Annette Lykknes

Appreciated Abroad, Depreciated at Home

Ellen Gleditsch (1879–1968) became Norway’s first authority on radioactivity and the country’s second female full professor. From her many years abroad—in Marie Curie’s laboratory in Paris and at Yale University in New Haven with Bertram Boltram—she became internationally acknowledged and developed an extensive personal and scientific network. In the Norwegian scientific community she was, however, less appreciated, and her appointment as a professor in 1929 caused controversy. Despite the recommendation of the expert committee, her predecessor and his allies spread the view that Gleditsch was a diligent but outdated researcher with little scientific promise—a view that apparently persists in the Norwegian chemical community today. In addition to her scientific work, Gleditsch acquired political influence by joining the International Federation of University Women in 1920; she later became the president of both the Norwegian section and the worldwide organization. She worked in particular to establish scholarships enabling women to go abroad. I once worked with a learned man who was reputed to hate women. On one occasion he stated that the new collaborator was a rare exception. When he was asked why he said, “She does not scream.” I heard this several months later and have kept it as a great compliment; yes—the biggest in my scientific career. —Ellen Gleditsch I once worked with a learned man who was reputed to hate women. On one occasion he stated that the new collaborator was a rare exception. When he was asked why he said, “She does not scream.” I heard this several months later and have kept it as a great compliment; yes—the biggest in my scientific career. —Ellen Gleditsch

Kunskap och kemisk industri i 1800-talets Sverige

on MIT assembled by David Kaiser’s edited work, Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision (MIT Press, 2010). If the culture described so carefully is wider than MIT, what are the mechanisms by which influence is spread, and do these have any relationship to the contents of the culture? The author concludes with the reflection that synthetic biology will soon cease to be remarkable. We may be grateful that scholars used the period when its ambitions were still uncanny to remark on their implications. As the author concludes, the objects of synthetic biology redefine life itself.

Relationships between Academia, State and Industry in the Field of Food and Nutrition: The Norwegian Chemist Sigval Schmidt-Nielsen (1877-1956) and His Professional Roles, 1900-1950

The aim of this article is to shed light on the relationships between science, state and industry in the field of food and nutrition in Norway in the first half of the 20th century with reference to the scientist Sigval Schmidt-Nielsen (1877–1956). Schmidt-Nielsen was a health authority employed state chemist at the university in the Norwegian capital and later professor of technical organic chemistry at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim. We explore his roles, his research and his consultancy for state and industry at the university and at the institute. The early 1900s were important for the shaping of food and nutrition science as well as the growth of the food industry. During this period, food control and food regulations were implemented. Norway, the context in which Schmidt-Nielsen worked had only become an independent nation in 1905, and the state administration, as well as the university and institute were young institutions. We argue that this specific situation paved the way for the roles Schmidt-Nielsen played in academia, state and industry. By combining a biographical approach and a multi-institutional perspective, new relations between different fields within food and nutrition became visible.

Ida and Walter Noddack Through Better and Worse: An Arbeitsgemeinschaft in Chemistry

When the German chemist Walter Noddack (1893–1960) suddenly passed away in December 1960, he apparently suffered from the heartache of believing his wife, chemist Ida Noddack-Tacke (commonly, Noddack, 1896–1978) to be dead. His partner in life and science through almost 40 years had been unreachable by telephone – she was at the time receiving medical treatment in Hamburg. Walter was found the next morning collapsed by his desk, and he died shortly afterwards in the hospital owing to what had been a heart attack. This Romeo-and-Juliet-like story illustrates the close emotional bond that seems to have existed between the married couple. Contrary to many collaborators in science – married or not – whose joint work is often (publicly) credited to the male partner, the Noddacks (Fig. 1) are often depicted as a “work unit,” or as Ida referred to it, an Arbeitsgemeinschaft. We will argue that this Arbeitsgemeinschaft was, in fact, distinctive from collabo- rative teams whose partners invested and/or harvested unequally; it implied flexibility as to who did what in various circumstances, who took credit for what in publication, and it always appeared as a fixed unit in the public sphere, without dissolving or erasing the existence of each individual in the scientific community – quite the contrary.