Ida Tacke
| Ida Noddack | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Ida Tacke 25 February 1896 Lackhausen,Rhine Province, German Empire |
| Died | 24 September 1978 (aged 82) Bad Neuenahr,Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany |
| Residence | Germany, France,Turkey |
| 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 |
| Alma mater | Technical University of Berlin |
| Known for | Rhenium, nuclear fission |
| Notable awards |
Liebig Medal Scheele Medal |
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. With her husband Walter Noddack she discovered element 75, rhenium. She was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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. Both before and after their marriage they worked as partners, an "Arbeitsgemeinschaft" or "work unit", but with the exception of her work at the University of Strasbourg, her positions were unpaid appointments.
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. 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.
...
Wikipedia