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Meitner, Lise (1878-1968)
Copyright: IMAGNO/ÖNB
Lise Meitner was born on 7 November 1878 in Vienna, the third of eight children of a Jewish family. Despite her parents’ resistance, Meitner enrolled at the Vienna University to study mathematics, physics and philosophy. In 1906 she was the second woman ever to graduate from this faculty. In 1907 Meitner moved to Berlin where she started to work for Otto Hahn, a chemist who needed the help of a physicist to look for new elements. Unfortunately women were prohibited from entering the building where Hahn's laboratory was located. After a compromise was achieved, Meitner was allowed to work in a basement room without pay. Hahn and Meitner collaborated closely for 30 years; together, they discovered a new element, protactinium, in 1917.
During World War I, Meitner worked as an X-ray technician in a front-line military hospital, but returned to Berlin to continue her research work with Otto Hahn in 1917. Despite the appalling gender discriminations of that time, Meitner's abilities could not be ignored. By 1917 she was given her own physics section in the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, and in 1926 she was the first woman to became a full professor at the University of Berlin.
Due to her Jewish background, the Nazis, in 1933, stripped Lise Meitner of her teaching permission. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Meitner fled for Sweden where she continued her work at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm. In 1939 she was the first person to realize that the nucleus of an atom could be split into smaller parts; in January 1939 Meitner published the physical explanation for this with her nephew, the physicist Otto Robert Frisch, and named the process "nuclear fission".
Meitner’s insightful realization that atomic nuclei can be split in half, was the first step in a cascading set of discoveries that would relentlessly lead to the atomic bomb. Meitner herself rejected an offer to work on the project at Los Alamos, declaring "I will have nothing to do with a bomb!"
After her retirement in 1960, Lise Meitner moves to her nephew in England from where she continues to advocate the peaceful use of nuclear fission. Lise Meitner died on 27 October 1968 in Cambridge. Though denied the coveted Nobel Prize, Meitner was rewarded with far more durable fame: in 1994 an international commission agreed that element 109, artificially created in Germany by slamming bismuth with iron ions, was named "meitnerium."
During World War I, Meitner worked as an X-ray technician in a front-line military hospital, but returned to Berlin to continue her research work with Otto Hahn in 1917. Despite the appalling gender discriminations of that time, Meitner's abilities could not be ignored. By 1917 she was given her own physics section in the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, and in 1926 she was the first woman to became a full professor at the University of Berlin.
Due to her Jewish background, the Nazis, in 1933, stripped Lise Meitner of her teaching permission. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Meitner fled for Sweden where she continued her work at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm. In 1939 she was the first person to realize that the nucleus of an atom could be split into smaller parts; in January 1939 Meitner published the physical explanation for this with her nephew, the physicist Otto Robert Frisch, and named the process "nuclear fission".
Meitner’s insightful realization that atomic nuclei can be split in half, was the first step in a cascading set of discoveries that would relentlessly lead to the atomic bomb. Meitner herself rejected an offer to work on the project at Los Alamos, declaring "I will have nothing to do with a bomb!"
After her retirement in 1960, Lise Meitner moves to her nephew in England from where she continues to advocate the peaceful use of nuclear fission. Lise Meitner died on 27 October 1968 in Cambridge. Though denied the coveted Nobel Prize, Meitner was rewarded with far more durable fame: in 1994 an international commission agreed that element 109, artificially created in Germany by slamming bismuth with iron ions, was named "meitnerium."
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