Ida Noddack

Ida Eva Noddack ( born February 25, 1896 in Lackhausen ( today Wesel ); † September 24, 1978 in Bad Neuenahr; born Tacke ) was a German chemist.

Life and work

She studied as one of the first women in Germany chemistry. At the Technical University Berlin in 1919 she received her doctorate About anhydrides of higher aliphatic fatty acids and subsequently worked in the industry.

Together with her husband Walter Noddack then examined the at that time still unknown elements of atomic numbers 43 and 75, supported by X-ray expert Otto Berg at the Physico- Technical Institute. The discovery of them succeeded in 1925 and called it the elements " Masurium " and rhenium. In 1925, it was reported on both discoveries in the magazine Popular Science. The discovery of rhenium was later confirmed, however, the discovery of element number 43 was doubted; this was adopted in 1937 discovered to be safe and called technetium, then came the name Masurium into oblivion.

In 1934, they expressed the belief " that in the bombardment of heavy nuclei with neutrons these nuclei disintegrate into several large fragments " Since this assumption was contrary to then usual assumptions about the physics of the atomic nucleus, they found no significant attention. The decay of heavy nuclei into lighter elements was considered excluded, and Ida Noddack itself did nothing to verify their daring speculation scientifically. Five years later, on December 17, 1938, the nuclear fission of uranium by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann discovered and detected radiochemically. End of January 1939, she was confirmed theoretically by Otto Robert Frisch and Lise Meitner. Fresh thereby coined the term "nuclear fission" ( nuclear fission ), which was recognized internationally in the following period. (See history of nuclear fission. )

Ida Noddack was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but never got it. In 1931 she was awarded as the first and so far only woman, together with her husband, the Liebig Medal of the German Chemical Society. In 1966 she was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

She was buried alongside her husband in Bamberg.

Honors

To the 110th anniversary of explorer 2006, a bronze plaque created by the Tourist Office was unveiled at her parents' house in Lackhausen; ibid there is a Noddack Ida Street. Since the end of 2012, a street named after you in the East Frisian Emden also.