​"Life need not be easy, provided only it was not empty."

• PHYSICIST who discovered nuclear fission, but refused to help turn her discovery into a weapon
• Second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna, and FIRST female physics professor in Germany
• Friends with many of the leading minds in physics, including Max Planck (who was a strong supporter in her early career), Niels Bohr (who nominated her for three Nobel Prizes), Albert Einstein, and Erwin Schrodinger
• ​Founded and led the physics department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin
• FIRST to identify what is now known as the Auger effect, so named after the male French scientist who was credited with the discovery TWO YEARS later
• Served as an X-ray nurse with the Austrian army in World War I
• In partnership with Otto Hahn, DISCOVERED the element protactinium
• Although she was given some protection from the Nazis because she was an Austrian citizen, in 1933 her professorship in Berlin was revoked because she was Jewish, and in 1938 she was forced to flee the country in the middle of her work with Hahn
• Lived in the Netherlands, conducting her own experiments in less than ideal facilities, and collaborating with Hahn through correspondence as they tried to create an element heavier than uranium
• Their research was unsuccessful, repeatedly resulting instead in decreased atomic weight, until Meitner realized they were in fact splitting the atoms, something that had previously been considered impossible; Meitner had discovered nuclear energy​
• ​​Hahn confirmed her theory with his own experiment and published their findings, but didn't include her name for fear of Nazi retaliation (he was still in Germany) -- HE received the Nobel Prize for it, she did not
• ​Meitner was asked by President Roosevelt to join the Manhattan Project, but she refused to help create a bomb, even though it was her discovery that made it possible
• Helped develop the FIRST nuclear reactor in Sweden
• The 109th element, discovered in 1992, is named after her (meitnerium), as well as craters on the moon and Venus​

Bibliography: Drimmer, Stephanie W. National Geographic Kids: The Book of Heroines: Tales of History's Gutsiest Gals. Washington DC: National Geographic Partners, LLC, 2016. Print.
Maggs, Sam. Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2016. Print.
Smeltzer, Ronald K. “Lise Meitner.” Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement, The Grolier Club, 2013, 61-65.
Yruma, Jeris Stueland. "Meitner, Lise." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Volume 3. Oxford University Press, 2008, 205.

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