Lise Meitner (November 1878 — October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who contributed to the discoveries of an element protactinium and nuclear fission. While working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute on radioactivity, she discovered protactinium (specifically protactinium-231) as a radioactive isotope in 1917. Soon after fleeing from Nazi Germany to Sweden in 1938, she and her nephew, physicist Otto Robert Frisch, discovered nuclear fission. She was praised by Albert Einstein as the “German Marie Curie.”
Quote: “Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.” | “I love physics with all my heart… It is a kind of personal love, as one has for a person to whom one is grateful for many things.”
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