She was a "Jew" who was not Jewish, a female student when women were not allowed into institutions of higher education, a Viennese exiled to Germany to Sweden who died in England, a physicist unable to publish some of her most seminal work, at home nowhere. Although the American press called her "the Jewish mother of the atomic bomb" after World War II, Lise Meitner had no role in the bomb though she gave the first theoretical explanation of the fission process. Her exclusion from the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission is often cited as the Prize's most egregious omission. In later years, Meitner's contribution to the discovery of fission and to nuclear physics lapsed into deeper anonymity. That slowly changed, and she was awarded the Fermi Prize in 1966 - along with Hahn and Strassman - "for their independent and collaborative contributions" to the discovery of fission.
This talk will present an introduction to Lise Meitner's life and contributions to physics and society, and how the impact of her work is being rediscovered.
*the inscription on her grave's headstone
Read More