1. As far as I see,  within the ctied work, no. But Fermi dit that before.

2. Yes.3. The work cites Fermi: "Fermi has shown that [...] where the cross sections are large, the amount of artificial radioactivity is greatly increased...". This increase is due to fission, but fission was not identified as such neither by Dunning nor Fermi.

3. Fission was not identified because the measured radioactive decays were attributed to elements near Uranium. Neither Fermi nor Dunning could imagine that nuclear reactions yield nuclei far from the target material.

Fission was only later identified when Hahn/Strassmann identified the fission products chemically and Meitner could explain that within the liquid drop model.

4. Yes.

5. I have institutional access. I think, any university will have Phys. Rev. from 1935.

Questions 1-3 were out of curiosity. So thank you for an answer that a layman like me could understand.

Question 4 was not simply out of curiosity.

In September 1935 (about 2 months after publication of "Interaction of Neutrons with Matter"), a chemist who had previously developed a new heavy water production process, suggested to the head of a chemical complex that a plant for the production of heavy water be built.

This is a version of the old "What did you know and when did you know it" question.

If that chemist (who later taught physics) had read "Interaction of Neutrons with Matter," would he have understood the value of heavy water in basic nuclear physics research when he proposed building a plant to produce it? Until now, I wondered why he would have wanted to build such a plant if heavy water had no practical purpose in 1935. This could be one explanation.

What do you think?

I found this short essay but not the wanted paper. And there you will find a passage, where Dunning talks about Uranium.

Yes, Hanno, but did he ever mention uranium BEFORE the discovery of fission in 1938?

I'm not a member of any university, so a copy of "Interaction of Neutrons with Matter" (1935) would be greatly appreciated. If you can obtain it, please post here. Thank you.

I understand your interest, but at the moment, no idea.

That's interesting. And a difficult question. But here are my thoughts:

The production of heavy water in the Norwegian Vemork plant was already proposed 1933. So that was even before the publication, nevertheless there was obviously a need (market) for heavy water.

Hahn/Strassmann/Meitner started with the identification of irradiation products and ended with the publication of fission. If you read that publication you get the impression that the thought of fission was really far off, at least in the nuclear physics community. When exactly that thought ocurred first to the experimenters, I don't know. 

The value of heavy water in nuclear physics was already known in that sense, that obviously thermalized neutrons show greater interaction with matter and that D2O is more suitable to thermalization than H20 because it absorbs less neutrons.

The interaction of accelerated deuterium with matter was studied extensively by EO Lawrence in Berkeley since 1933. For example, there was observed that some nulear reactions take place with deuterium at a certain beam energy, but not with  hydrogen (half mass) at half of the energy. So this might be a hint that this could lead to a release of energy by nulear processes. However, it was a relatively old  idea, that if radioactive decay could be controlled, a huge amount of energy can be released from nucei (e.g. Soddy 1908).

To sum it up: To my impression, it might be that the chemist you talk of had a vague idea that deuterium might be useful in some sense within energy research. But, as I said, it was already availbale on the market, so it might just be pure economic interest if his method was cheaper than that used at Vemork.To forsee the later importance of deuterium for nuclear energy would mean to forsee three important developments: 1. the discovery that the way to release energy from nuclei will be fission, 2. the discovery that fission will be induced by thermal neutrons, 3. the fact that deuterium might be a suitable moderator for nuclear power plants. If your man forsaw this, he would probably have discoverd fission himself.

Vermork, of course! This fellow was all about money. He worked for the Japanese, the Germans and the Americans, so he knew all about Vermork. I also have his CV. He had a Ph.D. in Chemistry (1915) but he took several physics courses. There weren't any nuclear physics courses yet.

Regarding the uses of heavy water before the discovery of fission, I misspoke somewhat. There was, of course, basic nuclear research being done, so heavy water was needed for that. And there was quite a bit of heavy water research involving biological systems (plants, animals, even human subjects), so it was needed for those projects as well.

But until 1938, or even 1941, there was no need for TONS of heavy water, which his process was capable of producing, cheaply and easily (he said). By 1942, the Japanese, the Germans and the Americans all used his process.....

I'm writing a book on the subject.

E. Strub,

He was called a genius by a number of people, but even one genius can't do everything or make every discovery. Besides, he was a chemist, not a physicist. But even Einstein didn't discover fission or build the atomic bomb in his basement.

That's a great comment about "If he knew all of those things he would have discovered fission himself..." No, he didn't discover fission, but when he informed the Japanese that his process was was capable of producing large quantities of heavy water cheaply, they kicked him out of Japan and began producing heavy water by themselves, using his method. No problem, they had all of his patents which he wasn't allowed to leave the country with.

My article (for a book) -- being published soon by the University of Vienna -- makes a brief mention of this. I hope you all buy a copy for your university's library. :)

E. Strub,

Since I don't speak German, but you do, perhaps you can check to see if Hansgirg's German (Nazi) heavy water patent (below) was used by Heisenberg.

B. Streifer

Again, a few remarks:

As I see, the main idea of Hansgirg is to divide the production of Heavy water into two separated circles (electrolysis and water forming) that can be regulated separately.

Heisenberg started thinking about moderators as late as 1940. So I guess he will probably have found the existing patent but I don't know whether he would have cared before 1938.

A last "educated guess": Leo Szilard had the idea of chain reaction patented in the early 30ies. But he was not thinking of fission but more of something of forced nuclear reactions. His patent was secret, so probably Hansgirg did not know it. But he might had have the same idea. If so, he might have considered heavy water valuable for that kind of reactions and might have thought of slowing down neutrons on an industrial scale.This might have been reasonable from his point of view even without fission.