Frederick Soddy (1877-1956)

British scientist born at Eastbourne, Sussex and educated at Eastbourne College, University College of Wales, and Merton College, Oxford. He was a chemistry demonstrator at McGill University from 1900 to 1902, and worked on radioactivity studies with Sir Ernest Rutherford to develop the disintegration theory of radioactive elements. From 1903 to 1904 he worked under Ramsay at University College, London and in 1904 he became a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. As a result of his radioactivity studies, Soddy concluded in 1913 that certain elements should exist in two or more forms, indistinguishable chemically, but having different masses - that he termed "isotopes". In 1914 he went to Aberdeen University as Professor of Chemistry and from 1919 to his retirement in 1936 he was Lee's Professor of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at Oxford. His numerous publications were chiefly concerned with radioactivity. Soddy was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921 for his radioisotope studies and his investigations of isotopes.