After an Introduction on the history of nuclear fission, we re-examine the scientific relationship between Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in view of a number of newly published articles in the last two decades. We find the evidence overwhelming that they should have shared the Nobel Prize – rather than it being awarded to Hahn alone. In the post-war period Hahn’s actions are often difficult to understand, but we find no compelling evidence that he acted dishonourably.
E.Amaldi, O.D’Agostino, E.Fermi, B.Pontecorvo, F.Rasetti and E.Segre, Proc. R. Soc. (London) A149 (1935), 522.
2.
J.Bernstein (ed.), Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall, American Institute of Physics, 1996.
3.
N.Bohr, Nature143 (1939), 330. In this letter, written 4 days after Frisch submitted the two papers to Nature [9,22], Bohr already strongly argues the case for the credit for Meitner and Frisch.
4.
D.Cassidy, Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics and the Bomb, Bellevue Library Press, New York, 2009.
5.
E.Crawford, R.L.Sime and M.Walker, A Nobel tale of postwar injustice, Nature382 (1996), 393–395.
6.
E.Crawford, R.L.Sime and M.Walker, A Nobel tale of postwar injustice, Physics Today50(9) (1997), 26–32.
7.
I.Curie and P.Savitch, J. Phys. Rad.8 (1937), 385.
O.R.Frisch, Nature143 (1939), 276. Frisch later confessed that he had not thought to request to the Editor that the two papers be published rapidly!
10.
O.Hahn, A Scientific Autobiography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, London, 1966(in English). First published in German in 1962.
11.
O.Hahn, Letter of 23 January 1947 to Nobel Committee. Nobel Archives, Stockholm. We are grateful to Dr. J. Lemmerich for bringing this letter to our attention.
12.
O.Hahn, My Life, p. 206. Translated by E. Kaiser and E. Wilkins, Herder & Herder, NY, 1968; Quoted by R.L. Sime [27–29] on p. 342.
13.
O.Hahn and F.Strassmann, Naturwiss.27 (1939), 11.
14.
G.Herrmann, Letter to Physics Today, January 1996, p. 13. In Phys. Rev.57 (1940), 1185, E. McMillan and P. H. Abelson, reported the discovery of Np in the open literature and their failure to find Pu in a sample of 239Np. The Germans did isolate Np in 1942, and knew that 239Pu would be fissionable, but their failure to isolate Pu shows the lack of focus of the project. In the US 239Pu was identified in the spring of 1941 in Berkeley, but the results were not published.
15.
G.Herrmann, Five decades ago: From the “transuranics” to nuclear fission, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.29 (1990), 481–508(in English). This article has 247 references to original sources; we shall omit many references that can be readily found in this article.
16.
K.Hoffmann, Otto Hahn: Achievement and Responsibility, Springer, Berlin, 1993(originally published in German: Schuld und Verantwortung); English translation 2001 by Springer.
17.
K.Hoffmann, Otto Hahn: Achievement and Responsibility, Springer, Berlin, 1993, p. 143(in English edition).
18.
F.Joliot, C. R. Hebd. Séances Acad. Sci.208 (1939), 341–343.
F.Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation. Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann, Verlag Chemie, Weinheim, 1981, p. 211.
21.
F.Krafft, in: Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics, W.R.Shea, ed., D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1983, Chapter 5.
22.
L.Meitner and O.R.Frisch, Nature143 (1939), 239.
23.
V.Morgenweck-Lambrinos and M.Trömel, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn und die Kernspaltung: eine Legende aus unseren Tagen, Int. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Ethik der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin (NTM)8 (2000), 65–70.
24.
V.Morgenweck-Lambrinos and M.Trömel, Int. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Ethik der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin (NTM)9 (2001), 29–40.
25.
P.Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1999(in English). An earlier biography was first published in German in 1990 (Claassen). The conclusions are similar to those of Sime. See especially pp. 256–260 regarding the Nobel Prize controversy.
R.L.Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996. Published in German in 2001, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig.
30.
R.L.Sime, Int. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Ethik der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin (NTM)8 (2000), 77–84.
31.
R.L.Sime, The politics of memory: Otto Hahn and the third Reich, Physics in Perspective8 (2006), 3–51contradicts this view. However, the close collaboration of Hahn with Strassmann, a fervent anti-Nazi, during this time, as well as his naivety shown in the Farm Hall Tapes [2] make it difficult to accept that he knowingly worked on any bomb project.
32.
R.L.Sime, The politics of forgetting: Otto Hahn and the German nuclear-fission project in World War II, Physics in Perspective14 (2012), 59–94. An earlier version of this paper, “‘Die Uranspaltung hat da die ganze Situation gerettet’: Otto Hahn und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie während des Zweiten Weltkriegs”, appeared in Helmut Maier, ed., Gemeinschaftsforschung, Bevollmächtige und der Wissenstransfer: Die Rolle der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im System kriegsrelevanter Forschung des Nationalsozialismus, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2007, pp. 267–304.
33.
R.H.Stuewer, Bringing the news of fission to America, Physics Today38(10) (1985), 49–51.
34.
M.Trömel, Freunde bis in den Tod: Otto Hahn und Lise Meitner, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 October 2001.
