A Century of Chemical Dynamics Traced through the Nobel Prizes. 1943: George de Hevesy

The fourth Nobel Prize for research related directly to chemical dynamics was awarded to George de Hevesy in 1943 "for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes". de Hevesy's interest in isotopes stemmed from his work with Ernest Rutherford in Manchester when they found that it was impossible to separate various lead isotopes resulting from the radioactive decay of radium. This led de Hevesy to the conclusion that if isotopes could not be separated by ordinary chemical means, then isotopes could be used as tracers in research on chemical and physiological processes. Isotope tracers have been extremely valuable tools in research into chemical reaction dynamics in the second half of the 20th century.