![]() ![]() The chemistry narrative, reinforced by the award of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Hahn alone, corresponds to his own account of the discovery. In one narrative the discovery is a strictly chemical achievement: Fission was discovered in Berlin in December 1938 when the chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, identified barium as a product of the neutron irradiation of uranium. ![]() For some 50 years after nuclear fission was discovered in 1938, Lise Meitner’s contributions to the discovery were not acknowledged, the Nobel records were closed to scholars, and most Germans preferred not to look closely at Lise Meitner’s story because of what it reveals of the history and politics of their time.Īs a result, we have parallel historical narratives of the fission discovery. But studies such as these are rather recent. And in Germany especially, historians and scientists have taken an interest in Meitner’s story for what it reveals of the history and politics of her time. Scholars of the Nobel awards have examined the decision processes that excluded her. Historians of science have studied her role in the discovery of nuclear fission. At present, Lise Meitner is almost as well known for not having been awarded a Nobel Prize as many actual Nobelists are for receiving one. ![]()
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