Ida Noddack

Ida Noddack was a German chemist who co-discovered rhenium and proposed in 1934 that neutron bombardment could split heavy atomic nuclei, anticipating nuclear fission.

Walter Noddack: A German chemist who co-discovered rhenium with Ida Noddack and worked with her throughout their careers. Her husband and long-term research collaborator shared the rhenium discovery.
Rhenium: A dense, silvery transition metal with atomic number 75, discovered in 1925 by Ida and Walter Noddack and Otto Berg. Its discovery was the Noddacks’ most secure experimental achievement.
Technical University of Berlin: A public research university in Berlin, founded in 1879 as the Royal Technical College of Charlottenburg. Noddack studied chemistry there and completed her doctorate in 1919.
Nuclear fission discovery: The 1938–1939 recognition that neutron-irradiated uranium splits into lighter elements, especially barium. The discovery supplied experimental confirmation of the kind of splitting Noddack had proposed.
Otto Berg: A German physicist who collaborated with Ida and Walter Noddack in the search for elements 43 and 75. He joined the team that identified rhenium through X-ray spectroscopy.
X-ray spectroscopy: A family of methods that identifies elements by measuring their characteristic X-ray emissions or absorption. The Noddacks used characteristic X-ray lines to identify rhenium.
Periodic table: A tabular arrangement of chemical elements ordered by atomic number and grouped by recurring properties. The search for undiscovered elements such as rhenium was guided by gaps in the table.
Irene Joliot-Curie: A French physicist and chemist who, with Frédéric Joliot-Curie, discovered artificial radioactivity in 1934. Her group’s interpretation of uranium products was among the contemporary readings Noddack challenged.
Enrico Fermi: An Italian physicist whose neutron-bombardment experiments on uranium helped prompt debates about heavy nuclei. His 1934 experiments supplied the context for Noddack’s fission proposal.
Neutron: A neutral subatomic particle found in atomic nuclei and capable of initiating nuclear reactions. Noddack’s 1934 proposal specifically considered nuclei struck by neutrons.

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PromethiumRelated: Her fission hypothesis anticipated a route by which element 61 could be produced.