Mastodawn

Sheril Kirshenbaum Dec 26, 2022

Fission is in the news, but few recognize that a woman physicist was behind the discovery.

Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry w/o her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.

Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201502/physicshistory.cfm #women #history #science #HistoryRemix

This Month in Physics History

February 11, 1939: Meitner/Frisch paper on nuclear fission

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math_poly Dec 26, 2022

@Sheril

For those who find the science or the people interesting, strongly recommend Richard Rhodes’s “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” which details the people and relationships behind the physics and chemistry which led to …. Meitner receives significant coverage for her scientific contributions. It’s almost a survey of early molecular physics. It’s the kind of book which one can re-read every 10 years. It won the Pulitzer Prize in ‘88 so not exactly unknown, but one of the best ever.

It’s not a war-glorifying book at all, IMHO. Also talks about the effort to deny science to Germany and those who refused to work the project.

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Dr. Frog

@math_poly @Sheril I second the recommendation for "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"; it's the best book on the history of science that I've ever read. It explains the concepts of nuclear physics in a very understandable way, and I think captures some of the excitement of that period as physicists were beginning to grasp the inner workings of nature. It is also not horribly depressing. TBH, my own interest in open-source software reflects Bohr's "open world" as described by Rhodes.