Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Meitner, Lise (1878-1968),


Austrian-Swedish physicist, who first identified nuclear fission. She was born in Vienna and educated at the Universities of Vienna and Berlin. In association with Otto Hahn, she helped discover the element protactinium in 1918, and was a Professor of Physics at the University of Berlin from 1926 to 1933. In 1938 she left Germany and joined the atomic research staff at the University of Stockholm. In 1939 Meitner published the first paper concerning nuclear fission. She is also known for her research on atomic theory and radioactivity. In her work she predicted the existence of the chain reaction, which contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. In 1946 she was visiting professor at Catholic University in Washington, D. C., and in 1959 she revisited the United States to lecture at Bryn Mawr College.

No comments:

Post a Comment