Contents page 1 — Without its discovery it would not have the atomic bomb page 2 — The physicist, it is proposed to the “German Jew”, and is in danger page 3 — 48 Times for the Nobel prize, but never excellent On a page
The 27 read. October marks the anniversary of the death of the eminent physicist Lise Meitner to 50. Time. 80 years ago she made her most important discovery: nuclear fission. The two science editors Tanja Traxler and David Rennert from the Austrian “Standard” to draw in her just-published book on the basis of archive material, the life of Lise Meitners. At this point, you write about the time spent by the researcher, especially in Germany.
What is Lise Meitner, mind you, than on 1. January 1933 dig in your pocket calendar, you can not be reconstructed. In retrospect, the words that you wrote down that day read like bitter irony: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”). Stable the political situation in Germany is long gone, but what follows in the next few weeks and months is unparalleled. Nothing in the life of Lise Meitner will remain as it was. That is certainly the most important physicist in Germany, will not protect you for long.
In Berlin, Lise Meitner, born in 1878 in a liberal Jewish family in Vienna has spent the most productive years of your life. After her Dissertation at the University of Vienna, she was drawn in 1907, in the German metropolis, because they saw “very little chance as a girl” in science. Originally, they had a study stay of one or two years, in the sense, finally, 31.
So progressive Berlin is in scientific terms, as reactionary Prussia in terms of women’s studies. Only in 1908, women will be granted the right to study, before you can study are very limited, and with individual permission. One of your first routes in Berlin, Lise Meitner, therefore, leads to Max Planck at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. She needs his consent to his Lectures and visit. That Planck is the opposite of the woman studies skeptical, don’t know, Lise Meitner. The permit gets you.
you will be one of the first professors in Germany
But that’s not enough, Lise Meitner, you want to operate experimentally. The physicist Heinrich Rubens, she learns on the 28. September 1907 the chemist Otto Hahn who is interested in a collaboration. 50 years after the first encounter Meitner to Hahn writes: “I asked myself a week cooling off period, although I had been following this discussion with the impression that for my further education from a human reason, a cooperation with You cheaper is likely to be as with Ladenburg or Rubens.” As a decades-begins a long, scientifically very fruitful friendship.
David Rennert, Tanja Traxler: “Lise Meitner. A pioneer of the atomic age”, Residenz Verlag, 224 pages, 24 Euro © Residenz Verlag
An important career step is carried out in 1912: Max Planck nominates Meitner to his assistant and the first woman in this position in a Prussian University. Your life Lise Meitner will see this as a crucial turning point in your scientific career.
During the First world war, Meitner receives in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for chemistry in Dahlem, a separate Department. 31. In July 1919 she is receiving the charge at the end of academic recognition for their scientific achievements: As one of the first women in Germany have the title of Professor is awarded.
The Venia Legendi obtained Meitner, three years later, when you are sworn in as second woman in Germany in physics. The title of her inaugural lecture in October, 1922, The significance of radioactivity for cosmic processes, will be renamed from a sloppy journalists to “cosmetic processes” – a woman in physics, seems to have caused such an Association. Meitner’s having fun even years later, about the faux pas.
