She Let In The Nuclear Demon Poem by Paul Hartal

She was one of the first women
receiving a doctorate in science in Austria.
Lise Meitner was born in 1878
into a Jewish family in Vienna.
Although she faced discrimination
against women in a male dominated world,
as well as antisemitic prejudice,  
she succeeded against all odds in becoming
a leading nuclear physicist of the 20th century.

During the Great War Meitner worked in Berlin
as a professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
Among her outstanding early accomplishments
was the 1917  discovery of the radioactive isotope
Protactinium.

Between 1934 and 1938 she collaborated
with the eminent scientists Otto Hahn
and Fritz Strassmann.
Their work led to the discovery of a large set
of radioactive transmutation products,
known as "transurania", which included
the isotopes of radium and thorium.

However, fearing persecutions, in the summer of 1938,
Meitner escaped from Nazi Germany to Holland
and from there she moved to Sweden.
At Christmas time her nephew, Otto Frisch,
arrived for a visit in the Swedish town of Kungalv.
Frisch was a renowned nuclear physicist himself.

Then a letter arrived from Berlin.
Dated December 18,1939, Otto Hahn reported
the weird results of  keystone experiments
involving the bombardment of uranium and thorium 
with neutrons, which produced bizarre results:
the elements turned into barium, lanthanum
and strontium.

She was puzzled by the conundrum and had no clue
how to explain it. She discussed it with Frisch
and at some point it dawned on her that the solution
to the enigma was the splitting of the uranium atom's
nucleus. As an analogue to the biological division
of cells, Frisch suggested the term "nuclear fission".
So a new theory was born interpreting the transmutation
as a physical process wherein the nucleus
of the uranium atom divided,  it split into two
or several lighter fragments.

But Meitner did not stop here. 
She proceeded to work on the quantum theory
and the mathematics of the uranium fission,
calculating the enormous amount of energy
that can be released by the splitting 
of the uranium atom.

Co-authored with Otto Frisch, Lise Meitner
published in the February 11,1939, issue
of the science journal Nature an article, titled,
"Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons:
A New Type of Nuclear Reaction".

The publication represents a watershed
in the rise of nuclear science.
It paved the way for the development of
the atomic bomb, as implemented
through the Manhattan Project in World War II. 

On August 6,1945,  the nuclear bomb "Little Boy"
destroyed Hiroshima and three days later
another atomic weapon, codenamed "Fat Man",
wiped out the City of Nagasaki. 
By August 14 Japan formally surrendered
and the Second World War had ended.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japanese cities
shocked Meitner. She was an idealist who wanted 
to apply science and technology only for peaceful ends,
for the  benefit of all humanity.

Lise Meitner died in 1968 in Cambridge, England.
The radioactive element meitnerium,  
with the atomic number109, is named in her honor.
There is also an impact crater on Venus
named after her.
In 1966 she shared the Enrico Fermi Award,
along with Hahn and Strassmann,
for the discovery of nuclear fission.
However, the Nobel Prize eluded her.
Instead, it was her collaborator, Otto Hahn,
who was awarded  the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei".

Let me end this story with an anecdote:
Once a colleague approaching Lise Meitner
did not introduce himself.
"Well", he said,  "as you recall, we had met before."
However, Lise did not recognize him.
"You probably mistake me for Prof. Hahn", she said.