Isotope filming and Isotope Pecha Kucha in Glasgow

In early December, a TV crew were on campus in Glasgow, recording material for a short slot on the BBC's One Show, telling the story of Frederick Soddy, Margaret Todd, isotopes, and Soddy's early predictions of misuse of atomic energy. Although they had to rush off and film other news stories twice during recording, the filming was eventually completed on the 10th December, and an edited item sent off to the One Show HQ in London.

I alerted parents, relatives and Corporate Communications at the University. We tuned in to watch. However, no isotope slot appeared. Rumour has it that the item may appear in the New Year - we will see....

Meanwhile, Prof. Maggie Cusack and Dr. Cristina Persano, colleagues from the School of Geographic and Earth Sciences, organised, at incredibly short notice,  isotope Pecha Kuch event on the 18th December. I think this may have bee nthe first such pure science Pecha Kucha held in Glasgow. A star-studded lineup included TV's Professor Iain Stewart (who cheated, by giving an excellent, but non-isotope presentation on outrage and information in public perceptions of science). A large turnout enjoyed 10 very varied Pechas (or should it be Kuchas?) covering a wide range of chemical, medical, geological and environmental uses of isotopes....

Frederick Soddy on TV?

An outside broadcast team from the BBC have been recording material for a possible slot on the BBC's early evening "One Show". They've been looking at Soddy's life and work, and at some of the radioactive and non-radioactive materials relating to his work here in Glasgow.

The recording has not gone smoothly, having been interrupted first by developments in the Clutha bar helicopter crash, and then by high winds and damage to buildings.

However, yesterday, we managed to get all the filming done. If editing goes as planned, there should be an item on the One Show, at 7pm tomorrow night (12th December).

Amazing Frederick Soddy fact:

He was the first scientist of the atomic age to foresee the weapons potential. In a scientific article with Ernest Rutherford,  published in 1903 the phrase "atomic energy" had been used for the first time.(Rutherford,E. and Soddy,F. 1903, Radioactive Change. Philosophical Magazine series 6, No. 5, p 576-591). To the end of his life, Rutherford never believed that anything would come of "atomic energy", but Soddy saw at once the temptation that this might pose as the basis for new and terrible weapons, as well as for peaceful uses.

I n January 1904, he gave a speech to the Corps of Royal Engineers, at Chatham, which included this:

"It is possible that all heavy matter possesses latent and bound up with the structure of the atom, a similar quantitiy of energy to that possessed by radium. It it could be tapped and controlled, what an agent it would be in shaping the world's destiny! The man who put his hand on the lever... would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the earth if he chose."

Soddy's awareness, not just of the energy involved in nuclear processes, but of the likelihood of military applications was remarkable. This became a recurring theme in Soddy's writing, and was one of the main factors responsible for his giving up research in radiochemistry, and devoting his later academic life to economics, social policy, and the role of science in decision-making.

 HG Wells took on board Soddy's ideas, and in 1914, before the First World War, he published a novel "The World Set Free" which is dedicated to Soddy's ideas, and in which the phrase "atomic bomb" first appears (on page 96).  These bombs, dropped from biplanes, can destroy whole cities, and lead to a catastrophic global war, before mankind chooses peace, and a new era of atomic-powered prosperity and wealth.

This book helped create the actual atomic bomb. Leo Szilard read Wells' book in 1932,  had the insight that a nuclear chain reaction could be used to create such a weapon, and patented the idea in 1934. With Einstein and others, he was part of the group which secured US government funding for the Manhattan Project. Soddy's ideas, and Wells novel thus had a direct link to the creation, and use of nuclear weapons.


Having helped create this new world, Soddy was also probably the first nuclear objector, abandoning his reearch when at the height of his powers. In doing so, he attracted ridicule, and wrote himself out of much of the history of the atomic  age which was written later in the century. Perhaps now it is time to look again at his short, but amazing contribution to birth of our modern scientific world view,  in Montreal, London and Glasgow at the start of the 20th century.

Happy Isotope Day!

Today is the birthday of the word "isotope", and we are celebrating here in Glasgow. Joining us, are several members of the Soddy family, from as far afield as Canada. Here they are in the Hunterian Museum with Frederick Soddy's "biscuit tin electroscope" and the famous "Soddy Box", the mock-medieval treasure chest built in the 1950s to house his radioactive samples.

NB The radioactive samples are no longer kept in the box - empty,  it's perfectly safe.

Several generations of Soddys in the Hunterian

Our new Science Showcase space will be opened tonight, with the initial show:

Born in Glasgow: 100 Years of Isotope Science

running until the end of March. We will be having a regular series of talks, demonstrations and other activites by isotope scientists and students in this space during this period. Wtach this space!

Soddyite but not Soddyium

Frederick Soddy is perhaps an obvious omission from the list of radiochemistry pioneers commemorated in the names of elements. We have curium rutherfordium, hahnium, seaborgium and meitnerium, and among physicists, bohrium, einsteinium, roentgenium, and fermium.

However, if you pause for a moment and imagine what the name might sound like:

soddyium

It sounds very like the well known element with atomic number 11.


However, Soddy has been commemorated in the mineralogical world. The bright yellow uranium silicate mineral species soddyite is named after him.  The original description of the species by Schoep  in 1922 uses the form "soddite", but the spelling "soddyite" is now universally used.

Yellow crystals of soddyite from Shinkolobwe, Zaire. Hunterian museum specimen M11678

Ghosts of radioactivity past

Frederick Soddy's radioactive samples are no longer kept within the Soddy Box, which was built to house them in the 1950s.

The box, minus its radioactive contents, now lives in the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow.

However, although the box is non-radioactive (or at least, no more radioactive than any normal material), it does bear witness to its former radioactive occupants.

Within the wooden, lead-lined chest, the samples were kept in glass jars.

The jars are now empty. However, they carry the scars from their former, intensely radioactive contents:

Sample 1 was effectively non-radioactive, and the jar looks like a normal glass sample jar. However, other jars, such as that containing sample 3, have developed a distinct smoky tint. Aluminosilicate materials exposed to ionising radaiation often develop smokiness (this is the cause of the colour in the quartz gemstone "cairngorm").

The intensity of the smokiness is a record of the how much radiation the glass has been exposed to.

Open the box!!

What do Frederick Soddy's radioactive materials from the first decade of the 20th century look like?

The samples are all in small sealed glass tubes containing small quantities of powders, or in one case, a metal tube. The maximum dose the samples deliver  varies from insignificant (Sample 1, labelled actinium), to 29 millisieverts per hour (No 4, encased in lead). Many of the glass tubes are smoky, violet or purple, but this is due to radiation damage to the glass - the actual contents are pure white.

The most significant sample may well be No 6, which is labelled "Mesothorium" in Soddy's own hand. Soddy's work which lead to his concept of isotopes involved mixing radium (Marie Curie's 226Ra derived from the uranium decay series) with barium salts, and "mesothorium" (now known as 228Ra derived from the thorium decay series) and trying to separate these mixtures by chemical means. Others had also tried this, but Soddy decided that the failure to separate them was not due to inadequate chemical techniques, but rather because mesothorium and radium were the same chemical element, occupying the same place in the periodic table. This insight, and the word isotope, were pubished in his letter to Nature on 4th December 2013.

It is almost certain that this is one of the samples Soddy used in developing this key concept.
 

The Soddy Box!

Most of the radioactive materials used by the pioneers of radioactivity are now lost.

As we grew increasingly aware of the dangers of radioactivity during the 20th century,  people grew uneasy about having these powerful sources lying around in their offices and laboratories, and in most cases, they were disposed of.

However, in Glasgow Soddy's samples were not simply treated as radioactive waste.  In the late 1950s John Lloyd of the University's Natural Philosophy department, designed a special mock-medieval, lead-lined treasure chest to house what he saw as historical jewels. The box was built in the University works department, and quickly became known as "The Soddy Box":

Although lead-lined, the box was not a significant barrier to the powerful radium-rich sources within, and the box itself had to be kept away from people. At various times it lived in a hut on the roof of the Joseph Black building, in an old coal-mine adit underneath the building, and in disused toilets within the building, among other places. The mythical Soddy Box became an invisible, but notorious part of the University's science heritage.

Eventually, the box and its radioactive contents came under the care of the University's Radiation Protection Service, and were properly logged and registered as required by the evolving laws and regulations.

However, around 2011, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency carried out a review of unused radioactive materials in Scotland. The Soddy Box contents were identified as orphan materials, with no clear function, or reason for being held, and their fate was in the balance. Options for their disposal as radioactive waste were costed, but the episode made people aware of these rare survivors from the dawn of the nuclear age. Voices from within the University, and from isotope scientists all over the UK argued for their preservation as key historical artifacts, and this argument prevailed.

Although the radioactive materials remain physically in the custody of the Radiation Protection Service, they are now part of the University's Hunterian museum collections. The samples are no longer housed in the box, and the box (non-radioactive) is now in the care of the Hunterian, where it will play a leading role in the forthcoming exhibit "Born in Glasgow:100 years of Isotope Science", opening on December 5th 2013.

But what was in the box?

Was it in the study, or the dining room?

Isotopes will be 100 on December 4th 2013.

 The word first appeared in the scientific literature on December 4th 1913, when University of Glasgow radiochemist, Frederick Soddy published a letter in the journal Nature:

The first appearance of the I-word!

Although the science was Soddy's, the word itself had been suggested to him by a Glasgow doctor, Margaret Todd, partner of the pioneer of female medical education, Sophia Jex Bake.


Frederick and his wife Winifred lodged with Winifred's parents at 11 University Gardens, Glasgow.  George and Emma Beilby were wealthy from his work as an industrial chemist, but were also keen advocates of women's rights, and other progressive social causes.

The event definitely took place on evening in 1913 in 11 University Gardens, but there are two slightly different accounts of how the word was suggested.  The best known version, as recalled around 1950, by Soddy's colleague, Alexander (later Lord) Fleck, has it that the word was suggested over dinner one evening. However, Soddy himself towards the end of his life in the 1950s,  recalled that Margaret had suggested it to him one evening in the study.

 The two versions might not be mutually exclusive: maybe there was a dinner, and afterwards, conversation in the study.

One way or the other, the word "isotope" was born in this Glasgow building.