Lise Meitner - A Brief Summary
Lise Meitner was born on November 7, 1878, in Vienna, Austria. She was the third of eight children in a Jewish family during the holocaust. Because she was born in Austria, however, the Nazis accepted her as one of them. She enrolled in the University of Vienna in 1901 to study physics with Ludwig Boltzmann as her professor. After she got her degree in 1906, she went to Berlin to study with Max Planck and Otto Hahn. She and Hahn collaborated for 30 years, each of them teaching at Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. Hahn and Meitner worked closely, studying radioactivity, combining her knowledge of physics and Hahn's knowledge of chemistry. In 1918, they discovered protactinium.
In 1923, Meitner discovered a radiationless transition called the Auger effect, named after Pierre Victor Auger. He was a French scientist who discovered the effect two years later.
After Austria was taken by Germany in 1938, Meitner was forced to leave Germany and fled to Sweden. She continued working at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm, but had very little support because of prejudice against woman scientists. Hahn and Meitner met Clandestinely in Copenhagen in November to plan some more experiments. Eventually an experiment prompted the discovery of nuclear fission, which took place Hahn's laboratory in Berlin. It was published in January 1939. In February 1939, Meitner published a physical explanation for the observations and her nephew, physicist Otto Frisch, named the process nuclear fission. The discovery led other scientists to force Albert Einstein to write President Roosevelt a warning letter about the danger of nuclear bombs, which lead to the Manhattan Project.
In 1944 Hahn was given the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research in fission, but Meitner was ignored because Hahn downplayed her role ever since she left Germany and woman prejudice.
Meitner retired in Cambridge, England in 1960 where she died on October 27, 1968 at the age of 89.
In 1923, Meitner discovered a radiationless transition called the Auger effect, named after Pierre Victor Auger. He was a French scientist who discovered the effect two years later.
After Austria was taken by Germany in 1938, Meitner was forced to leave Germany and fled to Sweden. She continued working at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm, but had very little support because of prejudice against woman scientists. Hahn and Meitner met Clandestinely in Copenhagen in November to plan some more experiments. Eventually an experiment prompted the discovery of nuclear fission, which took place Hahn's laboratory in Berlin. It was published in January 1939. In February 1939, Meitner published a physical explanation for the observations and her nephew, physicist Otto Frisch, named the process nuclear fission. The discovery led other scientists to force Albert Einstein to write President Roosevelt a warning letter about the danger of nuclear bombs, which lead to the Manhattan Project.
In 1944 Hahn was given the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research in fission, but Meitner was ignored because Hahn downplayed her role ever since she left Germany and woman prejudice.
Meitner retired in Cambridge, England in 1960 where she died on October 27, 1968 at the age of 89.