Gender Bias and Ida Noddack

Discussion of gender as it affects science and other contemporary affairs rightly provokes sensitivities and concerns regarding past and present biases. Naomi Oreskes emphasizes and references these well in comments (“Stepping forward too far?,” Books et al. , 16 May, p. [1094][1]) on an essay of mine on Ida Noddack, a chemist active in the 1920s and 1930s ([1][2]). In 1934, Noddack suggested that nuclear splitting (later termed “nuclear...