Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (California Studies in the History of Science) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878, the third child of Hedwig and Philipp Meitner..." (more)
Key Phrases: nuclear gamma radiation, barium finding, actinium emanation, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Otto Robert (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Lise Meitner (1878-1968), a pioneering nuclear physicist, codiscovered nuclear fission with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman. Hahn continued at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute throughout World War II while the Jewish Meitner had to flee to Sweden in 1938, and he later received the Nobel Prize for the discovery. Even given the political nature sometimes associated with this prize, Meitner and Hahn's subsequent failure to credit her contributions perpetuated this egregious distortion of the truth. Although a fascinating book, it is also annoying at times?particularly when it deals with Meitner's refusal to see what was happening in Germany until it was almost too late for her to escape, and later during her years in Sweden. Whether it is the author's interpretation or actually Meitner's personality, there is a near-whining tone throughout this period?at the same time that the author is recounting innovative second starts made by Meitner's cohorts. Aside from this criticism, Sime has produced a thorough and intelligent treatment of an extraordinary scientist who received little of the credit she is due. Highly recommended for history of science collections.?Hilary Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post

"Sime has written the definitive scientific biography of Meiter, a riveting and masterful account of a scientist's steadfast devotion to physics. Sime blends the science and history with seamless ease. Sime's extensive research offers fresh insights into the devastating legacy of Nazism's distortion of the scientific truth." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (June 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520208609
• ISBN-13: 978-0520208605
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #492,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glimpse of a World We Hardly Knew, October 23, 2007

By	William Grother (Robbinsville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first learned of Lise Meitner from a book on atomic energy when I was a kid. I remember the illustration of her and her lab partner Otto Hahn staring at an apparatus in which they discovered the tell-tale signs of radioactive fission. But when I went through science courses in high school and college, she was hardly mentioned. This book has put her in her rightful place in the history of the atomic age. While it is always easy for a biographer to skew the importance of the individual being chronicled, that is certainly not the case here. Given the obstacles placed in her path by her gender, her religious affiliations, and her citizenship, her story is all that more remarkable for a view of our world which has been papered over in the last half-century.

That she would persevere despite everything is a testament to will and the desire for knowledge. Girls growing up in this day and age are not encouraged to pursue the scientific disciplines, but I think if a young girl today were to read Lise Meitner's story, she might just be inspired. I fully intend to give my copy to my daughter some day, in the hope of stirring a passion for science and the knowledge that if she applies herself, no matter the obstacles, she can become someone great.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written, vivid and accurate account of a great scientis, June 3, 1999

By	E. C. Anderson, [e-mail] "erniea2" (Chula Vista, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (California Studies in the History of Science, Vol 13) (Hardcover)

I found this a very readable and important summary of Meitner's career.It is a very human story and helps explain the great injustices which deprived her of a well deserved Nobel Prize. It's manages full scientific details without becoming obscure.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a turbulent time, October 2, 2005

By	Palle E T Jorgensen "Palle Jorgensen" (Iowa City, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The times of Lise Meitner spans two World Wars, and the ensuing Cold War between the two super powers of the East and the West. Lise Meitner's career also spans some of the most fascinating developments of modern physics. As it happened, this includes the beginning of the nuclear age; and it continues with the age of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy resulting from pioneering and basic research into nuclear fission, started by the two Meitner and Otto Hahn.

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878, and she started her career in the turbulent times of the First World War, at a time when Germany was a clear leader in physics research, in the Golden Era of physics. Yet, Lise Meitner was the first woman German scientist. When she started her studies, German universities were almost entirely closed to women; and especially so in the sciences.

The author Ruth Sime paints a personal and a compassionate portrait of Lise Meitner, her life and her times; and she vividly brings to life the tragic events in our modern history which shaped Lise Meitner's turbulent career. A central theme in the book is the physics community's reaction to the first use by the USA of a fission bomb over Japan in 1945, (in fact it was two nuclear bombs, one was a Uranium bomb, and the other Plutonium.)

In Berlin, building on a decade of research by Meintner and Otto Hahn, in 1938, the three Lise Meitner, Hahn, and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission. The Nobel Prize went to Hahn alone, and Lise Meitner has been largely forgotten. The book weaves together the individuals, their thoughts (through correspondence), their ambitions, and their flawed judgments.

A part of the story is the ensuing events following the discovery of fission; events that were shaped largely by others than Lise Meitner. During the Second World War, Lise Meitner was a refugee in neutral Sweden. Since she was part Jewish, she had to flee for her life; flee what became Hitler's extermination machine. The racial laws began in the Third Reich with Hitler's dismissal in 1933 of university faculty with Jewish family tree, and it progressed to what we now know as the Holocaust.

Many of the German scientists in the 1930ties were Jewish, or partly Jewish, and they were dismissed by Hitler in 1933, or in the years up to the war. The year before the outbreak of war in 1939 was the last chance to escape, and the entire physics community dispersed as German scientists had to flee, --- some chose to escape. A small number went to neutral Sweden, and others who had left earlier ended up in the USA, and became leaders in the Manhattan project, the secret Los Alamos team of scientists, led by Oppenheimer, the team which built the first atomic bomb. There were some German scientists, Otto Hahn among them who didn't have to flee. They included Lise Meitner's research collaborators, Hahn, and Strassmann, plus Max von Laue, Werner Heisenberg, and of course others. Lise Meitner never married, but was close to Otto Hahn before and after the War. And at high noon, Hahn helped Meintner to escape to Niels Bohr's Copenhagen, and then to neutral Sweden when Denmark became occupied by the Third Reich.

Those of the German physicists who stayed behind were faced with a Faustian choice, knowing Hitler's evil regime and the diabolic potential of the nuclear bomb, what does a scientist do? Does he stay in Hitler's Germany even if he doesn't have to? The second half of the book is about how Lise Meitner and her colleagues judged the physics community's reaction to the Faustian choice it had faced during the ten years of the Third Reich, and which it still was facing during the Cold War. It includes personal correspondence. One letter from Lise Meitner to Otto Hahn touched me. In it Lise Meitner was addressing those of her colleagues who had stayed behind in Germany and had worked on nuclear physics for Hitler, at least in one form or the other. They were her friends and colleagues from youth, and yet she felt compelled to point out what seems to be striking moral flaws: When the war ended in 1945, few of Lise Meitner's former colleagues express any regrets, and appeared instead to ponder the question of why the USA beat the Germany team of scientists in building a fission bomb. What is especially touching is to observe how it pains Lise Meitner to have to spell out this fact to her friends; friends she remained close to for her entire life. And in this ambivalent relationship lies yet another Faustian choice.

It is perhaps ironic that the theme of the Faustian choice has a prominent place in German literature, from the medieval "Faustus" tale to Goethe, Weber's Freischuetz, to Martin Luther's Protestantism, and to Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus (Mann's moral despair over his country's complacent embrace of Nazism).
Palle Jorgnesen, September 2005.