01 Biography
Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878 and became the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. She collaborated for 30 years with chemist Otto Hahn, and together they discovered the element protactinium. In 1938, she fled Nazi Germany to Sweden. Working with her nephew Otto Frisch, she provided the theoretical explanation of nuclear fission - the splitting of the uranium nucleus - that Hahn had observed experimentally but could not explain. She and Frisch coined the term "fission." Despite Meitner's central theoretical role, the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Hahn alone. The Nobel Committee's exclusion of Meitner is widely considered one of the greatest injustices in Nobel history. She died in 1968, aged 89.
02 Key Achievements
03 Notable Quote
"Life need not be easy, provided only that it is not empty."
04 Legacy
Meitnerium (element 109) is named after her. She declined an invitation to join the Manhattan Project, saying "I will have nothing to do with a bomb." She is considered one of the most overlooked scientists of the 20th century.