None suspected that this research would culminate in nuclear weapons.įollowing the doctoral degree, she rejected an offer to work in a gas lamp factory. At the time, all concerned believed that this was abstract research for the probable honour of a Nobel prize. A scientific race began between Ernest Rutherford in Britain, Irène Joliot-Curie in France, Enrico Fermi in Italy, and the Meitner–Hahn team in Berlin. With the discovery of the neutron in the early 1930s, speculation arose in the scientific community that it might be possible to create elements heavier than uranium (atomic number 92) in the laboratory. In 1930, Meitner taught a seminar on nuclear physics and chemistry with Leó Szilárd. She was praised by Albert Einstein as the "German Marie Curie". There she undertook the research program in nuclear physics which eventually led to her co-discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, after she had left Berlin.
Who discovered nuclear fission full#
In 1926, Meitner became the first woman in Germany to assume a post of full professor in physics, at the University of Berlin. Women were not allowed to attend public institutions of higher education in those days, but Meitner was able to achieve a private education in physics in part because of her supportive parents, and she completed in 1901 with an "externe Matura" examination at the Akademisches Gymnasium. Meitner studied physics and became the second woman to obtain a doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna in 1905 ("Wärmeleitung im inhomogenen Körper"). Her father, Philipp Meitner, was one of the first Jewish lawyers in Austria. Meitner was born into a Jewish family as the third of eight children in Vienna, 2nd district (Leopoldstadt). Element 109, meitnerium, is named in her honour. A 1997 Physics Today study concluded that Meitner's omission was "a rare instance in which personal negative opinions apparently led to the exclusion of a deserving scientist" from the Nobel. Meitner is often mentioned as one of the most glaring examples of women's scientific achievement overlooked by the Nobel committee. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize. Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. First woman in Germany to assume a post of full professor in physics. Main achievements: Discovered nuclear fission.
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