User:Aamri2/Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner at Catholic University (C. A. Briggs, 1946).
Born	(1878-11-07)November 7, 1878 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	October 27, 1968(1968-10-27) (aged 89) Cambridge, England
Nationality	Austrian
Occupation	Physicist
Notable work	Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten her bei der Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle

Lise Meitner (7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian Jewish physicist and foundational in the discovery of nuclear fission.

Notable Works

Meitner's most influential work, by far, was her discovery of uranium fission alongside chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, for which she received the Enrico Fermi award in 1966. Hahn and Strassman published their research in the paper Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten her bei der Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle in 1939, but Meitner was not listed as an author of this paper due to her having fled Germany by the time of its publication. Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this research, but the Nobel Prize committee overlooked Meitner's contributions, her having not been credited for the discovery. Meitner, alongside Hahn, were also one of the first to isolate protactinium-231, which they named.

The element meitnerium is named after her.

History

Meitner was raised among seven siblings by her non-practicing Jewish parents, her father being a lawyer. Her father insisted on his daughters receiving the same education as his sons, and after displaying a knack for mathematics, she began receiving private tuition. As girls were not allowed to attend the normal boys' high schools in Austria at the time, Meitner worked hard to pass the University of Vienna's challenging entrance exam, and became the first woman admitted to its physics lectures and laboratories at the age of 23.

After becoming the second woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna, she met Max Planck. She had not been allowed access to the laboratories of the Berlin Institute for Chemistry for several years due to her being a woman, but Planck's invitation to Berlin for post-doctoral research and study finally allowed her the opportunity in 1907. There, she met Otto Hahn, who would become her lab partner for the next thirty years in their research of radioactivity. In 1908, she formally left the Jewish community and was baptized.

Following the First World War, Meitner began supervising the first-floor Physics Section of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry while Hahn was named its Administrative Director. Her status at first was an unpaid "guest" of Hahn, but most knew they were equals in their team. The team gained international prestige, receiving numerous Nobel Prize nominations in Chemistry and Physics.

In 1922, Meitner became a university lecturer, but she continued to be treated poorly as a woman. In 1933, following the rise of the Nazi regime, Hitler disqualified Jews from being professors, and Meitner lost her professorship. She continued to work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry until 1938, when Austria came under Nazi control. At the same time, "famous scientists" were warned not to "travel abroad," so Neils Bohr helped Meitner escape Germany to the Netherlands and then Sweden.

Meitner continued to correspond with Hahn and another member of the team, Fritz Strassman, urging them to continue her research on uranium. When Hahn realized the uranium was forming barium, he asked Meitner to explain how this could be possible. He wrote up their findings and, without acknowledging Meitner's contributions, had them published. Meitner continued to ponder the question, and theorized nuclear fission as an explanation. Bohr was instrumental in ensuring she gained recognition for her contributions, with Hahn later taking credit for the discovery.

When she was finally recognized for her achievements in 1945, she was often reported as having worked on the atomic bomb. Meitner herself, however, had never conducted such research, avoiding it altogether. In 1947, Hahn and Strassman invited her to return to the rebuilt Institute for Chemistry, but declined the invitation, fearing her younger colleagues would think she had not earned her place. Instead, she formed the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.

She retired in Sweden, and then moved to England in 1960 to live near her nephew, Otto Robert Frisch. She died in 1968 after jointly receiving the Enrico Fermi award in 1960.

Lack of Recognition

It is plain within her history how her status as a woman and a Jew served as a barrier in her career, especially during the Nazi regime. Doubtless, without these barriers we may have seen a great number more discoveries courtesy of her. As it is, she deserves far more recognition than she is presently receiving. She should be well-featured in the Ontario curriculum. Her discovery was one of the most influential scientific discoveries of the 20th century.

References

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia. (2021, November 3). Lise Meitner. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lise-Meitner

CWP. (2001). Meitner, Lise. CWP at physics.ucla.edu. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Meitner,_Lise@844904033.html#:~:text=%22Disintegration%20of%20Uranium%20by%20Neutrons,%3A%20637%20(1939)%20with%20O.%20R

Rife, P. (1999, December 31). Lise Meitner. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/meitner-lise

Sime, R. L. (1996). Lise Meitner: A battle for ultimate truth. Women in Science. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/meitner.html

See Also

• Hertha Sponer
• Hideki Yukawa
• James A. Harris
• Satyendra Nath Bose
• Mohammad Abdus Salam