FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK – Austrian physicist Lise Meitner helped discover nuclear fission in the 1940s in collaboration with German chemist Otto Hahn. He won the Nobel Prize, but in his words she was only remembered as an assistant. Marissa Moss dedicated a recent book to Meitner, “The Woman Who Split the Atom,” which was reviewed by The New York Times after examining the University of Cambridge physics archives in 2022 and translating hundreds of letters between her and Hahn into German . The correspondence shows the scientist’s displeasure at being excluded from the Nobel Prize, a feeling she did not want to reveal too openly at the time. According to Moss, she was excluded because she was a woman and Jewish. In 1947, Meitner wrote to his nephew Otto Robert Frisch, who also contributed to the discovery of nuclear fission: “I know that his attitude (von Hahn, ed.) contributed to the Nobel Committee’s decision against us, but it is something private that we do not do.” want to be made public.”
Born in Vienna in 1878, Meitner began studying physics on her own, as women were only allowed to attend university in 1897. In 1901 she enrolled at the University of Vienna and five years later became the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from that university. She worked with the greatest scientists of her time and attended the lectures in Berlin of Max Planck, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 and usually did not allow women into classes. In Berlin he met Hahn, who was his age and more open to working with women. As a physicist, she had a better understanding of the radioactivity emitted by the unstable nucleus; but as a woman, she had no access to the laboratory and worked in the basement, without pay; When he had to go to the bathroom, he ran across the street, Moss said.
In 1912, Meitner and Hahn moved to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, where they discovered a new element, protactinium. Since many scientists had enlisted during the First World War, they gave her the title of professor and her own laboratory. But anti-Semitism increased and in 1933 Hitler became Chancellor. Many Jewish scientists left Germany, but they stayed. “I love physics with all my heart,” she wrote to a friend. I can’t imagine it not being part of my life.
When Germany invaded Austria in 1938, Nobel Prize winner in physics Niels Bohr helped Meitner escape by train and get to Sweden. The correspondence with Hahn continued. He conducted experiments, she interpreted the results, which he did not understand. After an experiment in which uranium atoms were bombarded with neutrons, they were amazed: they expected the neutron to be absorbed and an electron released, creating a heavier element, but instead Hahn found barium, a much lighter element. In an earlier biography of Meitner, chemist Ruth Lewin Sime published a letter that Hahn wrote to Meitner shortly after this experiment: “Perhaps you will find a fantastic explanation. If you can suggest something that you can publish, it would somehow be the work of the three of us!” But in 1938, Hahn, together with his colleague Fritz Strassmann, submitted the results for publication, excluding Meitner. In the meantime, she and her nephew Frisch carried out calculations in Sweden and together they realized that Hahn and Strassman’s experiment had split the atom. Meitner and Frisch published their theoretical interpretation of the results in the journal Nature in February 1939, then designed experiments to test them, and in the following weeks published two papers that provided the first confirmation of what Frisch called “nuclear fission.” Letters from this period between Meitner and Hahn reveal tensions: she feared that he was upset about being excluded from publication; Hahn, in turn, was criticized for working with a Jewish scientist.
The following year, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. And with it the race for the atomic bomb. The American government launched the Manhattan Project and hired Risch and Bohr. Meitner was invited, but declined: “I don’t want anything to do with a bomb!” she said. In 1945, after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the American press called her the “Mother of the Bomb,” a description Meitner could not stand. They wrote that he brought the recipe for the weapon with him from Nazi Germany. But she told the New York Times in 1946: “You know a lot more about the bomb in America than I do.”
[In1945MeitnerandFrischwerenominatedfortheNobelPrizeforthediscoveryofnuclearfissionbutonlyHahnwonAccordingtoanarticleatthetimetheNobelCommitteearguedthatitwastraditionaltorewardexperimentalandnon-theoreticaldiscoveriesbutseveralscientistsarguedthatthiswasnottrueofferedheraprofessorshipattheMaxPlanckInstituteinGermanywhichsherejectedIn1948henominatedherfortheNobelPrizeforPhysicsicagoinphysicsthatMeitnerisnottheonlyscientistwhoseachievementshavenotbeenrecognizedinhistoryThejournalistalsoremembersRosalindFranklinthechemistwhodiscoveredthedoublehelixstructureofDNAin1953InthesocialprofileoftheNobelPrizewinneritwasrecognizedin2020thatHahnandMeitnerdiscoverednuclearfissiontogetherbutitisnotpossibleforhertoawardtheprizeposthumously[1945wurdenMeitnerundFrischfürdieEntdeckungderKernspaltungebenfallsfürdenNobelpreisnominiertdochnurHahngewannEinemdamaligenArtikelzufolgeargumentiertedasNobelkomiteedassestraditionellseiexperimentelleundnichttheoretischeEntdeckungenzubelohnendochmehrereWissenschaftlerargumentierendassdiesnichtwahrseiAusdenBriefenwirddeutlichwieverletztMeitnerwarIndenfolgendenJahrenversuchteHahnWiedergutmachung:ErbotihreineProfessuramMax-Planck-InstitutinDeutschlandanwassieablehnte1948nominierteersiefürdenNobelpreisfürPhysikSiewurdenoch46MalnominiertgewannabernieErstarb1968imAltervon89JahrenBisherhabennurvierFrauendenNobelpreisfürPhysikundachtfürChemiegewonnenbemerktdieAutorindesArtikelsderNewYorkTimesKatrinaMillerdieanderUniversityofChicagoinPhysikpromovierthatMeitneristnichtdereinzigeWissenschaftlerdessenLeistungeninderGeschichtenichtanerkanntwurdenDerJournalisterinnertsichauchanRosalindFranklindieChemikerindie1953dieDoppelhelixstrukturderDNAentdeckteImsozialenProfilderNobelpreisträgerinwurde2020anerkanntdassHahnundMeitnergemeinsamdieKernspaltungentdecktenesistjedochnichtmöglichihrdenPreisposthumzuverleihen