Radiochemistry · 1877–1956
Frederick Soddy
Soddy worked with Rutherford in Montreal and then with Ramsay in London, and his contribution was conceptual clarification of a field drowning in named activities. He argued with Rutherford that radioactive change is atomic transmutation — a claim that in 1902 sounded closer to alchemy than to chemistry — and later spent much of his career on monetary reform, which absorbed his attention after the science was done.
Explore the supporting references at the foot of this article.
Contribution & context
In 1913 he proposed that chemically inseparable substances of different atomic mass occupy the same place in the periodic table, coining the term , and formulated the radioactive displacement law relating and to movement in the table. He shared in the characterization of protactinium and received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
RSC Periodic Table — Radiumphy.anl.gov — RadiumMarie Curie: Nobel Lecture, 1911USGS — ThalliumUSGS — Radium
Discoveries in context
Elements that arrive by decay ↗
Several elements were first found as short-lived members of radioactive series, and explaining them forced chemists to accept that one place in the table can hold atoms of different mass.
Sources & further reading
- RSC Periodic Table — Radium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
- phy.anl.gov — Radium ↗phy.anl.govReference explanation · Source checked
- Marie Curie: Nobel Lecture, 1911 ↗Nobel Prize OutreachOriginal research · Source checked Where to look: Lecture paragraph reporting metallic radium with André Debierne in 1910, within the account of polonium and radium.Retrospective first-person research lecture; the cited paragraph was checked in indexed NobelPrize.org text.
- USGS — Thallium ↗United States Geological SurveyReference explanation · Source checked
- USGS — Radium ↗United States Geological SurveyReference explanation · Source checked
Sources and further reading. What the review labels mean