Meitner, Lise#

b. Vienna, Nov. 7, 1878, d. Cambridge (United Kingdom), Oct. 27, 1968, nuclear physicist, studied physics and mathematics in Vienna (mainly under L. Boltzmann and F. Exner), 1906 2nd woman in the scientific faculty at the University of Vienna to graduate in physics. From 1906 worked in the field of radioactivity under S. Meyer in Vienna, from 1907 assistant of O. Hahn in Berlin, with whom she discovered the element Thorium-C in 1908; 1912-1915 assistant of M. Planck (first female university assistant in Prussia), 1918 own radio-physical department at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Institut. 1926 university professor in Berlin. In 1925 proved that gamma rays appear only after nuclear fission, 1926 proof of transuranic elements; papers on beta disintegration. 1938 emigration to Sweden, interpretation of nuclear fission and estimation of the release of energy (together with her nephew O. R. Frisch). From 1939 at M. Siegbahn´s institute in Stockholm, until 1946 member of the Nobel Institute of Physics in Stockholm; 1960 emigration to England. Her achievements were unjustly ascribed to the work done for important nuclear physicists as an assistant, since she was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. Only much later, in 1997, was she given her due when the chemical element 109 was officially named "Meitnerium".

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