As the first of my Women’s History Month posts, this is a little reprise of one of my Ada Lovelace Day posts from last year. Ada Lovelace Day is all about raising awareness of women past and present in science and technology. One of the women I chose to write about last year was Lise Meitner.
I found out about Meitner by chance, on my way home from work, listening to Radio 4’s Great Lives. Given that she was Austrian, that I carry and Austrian passport, and that I completed most of my education in the Austrian school system, this is practically criminal. Thank you Austrian education system, for failing to acknowledge even Austrian women’s contributions to science, for failing to present me with female role models in the sciences, for being incredibly uninspiring when it came to both science and history education. Thank you BBC, for finally bringing this amazing woman to my attention!

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878 to a Jewish family. She studied physics and became the second woman to obtain a doctoral degree from the University of Vienna. She moved to Berlin where she became Max Planck’s assistant (the Max Planck of the Planck Constant but also the Max Planck who wouldn’t, before Meitner, even allow women into his lectures).
Most of Meitner’s research was in collaboration with the chemist Otto Hahn. In the early 1930s they worked on attempts to create elements heavier than uranium by bombarding heavy nuclei with neutrons. With the rise of Hitler in Germany and the Anschluss of Austria, it became unsafe for Meitner to remain in Germany and she fled to Stockholm. From Stockholm, she continued her correspondence with Otto Hahn, who by that point was getting some really interesting experimental results from his attempts to create heavy elements – what he found was that as he bombarded heavy nuclei with neutrons, the output was actually lighter elements.
It was Meitner, with her physics background, who provided the theoretical explanation for what Hahn was seeing in the lab. She suggested that, instead of sticking to the nucleus and making it heavier, the neutrons were actually splitting it into two smaller nuclei – the process we now know as neutron-induced fission.
As the practical implications of her work were recognised, Meitner was invited to join the Manhattan Project, which she declined. Otto Hahn received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on nuclear fission, while Meitner was not recognised. In later life, she even refused to appear in a documentary about the atomic bomb as she did not want her name associated with it, though she is believed to have been bitter about not receiving any official credit and recognition for her work on fission.
Lise Meitner was a pioneer, not just as a female physicist, but of physics in general. In my last post I talked about how restrictive gender roles result in women being denied access to certain areas of life as well as women’s contributions to those areas they do traditionally have access to generally being less valued. Meitner’s career in particular, and women in the sciences in general illustrate that first effect very well. Where higher education was easily available to men of a certain wealth and standing at dedicated institutions, Lise Meitner had to complete hers privately, and had to fight to be allowed to do a PhD. She had to fight to be allowed into Max Planck’s lectures. She had no role models to follow, and had to create her own path, and yet she managed to contribute to one of the 20th century’s most significant discoveries in science.
To date, only five women have won a Nobel prize in physics or chemistry, and two of those come from the same family! Another ten have won the Nobel prize in medicine, and there has been a single female winner in the Economics category. This is not because women are not good at science! People like Lise Meitner, Marie Curie, Claire Gmachl and many, many others more than prove that. It is because, historically, there has been a lot direct discrimination against women, and even today the way career structures in the sciences are set up indirectly discriminates against women who are not willing to sacrifice all else to get to the top.
By being aware of our history, by talking about the female role models that do exist, and by constantly challenging the structures which favour men and disadvantage women, hopefully we will be able to get to a truly level playing field where women are enabled and empowered to make outstanding contributions to science, and where those contributions are recognised and rewarded accordingly.