Fun Fact # 368 Mother of Fission

 Fun Fact #368

The Mother of Fission

On December 19th, 1938, Lise Meitner had just finally settled in after fleeing Nazi Germany, when she received word from her former coworker. Otto Hans –the man who had both been outspoken against the Nazis but also laid off all the Jewish professors at the college except Meitner– had been studying Atomic recoil by bombarding Thorium with neutrinos until he hit an impasse. Two separate elements (Uranium and Barium had been produced but this was impossible as atoms couldn't be split so where had the other atoms come from?  When studied however, Lise discovered that not only had the Atom been split but the mass of the resulting two Atoms was less than the sample they started with missing more than 100 Neutrons! 

She named this process after the division of cells in biology “Fission”, and published it in the scientific Journal Nature. However, these words would gather unwanted attention soon resulting in her spending the duration of WW2 in a British Prison. Today the Element Meitnerium is named after Lise Meitner.