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University of California Press

Lise Meitner

A Life in Physics
by Ruth Lewin Sime (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $22.95 / £20.00
Publication Date: Mar 1996
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 540
ISBN: 9780520918993
Series:
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About the Book

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was a pioneer of nuclear physics and co-discoverer, with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, of nuclear fission. Braving the sexism of the scientific world, she joined the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and became a prominent member of the international physics community. Of Jewish origin, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Stockholm in 1938 and later moved to Cambridge, England. Her career was shattered when she fled Germany, and her scientific reputation was damaged when Hahn took full credit—and the 1944 Nobel Prize—for the work they had done together on nuclear fission. Ruth Sime's absorbing book is the definitive biography of Lise Meitner, the story of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary life illustrates not only the dramatic scientific progress but also the injustice and destruction that have marked the twentieth century.

About the Author

Ruth Lewin Sime is an American author, educator and scientific researcher, best known for publishing works on history of science. She co-wrote and narrated a BBC-TV program on Lise Meitner, A Gift From Heaven, which was named one of the best science programs of the year by The Royal Society in 1992.

Table of Contents

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. Girlhood in Vienna
2. Beginnings in Berlin
3· The First World War
4· Professor in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-lnstitut
5. Experimental Nuclear Physics
6. Under the Third Reich
7· Toward the Discovery of Nuclear Fission
8. Escape
9· Exile in Stockholm
10. The Discovery of Nuclear Fission
11. Priorities
12. Again, World War
13. War Against Memory
14. Suppressing the Past
15. No Return
16. Final Journeys

APPENDIX
ABBREVIATIONS
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Reviews

"Sime has produced a magnificent biography that should help rescue Meitner from oblivion. . . . The story, especially in the lead-up to the discovery of fission by Hahn, Meitner, and Strassman, is absolutely gripping, full of twists and false dawns."
— New Scientist
"The characters include the whole pantheon of European physicists. The several story lines of Meitner's life are carefully and smoothly interwoven, and once the war starts, the plot becomes breathtaking. . . . Meitner's story is moving, and the book is clearly a labor of love. Such labors are worth attending."
— New York Times
"Sime has produced a thorough and intelligent treatment of an extraordinary scientist who received little of the credit she is due."
— Library Journal
"An extraordinary and rewarding read. Sime has written the definitive biography of Lise Meitner and much more."
— Physics and Society
"Sime provides an insider's account of the discovery of fission and the treatment of Jewish intellectuals and scientists during the rise of Nazi Germany. Her insights into the distortion of reality and memory help to explain why this extremely talented and significant contributor to atomic physics has been neglected."
— CHOICE
"The story told by Sime is a powerful one. She not only explains how scientists went about their work in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century but how they came to grips with the tragedies of those years."
— American Historical Review
"Sime is to be applauded for bringing to life the story of a brilliant physicist whose contributions to science and personal integrity were unparalleled." 
— San Francisco Chronicle
"Sime has infused the writing with a passion that is both refreshing and exhilarating. This is a book that deserves to be widely read and deliberated. Its significance exceeds the boundaries of the history of nuclear physics and chemistry." 
— Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences
"A moving, artfully detailed biography that should reestablish Lise Meitner among the greats. Sime maintains that elusive balance between scientific exposition, personal insight and political and cultural analysis that good scientific biographers strive for but seldom attain." 
— The Sciences
"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."
— Washington Post
"Sime has constructed here an admirable restorative of scientific credit."
— Booklist
"Deprived of the Nobel Prize she so clearly deserved for her contribution to the discovery of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner has never been given the attention she deserves in the history of twentieth-century physics. Now, with grace, style, and great authority, Ruth Sime sets the record straight."—Susan Quinn, author of Marie Curie: A Life

Awards

  • Silver medal for nonfiction 1997, Commonwealth Club of California
  • 1996 History of Women in Science Prize 1998, History of Science Society