FACTOID # 144: A three-minute local phone call in Ecuador costs 60 U.S. cents, 60 times as much as in Ukraine, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, or Uzbekistan.
 
 Home   Encyclopedia   Statistics   Countries A-Z   Flags   Maps   Education   Forum   FAQ   About 
 
WHAT'S NEW
RECENT ARTICLES
More Recent Articles »
 

FACTS & STATISTICS    Simple view

  1. Select countries to view: (hold down Control key and click to select several)

     

     

    Compare:

     

     
  1. Select fact or statistic: (* = graphable)

     

     

     

  2. (OPTIONAL) Compare to statistic: (both need to be graphable)

     

     

     

  3. View result as:

     

       
(OR) SEARCH ALL encyclopedia, stats & forums:   

Encyclopedia > Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner ca. 1900.
Lise Meitner ca. 1900.

Lise Meitner(November 17,[1] 1878 – October 27, 1968) was an Austrian born, later Swedish physicist who studied radioactivity and nuclear physics. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1535x2250, 507 KB)Lise Meitner ~1900. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1535x2250, 507 KB)Lise Meitner ~1900. ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Radioactivity may mean: Look up radioactivity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Nuclear physics is the branch of physics concerned with the nucleus of the atom. ...


Lise Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize. Meitner is often mentioned as one of the most glaring examples of scientific achievement that was ostensibly overlooked by the Nobel committee.[2][3][4] A 1997 Physics Today study concluded that Meitner's omission was "a rare instance in which personal negative opinions apparently led to the exclusion of a deserving scientist" from the Nobel.[5] An induced nuclear fission event. ... Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, 1913, at the KWI for Chemistry in Berlin Otto Hahn (March 8, 1879 – July 28, 1968) was a German chemist and received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. ... The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: ) are awarded for Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine. ...

Contents

Early years

Lise Meitner was born into a Jewish family as the third of eight children in Vienna, 2nd district (Leopoldstadt). Her father was one of the first Jewish lawyers in Austria.[4] She shortened her birthdate from November 17, 1878 to November 7, 1878. She also shortened her name from Elise to Lise. It is not known why she did so.[2][6] She was the second woman to earn a doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna.[4] The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... For other uses, see Vienna (disambiguation). ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Look up November in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph. ... The University of Vienna (German: ) is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. ...


Scientific career

In 1917, she and chemist Otto Hahn discovered the first long-lived isotope of the element protactinium. That year, she was given her own physics section at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry.[4] In 1923, she discovered the cause, known as the Auger effect, of the emission from surfaces of electrons with 'signature' energies. The effect is named for Pierre Victor Auger, a French scientist who independently discovered the effect in 1925. Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, 1913, at the KWI for Chemistry in Berlin Otto Hahn (March 8, 1879 – July 28, 1968) was a German chemist and received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. ... For other uses, see Isotope (disambiguation). ... General Name, Symbol, Number protactinium, Pa, 91 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance bright, silvery metallic luster Standard atomic weight 231. ... Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (in German Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft) was the name of a number of scientific institutes in Germany before World War II. After 1945 they were re-organised and renamed as Max Planck Institutes. ... Auger electron spectroscopy is an analytical technique in surface chemistry and materials science. ... Pierre Victor Auger (May 14, 1899 - December 25, 1993) was a French physicist, born in Paris. ...


In 1930, Lise Meitner taught a seminar on nuclear physics and chemistry with Leó Szilárd. With the discovery of the neutron in the early 1930s, speculation arose in the scientific community that it might be possible to create elements heavier than uranium (atomic number 92) in the laboratory. A scientific race began between Ernest Rutherford in Britain, Irene Joliot-Curie in France, Enrico Fermi in Italy, and the Meitner-Hahn team in Berlin. At the time, all concerned believed that this was abstract research for the probable honor of a Nobel prize. None suspected that this research would culminate in nuclear weapons. Leó Szilárd (February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964 Originally Szilárd Leó) was a Jewish Hungarian-American physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and worked on the Manhattan Project. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... General Name, symbol, number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, period, block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Standard atomic weight 238. ... Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 - 19 October 1937), widely referred to as Lord Rutherford, was a nuclear physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics. ... Irène Joliot-Curie née Curie (September 12, 1897 – March 17, 1956) was a French scientist, the daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. ... Enrico Fermi (September 29, 1901 – November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, particle physics and statistical mechanics. ...


When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Meitner was acting director of the Institute for Chemistry. Although she was protected by her Austrian citizenship, all other Jewish scientists, including her nephew Otto Frisch, Haber, Leo Szilard and many other eminent figures, were dismissed or forced to resign from their posts - most of them emigrating. Her response was to say nothing and bury herself in her work. In 1946 she acknowledged that "It was not only stupid but also very wrong that I did not leave at once."[7] Hitler redirects here. ... Leó Szilárd (right) working with Albert Einstein. ...


After the Anschluss, her situation became desperate. In July 1938, Meitner, with help from the Dutch physicists Coster and Fokker, escaped to Holland. She was forced to travel under cover to the Dutch border, where Coster persuaded German immigration officers that she had permission to travel to the Netherlands. She reached safety, though without her possessions. Meitner later said that she left Germany forever with 10 marks in her purse. Before she left, Otto Hahn had given her a diamond ring he had inherited from his mother : this was to be used to bribe the frontier guards if required. It was not required, and Lise's nephew's wife now proudly wears this ring. Meitner was extremely lucky to escape, as Kurt Hess, a chemist who was an avid Nazi, had informed the authorities that she was about to flee. However, unknown friends only checked after they knew Lise was safe. An appointment at Groningen University did not come through, and she went instead to Stockholm, where she took up a post at Manne Siegbahn's laboratory, despite the difficulty caused by Siegbahn's prejudice against women in science. Here she established a working relationship with Niels Bohr, who travelled regularly between Copenhagen and Stockholm. She continued to correspond with Hahn and other German scientists.[8] German troops march into Austria on 12 March 1938. ... This article contains information that has not been verified. ... This article is about the gemstone. ... Front of the main building of the University of Groningen The University of Groningen (Dutch: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen or RuG) is a university in Groningen, Netherlands. ... For other uses, see Stockholm (disambiguation). ... Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn (December 3, 1886 - September 26, 1978) was a Swedish physicist, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924 for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy. ... Niels (Henrik David) Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1922. ... For other uses, see Copenhagen (disambiguation). ...


Hahn and Meitner met clandestinely in Copenhagen in November to plan a new round of experiments; in this regard they subsequently exchanged a series of letters. The experiments which provided the evidence for nuclear fission were done at Hahn's laboratory in Berlin. This surviving correspondence indicates that Hahn believed nuclear fission was impossible. She was the first person to realize that the nucleus of an atom could be split into smaller parts: uranium nuclei had split to form barium and krypton, accompanied by the ejection of several neutrons and a large amount of energy (the latter two products accounting for the loss in mass). For other uses, see Copenhagen (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Barium (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Krypton (disambiguation). ...


A letter from Bohr, commenting on the fact that the amount of energy released when he bombarded uranium atoms was far larger than had been predicted by calculations based on a non-fissile core, had sparked the above inspiration in December of 1938. Hahn claimed that his chemistry had been solely responsible for the discovery, although he had been unable to explain the results.


It was politically impossible for the exiled Meitner to publish jointly with Hahn in 1939. Hahn published the chemical findings in January 1939 and Meitner published the physical explanation two months later with her nephew, physicist Otto Robert Frisch, and named the process "nuclear fission".[9] Otto Robert Frisch (1 October 1904–22 September 1979), Austrian-British physicist. ... An induced nuclear fission event. ...


Meitner recognized the possibility for a chain reaction of enormous explosive potential. This report had an electrifying effect on the scientific community. Because this could be used as a weapon, and since the knowledge was in German hands, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner together jumped into action, persuading Albert Einstein, who had the celebrity, to write President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warning letter; this led directly to the establishment of the Manhattan Project. Meitner refused an offer to work on the project at Los Alamos, declaring "I will have nothing to do with a bomb!"[10] A schematic nuclear fission chain reaction. ... Edward Teller (original Hungarian name Teller Ede) (January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Austria-Hungary-born American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as the father of the hydrogen bomb. ... Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul Wigner (Hungarian Wigner Pál Jenő) (November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian physicist and mathematician who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and... FDR redirects here. ... The Manhattan Project resulted in the creation of the first nuclear weapons, and the first-ever nuclear detonation, known as the Trinity test of July 16, 1945. ... Los Alamos is an unincorporated townsite in Los Alamos County, New Mexico. ...


Einstein himself respected Meitner and called her "our Marie Curie."[4] This article is about the chemist and physicist. ...


Awards and honors

Lise Meitner ca. 1928.

In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. In the opinion of many scientists, Meitner should have shared the prize, and Otto Hahn gave full honour to Meitner in the Nobel Lecture 1946. However, in 1966 Hahn, Fritz Strassmann and Meitner together were awarded the Enrico Fermi Award. On a visit to the USA in 1946 she received American press celebrity treatment as someone who had "left Germany with the bomb in my purse." She was honored as "Woman of the Year" by the National Women's Press Club (USA) in 1946, and received the Max Planck Medal of the German Physics Society in 1949. Meitner was suggested to receive the prize three times. An even rarer honour was given to her with naming Element 109 Meitnerium in her honour.[11][12][4] Download high resolution version (1282x1861, 179 KB)Lise Meitner with cigarette This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Download high resolution version (1282x1861, 179 KB)Lise Meitner with cigarette This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... List of Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry from 1901 to the present day. ... Fritz Strassman (February 22, 1902 - April 22, 1980) was a German physical chemist who, along with Otto Hahn, discovered the nuclear fission of uranium in 1938. ... The Enrico Fermi Award is a U.S. government Presidential award honoring scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy. ... “Planck” redirects here. ... General Name, Symbol, Number meitnerium, Mt, 109 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 9, 7, d Appearance unknown, probably silvery white or metallic gray Atomic mass (268) g·mol−1 Electron configuration perhaps [Rn] 5f14 6d7 7s2 (guess based on iridium) Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 32...


Later years

After the war, Meitner, while acknowledging her own moral failing in staying in Germany from 1933 to 1938, was bitterly critical of Hahn and other German scientists who had collaborated with the Nazis and done nothing to protest against the crimes of Hitler's regime. Referring to the leading German scientist Werner Heisenberg, she said: "Heisenberg and many millions with him should be forced to see these camps and the martyred people." She wrote to Hahn: Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. ...

Lise's Grave in Bramley
Lise's Grave in Bramley
"You all worked for Nazi Germany. And you tried to offer only a passive resistance. Certainly, to buy off your conscience you helped here and there a persecuted person, but millions of innocent human beings were allowed to be murdered without any kind of protest being uttered... [it is said that] first you betrayed your friends, then your children in that you let them stake their lives on a criminal war - and finally that you betrayed Germany itself, because when the war was already quite hopeless, you did not once arm yourselves against the senseless destruction of Germany."[13]

Meitner became a Swedish citizen in 1949, but moved to Britain in 1960 and died in Cambridge in 1968. As was her wish, she was buried in the village of Bramley in Hampshire, at St. James parish church, close to her beloved younger brother Walter, who had died in 1964. Her nephew Otto Robert Frisch composed the inscription on her headstone. It reads "Lise Meitner : a physicist who never lost her humanity." Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... This article is about the city in England. ... Bramley is a is a village and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. ... Otto Robert Frisch (1 October 1904–22 September 1979), Austrian-British physicist. ...


Further reading

  • Frisch, Otto Robert (ed.) (1959). Trends in Atomic Physics: Essays Dedicated to Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Max von Laue on the Occasion of their 80th Birthday. New York: Interscience. 
  • Rife, Patricia (1999). Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age. Birkhäuser. 
  • Lewin Sime, Ruth (1996). Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08906-5. 
  • Yount, Lisa (1996). Twentieth Century Women Scientists. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-3173-8. 
  • Hahn, Dietrich (ed.) (2005). Lise Meitner: Erinnerungen an Otto Hahn. Stuttgart: S. Hirzel. ISBN 978-3-7776-1380-2. 

See also

This is a list of Austrian scientists. ... General Name, Symbol, Number meitnerium, Mt, 109 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 9, 7, d Appearance unknown, probably silvery white or metallic gray Atomic mass (268) g·mol−1 Electron configuration perhaps [Rn] 5f14 6d7 7s2 (guess based on iridium) Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 32... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

References

  1. ^ Due to an accounting error, many documents stated November 7, which is also the date Meitner used herself.
  2. ^ Judson, Horace. "No Nobel Prize for Whining", New York Times, 2003-10-20. Retrieved on 2007-08-03. 
  3. ^ Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann. Chemistry Heritage. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  4. ^ a b c d e f The Woman Behind the Bomb. Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  5. ^ "REVELATIONS CONCERNING LISA MEITNER AND THE NOBEL PRIZE", Science Week. Retrieved on 2007-08-03. 
  6. ^ Cornwell, Hitler's Scientists, 66
  7. ^ Cornwell, Hitler's Scientists, 207-13
  8. ^ Cornwell, Hitler's Scientists, 214-15
  9. ^ Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction, Nature, volume 143, 239-240([1])
  10. ^ Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (University of California Press, 1996), 305
  11. ^ Hahn, Otto (1946-12-13). [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1944/hahn-lecture.pdf#search='meitner' From the natural transmutations of uranium to its artificial fission. Nobel Lecture.]. Nobel Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
  12. ^ Hardy, Anne (2004-03-04). Otto Hahn – Entdecker der Kernspaltung. (de). Pry Physik, Wiley Interscience GmbH. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
  13. ^ Cornwell, Hitler's Scientists, 411

is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 63rd day of the year (64th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st Century. ... is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Persondata
NAME Meitner, Lise
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Phycisist; Scientist
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1878(1878-01-17)
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna, Austria
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1968
PLACE OF DEATH Cambridge, United Kingdom

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... For other uses, see Vienna (disambiguation). ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the city in England. ...


  Results from FactBites:
 
Lise Meitner (278 words)
Lise Meitner (November 7, 1878 in Vienna, Austria October 27, 1968 in Cambridge, England), was a German physicist who studied radioactivity and nuclear physics.
Lise Meitner was the third of eight children of a Jewish family.
After Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938, Meitner was forced to flee Germany for Sweden, She continued her work at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm, but with little support.
  More results at FactBites »


 

COMMENTARY     


Share your thoughts, questions and commentary here
Your name
Your comments
Please enter the 5-letter protection code

Want to know more?
Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:
 


Lesson Plans | Student Area | Student FAQ | Reviews | Press Releases |  Feeds | Contact
The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL.
Images may be subject to relevant owners' copyright.
All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003-5. All Rights Reserved.
Usage implies agreement with terms.