Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age

"A biography of one of thea? most remarkable women of the twentieth century." a?John Archibald Wheeler The drama surrounding the discovery of nuclear fission, which led directly to the development of the first atomic bomb by the Allies, is a true thriller in the history of science. The female physicist at the heart of this discovery also led a fascinating life. 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, Madame Marie Curie, James Chadwick, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Bohr. 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 in before her secret escape from Nazi Germany. In this fascinating 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 priority evidence of Meitner's role in the interpretation of nuclear fission, was she too not awarded the Nobel Prize?Rife, Patricia is the author of 'Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age' with ISBN 9780817637323 and ISBN 081763732X.