RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

2026-10-08 - NobelPrize.org

What was searched

Found [web] https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/soddy-lecture.pdf

"The origins of the conceptions of isotopes", Nobel Lecture, 12 December 1922 (prize for 1921). - Opening: "The interpretation of radioactivity which was published in 1903 by Sir Ernest Rutherford and myself ascribed the phenomena to the spontaneous disintegration of the atoms of the radio-element ..." (claim 1, in his own words). - Priority of the displacement law (printed p.387): G. von Hevesy and A. S. Russell "published within a fortnight papers containing a form, only in part correct, of the great generalization"; "A fortnight after Russell, K. Fajans working in Karlsruhe, published this generalization complete and accurate in every detail. A fortnight after Fajans, in a paper amplifying and amending Russell's scheme, I published exactly the same scheme as that of Fajans, whose paper only reached England after mine was written." He adds that to him, "in full knowledge of all Fleck's experimental results, the complete generalization was obvious so soon as Russell's paper directed attention to it." - The lecture traces chemical identity cases from 1907 onward (Boltwood, Hahn, McCoy and Ross, Marckwald, Keetman, Auer von Welsbach 1910, Soddy 1910 on mesothorium-radium-thorium X, A. Fleck from 1912) with dates and the papers cited. - Biographical page: summary written at the time of the award (from Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901-1921, Elsevier 1966).

How it bears on the claims

  • Claim 5: claims.md says Soddy credits the 1913 generalisation "jointly to himself, A. S. Russell and K. Fajans". In the 1922 Nobel lecture he gives a finer order: Hevesy and Russell first, partly correct; Fajans first in complete form; Soddy a fortnight after Fajans, independently. Hevesy should be added to the list of people credited, and the order recorded as Soddy's own account. This is an addition, not a contradiction of the 1920 book.
  • The lecture is the best single primary source by Soddy on the history of the isotope idea, with dated references the reviewers can follow.