![]() Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00010710 | |||||||||
People ... Scientists | |||||||||
Burgess COMMENTARY | |||||||||
Lise Meitner (7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics.[4] Meitner was part of the Hahn-Meitner-Strassmann team that worked on 'transuranium-elements' from 1935 onward, which led to the radiochemical discovery of the nuclear fission of uranium and thorium in December 1938, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944.[5] Meitner is often mentioned as one of the most glaring examples of women's scientific achievement being overlooked by the Nobel committee.[6][7][8] 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.[9] Element 109, meitnerium, is named in her honour.[10][11][12] |