Born: 25 February 1896, Germany
Died: 24 September 1978
Country most active: Germany
Also known as: Ida Tacke
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Ida Noddack was a German chemist and physicist. In 1934, she proposed the idea of nuclear fission. She, along with her husband Walter Noddack and Otto Berg, discovered rhenium (element 75). Noddack was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times.
In 1934, Ida Noddack critiqued Fermi’s 1934 neutron bombardment experiments and his proposal of creating transuranic elements. Her paper, “On Element 93,” highlighted Fermi’s failure to exclude lighter elements than uranium from his proofs, not just down to lead. This paper is historically significant for Noddack’s accurate critique and her suggestion of nucleus fragmentation, a precursor to nuclear fission. However, her theory lacked experimental proof and solid grounding, leading to general dismissal and even mockery, notably by Otto Hahn and others.