Lise Meitner: Humanitarian physicist who unlocked the science of the atom bomb

Excellent profile of physicist Lise Meitner from BBC Radio 4 – Science Stories, Series 6. Her story’s fascinating and can be heard in full here.

Thanks to Robert for sharing this with us!

Philip Ball reveals the dramatic tale of Lise Meitner, the humanitarian physicist of Jewish descent, who unlocked the science of the atom bomb after a terrifying escape from Hitler’s Germany. One of the most brilliant nuclear scientists working in Germany her flight from terror cost Hitler’s regime dearly. In the early twentieth century it was barely possible for women to work in science at all and yet Einstein once called Meitner Germany’s own Marie Curie. It was Meitner’s insight that began the nuclear age and her story remains ever relevant, as the threat of nuclear conflict lies once again over the world.

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