingales
    1. Zingales, R. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 221227
    Fathi Habashi; Roberto Zingales (February 2006). "Letters The History of Element 43--Technetium" (PDF). Journal of Chemical Education. 83 (2): 213. Bibcode:2006JChEd..83..213Z. doi:10.1021/ed083p213.2.
  28. ↑ Masataka Ogawa's discovery of nipponium was accepted once in the periodic table of chemical elements as the element 43, but disappeared later. However, nipponium clearly shows characteristics of rhenium (Z=75) by inspection of his papers from the modern chemical viewpoints...a record of X-ray spectrum of Ogawa's nipponium sample from thorianite was contained in a photographic plate reserved by his family. The spectrum was read and indicated the absence of the element 43 and the presence of the element 75H. K. Yoshihara (31 August 2004). "Discovery of a new element 'nipponium': re-evaluation of pioneering works of Masataka Ogawa and his son Eijiro Ogawa". Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy. 59 (8): 1305–1310. Bibcode:2004AcSpe..59.1305Y. doi:10.1016/j.sab.2003.12.027.
  29. ↑ In a recent evaluation of the discovery of "nipponium," supposed to be element 43 by Masataka Ogawa in 1908, and confirmed but not published by his son Eijiro in the 1940s, Kenji Yoshihara remeasured a photographic plate of an X-ray spectrum taken by Ogawa and found the spectral lines were those of rhenium. Thus actually, rhenium was discovered many years before Noddack, Tacke, and Berg's work.H. Kenji Yoshihra; Teiji Kobayashi; Masanori Kaji (November 2005). "Ogawa Family and Their'Nipponium' Research: Successful Separation of the Element 75 before Its Discovery by Noddacks". Historia Scientiarum. 15 (2).
  30. ↑ Element 75 was isolated in 1908 by the Japanese chemist Masataka Ogawa and named nipponium. He inadequately assigned it as element 43 (technetium). From the modern chemical viewpoint it has to be considered to be element 75. Peter van der Krogt. "75 Rhenium". Elementymology & Elements Multidict. Retrieved 2007-04-03.
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