Lise Meitner [[electronic resource] ] : a life in physics / / Ruth Lewin Sime

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910778643703321
• Autore: Sime Ruth Lewin <1939->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, : University of California Press, 1997, c1996
• ISBN: 0-585-05524-6; 0-520-91899-1; 9786613622723; 1-280-59289-3
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (564 p.)
• Collana: California studies in the history of science ; ; v. 13
• Classificazione: UB 3231
• Disciplina: 530/.092; B
• Soggetti: Women physicists - Austria
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 505-512) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- 1. Girlhood in Vienna -- 2. Beginnings in Berlin -- 3. The First World War -- 4. Professor in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut -- 5. Experimental Nuclear Physics -- 6. Under the Third Reich -- 7. Toward the Discovery of Nuclear Fission -- 8. Escape -- 9. Exile in Stockholm -- 10. The Discovery of Nuclear Fission -- 11. Priorities -- 12. Again, World War -- 13. War Against Memory -- 14. Suppressing the Past -- 15. No Return -- 16. Final Journeys -- Appendix -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was a pioneer of nuclear physics and co-discoverer, with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, of nuclear fission. Braving the sexism of the scientific world, she joined the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and became a prominent member of the international physics community. Of Jewish origin, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Stockholm in 1938 and later moved to Cambridge, England. Her career was shattered when she fled Germany, and her scientific reputation was damaged when Hahn took full credit-and the 1944 Nobel Prize-for the work they had done together on nuclear fission. Ruth Sime's absorbing book is the definitive biography ; of Lise Meitner, the story of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary life illustrates not only the dramatic scientific progress but also the injustice and destruction that have marked the twentieth century.