Frederick Soddy

English radiochemist

Born: September 2, 1877 · Died: September 22, 1956

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Who was Frederick Soddy?

Frederick Soddy FRS (2 September 1877 – 22 September 1956) was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. Soddy was born at 6 Bolton Road, Eastbourne, England, the son of Benjamin Soddy, corn merchant, and his wife Hannah Green. He went to school at Eastbourne College, before going on to study at University College of Wales at Aberystwyth and at Merton College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1898 with first class honours in chemistry. In 1900, he became a demonstrator in chemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he worked with Ernest Rutherford on radioactivity. He also proved the existence of isotopes of certain radioactive elements. Soddy was a polymath who mastered chemistry, nuclear physics, statistical mechanics, finance, and economics. He was a researcher at Oxford from 1898 to 1900.

Historical significance

In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes".

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