Lise Meitner
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Lise Meitner (November 7, 1878, Vienna – October 27, 1968, Cambridge) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist.[1] She had a very large role in discovering nuclear fission. She received her doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1906.[1] Her work with two other scientists influenced the discovery and creation of the atomic bomb.[1]
Meitner was of Jewish descent and converted to Lutheranism.[2]
Starting in 1907, Meitner worked with a man named Otto Hahn. She worked with Hahn throughout her entire career. Working together, they completed a lot of work in chemistry. Hahn won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, even though his work had been with her. The reason that she did not win the prize was that she was a woman. She did attend the ceremony though.
In 1914, Meitner volunteered as an X-ray technician in the Austrian army during World War I. Meitner was also the first female professor in Germany. She became a German professor in 1917. Throughout the 1920s, Meitner worked mostly on radiation. She won many prizes and awards. Around 1935, Meitner and Hahn worked together to learn more about uranium. The element Meitnerium is named after her. Later in Meitner’s life, she had many discoveries that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. She worked to make possible the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima but she did not agree the atomic bomb.
Experiences sexism
An encyclopedia editor asked Meitner to write an article about radioactivity. He had read a paper she wrote about the physical aspects of radioactivity.[3] The letter that she got was addressed to “Herr Meitner” (Mr. Meitner). She explained that she was female and the offer was taken away. Meitner followed gender roles later in her career. British physicist Ernest Rutherford visited Berlin Laboratory. During this visit, Meitner spent the day shopping with Rutherford's wife. Meanwhile, the men talked about work. Meitner also had lots of accomplishments. After working with Hahn and investigating behavior of beta rays, she received an appointment in the radioactivity apartment and invited Meitner to join him. Soon after, Max Planck asked Meitner to be an assistant professor and lecture at the institute for theoretical physics. Meitner was the first woman in Germany to be in her position. Many news reporters were drawn to her opening lecture.
Lise Meitner Media
Lise Meitner around 1906 in Vienna
Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn in 1912
Meitner and Hahn in their laboratory, in 1913. When a colleague she did not recognise said that they had met before, Meitner replied: "You probably mistake me for Professor Hahn."[4]
Physicists and chemists in Berlin in 1920. Front row, left to right: Hertha Sponer, Albert Einstein, Ingrid Franck, James Franck, Lise Meitner, Fritz Haber, and Otto Hahn. Back row, left to right: Walter Grotrian, Wilhelm Westphal, Otto von Baeyer, Peter Pringsheim and Gustav Hertz
Former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry building in Berlin. Badly damaged by bombing during World War II, it was restored and became part of the Free University of Berlin in 1948. It was renamed the Otto Hahn Building in 1956, and the Hahn-Meitner Building in 2010.[5]
At a conference in 1937, Meitner shares the front row with (left to right) Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Stern and Rudolf Ladenburg; Hilde Levi is the only other woman in the room.
Meitner lived at this address for most of her years while in Sweden.
This was touted for many years as the table and experimental apparatus with which Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission in 1938. The table and instruments are representative of the ones used, but not necessarily the originals, and would not have been together on the one table in the same room.
Exhibition to mark the 75th anniversary of the discovery of nuclear fission, at the Vienna International Centre in 2013. The table (on loan from the Deutsches Museum Munich) is now described as a replica and images of Meitner and Strassmann are prominently displayed.
Meitner with actress Katharine Cornell and physicist Arthur Compton on 6 June 1946
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