Lise Meitner, the ‘Atomic Pioneer’ Who By no means Gained a Nobel Prize
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In 2020, the official Nobel Prize account on X, previously often known as Twitter, acknowledged that each Hahn and Meitner found nuclear fission. The publish was accompanied by paintings exhibiting Meitner standing behind Hahn, to the outrage of many individuals.
Any effort to award a Nobel to Meitner posthumously could be in useless. “As soon as a Nobel is given, there isn’t a going again,” Dr. Sime stated. The perfect that may be accomplished is to acknowledge Meitner within the current, she added — and her omission from the brand new Oppenheimer movie “was not excusable.”
Ms. Moss continues to be translating Meitner’s letters; up to now, she has labored by means of greater than 700 pages. “Now I’m simply doing it as a result of I fell in love together with her,” she stated. “She’s an unimaginable particular person.” She plans to write down one other guide about Meitner with all the fabric that didn’t make it into the primary one.
Earlier this yr, Ms. Hafner and a pal visited Meitner’s grave, situated in a tiny English churchyard “in the course of nowhere,” she stated. It took them half an hour to search out the pale tombstone, which was overgrown with weeds.
Ms. Hafner was shocked at how unremarkable the grave was for such “a large in science,” she stated. Nonetheless, she was comforted to discover a stone perched atop the marker, a Jewish apply to honor the useless. Ms. Hafner added visitation stones for herself, Ms. Moss, Bohr, Einstein, Frisch and even Hahn.
That is how individuals are remembered, Ms. Hafner stated. “Till we chip away at this and proceed to remind folks of the necessary work she did, it simply gained’t get acknowledged,” she added. So “we do every part we will to set the file straight.”
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