The Woman Who Split the Atom The Life of Lise Meitner

 The Woman Who Split the Atom, written by Marissa Moss is an inspiring story of a woman determined to study science in spite of the challenges she faced.  

Lise Meitner grows up in Vienna, Austria with her father, mother and sisters.   Her early schooling takes place in the beginning of the 19th century. This was a time when women were not encouraged to attend school or have careers.   But Lise and her sisters were determined to study and her parents encouraged and supported them to follow their interests.   She prepared herself for the rigorous tests ahead and achieved her goal of studying physics. 

Author,  Marissa Moss uses both her skill as a author and her talent as a graphic comic artist to pull the reader into the story of Lise's life from living at home with her family to traveling to Berlin to work with some of the greats physicists of all time.  Though she was a demure, small young woman and intimidated at first, she persisted winning herself lab space in the basement of the KWI  university to study the scattering of alpha particles.   

Through the early 1900s Meitner met important professors and scientists, who would be her friends and supporters, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Heinrich Rubens, and the man who become her life long scientific partner, Otto Hahn.  She also worked with her nephew Otto Frisch. She began publishing articles about her scientific findings under the name L. Meitner, so no one would know they articles were written by a woman.  This earned her a small stipend to live on along with an allowance from her father. 

As Adolf Hitler comes into power the laws begin to change for the Jews of Germany.  Though Lise Meitner does not consider herself particularly Jewish, Hitler and Nazi Germany recognized her Jewish family history and her success and prominence become a liability.

For as long as she can hold onto to her lab and experiments, she refuses to leave Berlin, but finally she see the danger and her friends help her escape Nazi Germany. She continues her work in Sweden.  Meitner realizes that in her experiments she has split the atom.  When scientists see how this nuclear fusion can be used to end the war, she is invited to work on the Manhattan Project in the United States to develop the atomic bomb.  Lise is against helping to create something that leads to destruction and death.   She spends the rest of her life working to find way to use atomic energy for peaceful work. She spoke to audiences about science's ethical responsibilities.