Lise Meitner Biography 1878-1968
|
|
| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Nuclear Engineering Physics |
| Special Topic(s): |
History of Technology |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Organization:San Diego SuperComputer Center |
| Description: | "In 1945, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Otto Hahn for the discovery of nuclear fission, overlooking the physicist Lise Meitner, who collaborated with him in the discovery and gave the first theoretical explanation of the fission process. While Meitner was celebrated after World War II as "the mother of the atomic bomb," she had no role in it, and her true scientific contribution became, if anything, more obscure in subsequent years. A new biography by Ruth Lewin Sime* tells Meitner's often paradoxical story and sets forth the daily sequence of events that constituted the discovery of fission and, subsequently, the "forgetting" of the role of one discoverer. But the separation of the former collaborators and Lise's scientific and actual exile led to the Nobel committee's failure to understand her part in the work. Later Hahn rationalized her exclusion and others buried her role ever deeper. The Nobel "mistake," never acknowledged, was partly rectified in 1966, when Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann were awarded the U.S. Fermi Prize." |
| Rating: |
|
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | Lise Meitner Otto Hahn nulcear fusion |
| Is Component of: |
Women in Science - Case Studies of 16 Women |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
Part of the Women Scientists' series of the San Diego Supercomputing Center. |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2008 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/meitner.html |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
|
