Ada Florence Remfry Hitchins was the principal research assistant of British chemist Frederick Soddy, who won the Nobel prize in 1921 for work on radioactive elements and the theory of isotopes.
21 Facts About Ada Hitchins
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Ada Hitchins helped to discover the element protactinium, which Dmitri Mendeleev had predicted should occur in the periodic table between uranium and thorium.
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Ada Hitchins was born on 26 June 1891 in Tavistock, Devon, England, the daughter of William Hedley Hitchins, a supervisor of customs and excise, and his wife Annie Sarah Pearsons.
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The family lived for a time in Campbeltown, Scotland, where Ada Hitchins attended high school, graduating in 1909.
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Ada Hitchins was awarded prizes in botany and geology, as well as being accorded special distinction for her work in chemistry.
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At Aberdeen, Ada Hitchins was a Carnegie Research Scholar, receiving a one-year appointment and monetary award given to a graduate of a Scottish institution for research and study by American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
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Ada Hitchins was drafted to work in the Admiralty Steel Analysis Laboratories in 1916.
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Ada Hitchins, released from the Admiralty, was able to find work at a Sheffield steel works.
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Ada Hitchins had recently received the Nobel prize for his work on radioactivity and isotopes.
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Ada Hitchins continued to work with him until 1927, when she emigrated to Kenya to be nearer to her family.
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Ada Hitchins worked with Soddy over a period of 15 years, which included his most productive periods of achievement.
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Ada Hitchins was his primary research assistant, and the only person to work with him for a long period of time.
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Ada Hitchins selectively extracted uranium from ore samples to create purified uranium preparations and established a half-life for ionium.
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Ada Hitchins's research showed that there was a steady rate of increase in the amount of radium in her uranium solutions, the first direct experimental evidence that radium was formed by the decay of uranium.
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Ada Hitchins helped to determine the atomic weight of lead based on measurements of radioactive ores, work that was important in developing an understanding of isotopes.
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The samples of distilled lead which Ada Hitchins prepared from Ceylon thorite were used by Frederick Soddy and supplied by him to Otto Honigschmid, who did important work confirming that the atomic weight of thorium lead is higher than that of common lead.
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Ada Hitchins continued Cranston's research before she herself was drafted for war work in 1916.
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Ada Hitchins developed methods for extracting radioactive elements from minerals and ores.
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In 1927 Ada Hitchins moved to Kenya, to join other members of her family who had emigrated there.
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Ada Hitchins was employed as a Government Assayer and Chemist in the Mining and Geological Department of the Colonial Government until 1946.
21.
In 1946, Ada Hitchins married a farmer, John Ross Stephens.