Lise Meitner and the dawn of the nuclear age
"Lise Meitner was the first woman to earn a Ph. D. in physics at the University of Vienna, a pioneer in the research of radioactive processes and, together with her nephew Otto Robert Frisch, an interpreter of the process of nuclear fission in 1938. She was a colleague and friend of many of the giants of 20th century physics: Max Planck, her Berlin mentor; Albert Einstein; Max von Laue; and Niels Bohr, to mention only a few. Yet at the end of World War II, her colleague of thirty years, radiochemist Otto Hahn alone was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the "discovery" of nuclear fission - a discovery based on years of research in which Meitner was directly involved before her secret escape from Nazi Germany." "In this biography, Patricia Rife interprets both the life and times of Lise Meitner (1878-1968), providing a rich background of the scientific discoveries and social milieu that affected the research, events, personalities, and politics of 20th century quantum physics. Rife asks the central question of why, given the historical evidence of Meitner's role in the interpretation of nuclear fission, was she too not awarded the Nobel Prize?"--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©1999
Birkhäuser, Boston, ©1999