She Let In The Nuclear Demon

She was one of the first women receiving a doctorate in science in Austria. Lise Meitner was born in 1878 into a Jewish family in Vienna. Although she faced discrimination against women in a male dominated world, as well as antisemitic prejudice, she succeeded against all odds in becoming a leading nuclear physicist of the 20th century. During the Great War Meitner worked in Berlin as a professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Among her outstanding early accomplishments was the 1917 discovery of the radioactive isotope Protactinium. Between 1934 and 1938 she collaborated with the eminent scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Their work led to the discovery of a large set of radioactive transmutation products, known as "transurania", which included the isotopes of radium and thorium. However, fearing persecutions, in the summer of 1938, Meitner escaped from Nazi Germany to Holland and from there she moved to Sweden. At Christmas time her nephew, Otto Frisch, arrived for a visit in the Swedish town of Kungalv. Frisch was a renowned nuclear physicist himself. Then a letter arrived from Berlin. Dated December 18,1939, Otto Hahn reported the weird results of keystone experiments involving the bombardment of uranium and thorium with neutrons, which produced bizarre results: the elements turned into barium, lanthanum and strontium. She was puzzled by the conundrum and had no clue how to explain it. She discussed it with Frisch and at some point it dawned on her that the solution to the enigma was the splitting of the uranium atom's nucleus. As an analogue to the biological division of cells, Frisch suggested the term "nuclear fission". So a new theory was born interpreting the transmutation as a physical process wherein the nucleus of the uranium atom divided, it split into two or several lighter fragments. But Meitner did not stop here. She proceeded to work on the quantum theory and the mathematics of the uranium fission, calculating the enormous amount of energy that can be released by the splitting of the uranium atom. Co-authored with Otto Frisch, Lise Meitner published in the February 11,1939, issue of the science journal Nature an article, titled, "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction". The publication represents a watershed in the rise of nuclear science. It paved the way for the development of the atomic bomb, as implemented through the Manhattan Project in World War II. On August 6,1945, the nuclear bomb "Little Boy" destroyed Hiroshima and three days later another atomic weapon, codenamed "Fat Man", wiped out the City of Nagasaki. By August 14 Japan formally surrendered and the Second World War had ended. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japanese cities shocked Meitner. She was an idealist who wanted to apply science and technology only for peaceful ends, for the benefit of all humanity. Lise Meitner died in 1968 in Cambridge, England. The radioactive element meitnerium, with the atomic number109, is named in her honor. There is also an impact crater on Venus named after her. In 1966 she shared the Enrico Fermi Award, along with Hahn and Strassmann, for the discovery of nuclear fission. However, the Nobel Prize eluded her. Instead, it was her collaborator, Otto Hahn, who was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei". Let me end this story with an anecdote: Once a colleague approaching Lise Meitner did not introduce himself. "Well", he said, "as you recall, we had met before." However, Lise did not recognize him. "You probably mistake me for Prof. Hahn", she said.