Woman who invented nuclear fission

These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects. By Corinne Purtill Reporter. Published March 9, This article is more than 2 years old. Their hair might catch fire. Sign me up. Over the course of th is month, we'll highlight the accomplishments of five women who helped on the project with blogs and illustrations, release a timeline of their work, and cap off the month with a coloring book of all the illustrations.

We're kicking it all off with this photo gallery. In the photos above, you'll learn about Lise Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission while working with fellow chemist, Otto Hahn, but wasn't named when Hahn was given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work.

You'll also find Leona Woods Marshall, the youngest member and only woman on Enrico Fermi's team of scientists that created the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under Stagg Fiel d at the University of Chicago. Women played important roles across the Manhattan Project complex.

They worked as nurses, teachers, librarians, and secretaries. They sold and processed war bonds, worked the desks at dormitories and post exchanges, welded, and even monitored the control panels of the calutron.

In she got a permanent position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. In Meitner and Otto Hahn discovered the isotope of protactinium. She discovered the cause of the Auger effect in In , she began her research on nuclear fission while being the first woman to teach as a full physics professor at the University of Berlin. The research at the time was theoretical, and many knew about the prospect and the honor of the Nobel Prize waiting for the winner who discovered it first.

This research was interrupted when Hitler came to power. She remained in Germany longer than most because of her Austrian citizenship, but eventually had to be snuck across the Dutch border in , leaving behind all her possessions. Her work continued upon her arrival in Stockholm, Sweden. Hahn isolated the evidence for nuclear fission, but Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch were the first to articulate how the process occurred.