19/11/2025
Happy birthday , the forgotten woman of nuclear physics - - -
Meitner excelled in mathematics and science from an early age. In 1905, she became only the second woman to gain a doctorate at the University of Vienna. Shortly afterwards she moved to Berlin, where she became assistant to the famous quantum physicist .
(the physical process by which very large atoms like uranium split into pairs of smaller atoms) is what makes nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants possible. But for many years, scientists believed it energetically impossible for atoms as large as uranium (atomic mass = 235 or 238) to be split into two. That all changed on February 11, 1939, with a letter to the editor of (a premier international scientific journal) that described exactly how such a thing could occur and even named it fission. In that letter, physicist Lise Meitner, with the assistance of her young nephew , provided a physical explanation of how nuclear fission could happen.
It was a massive leap forward in nuclear physics, but today Lise Meitner remains obscure and largely forgotten. She received many awards and honours late in her life, but she did not share the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission, which was awarded exclusively to her long-time collaborator . Several scientists and journalists have called her exclusion "unjust". According to the Nobel Prize archive, she was nominated 19 times for Nobel Prize in Chemistry between 1924 and 1948, and 29 times for Nobel Prize in Physics between 1937 and 1965. Despite not having been awarded the Nobel Prize, Meitner was invited to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in 1962. However, Meitner received many other honours.
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