Woman Who Split the Atom

The Life of Lise Meitner

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• Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers
• Year: 2022
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781683358275
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Bestselling author-illustrator Marissa Moss tells the gripping story of Lise Meitner, the physicist who discovered nuclear fissionAs a female Jewish physicist in Berlin during the early 20th century, Lise Meitner had to fight for an education, a job, and equal treatment in her field, like having her name listed on her own research papers. Meitner made groundbreaking strides in the study of radiation, but when Hitler came to power in Germany, she suddenly had to face not only sexism, but also life-threatening anti-Semitism as well. Nevertheless, she persevered and one day made a discovery that rocked the world: the splitting of the atom. While her male lab partner was awarded a Nobel Prize for the achievement, the committee refused to give her any credit. Suddenly, the race to build the atomic bomb was on-although Meitner was horrified to be associated with such a weapon. "e;A physicist who never lost her humanity, "e; Meitner wanted only to figure out how the world works, and advocated for pacifism while others called for war. The book includes an afterword, author's note, timeline, select terms of physics, glossary of scientists mentioned, endnotes, select bibliography, index, and Marissa Moss's celebrated drawings throughout. The Woman Who Split the Atom is a fascinating look at Meitner's fierce passion, integrity, and her lifelong struggle to have her contributions to physics recognized.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• One: Dreams of the Impossible
• Two: Education At Last!
• Three: A Professor with No Profession
• Four: A Partnership Better than Marriage
• Five: The New Science of Radioactivity
• Six: Out of the Dark
• Seven: War and Science
• Eight: Back in the Lab
• Nine: After the War
• Ten: A Professor at Last
• Eleven: “Jewish” Physics vs “Aryan” Physics
• Twelve: Hitler Takes Power
• Thirteen: Boycott the Jews!
• Fourteen: A Talk With Hitler About Science
• Fifteen: To Go or To Stay
• Sixteen: The Nazification of Science
• Seventeen: Can It Get Worse?
• Eighteen: The New Radioactive Physics
• Nineteen: The Jewess Must Go
• Twenty: Passport Problems
• Twenty-One: How to Smuggle a Scientist
• Twenty-Two: Success or Failure?
• Twenty-Three: A Narrow Escape
• Twenty-Four: A Brilliant Enough Physicist?
• Twenty-Five: An Atomic Mystery
• Twenty-Six: The Atom Splits!
• Twenty-Seven: The Impossible Is Possible!
• Twenty-Eight: The Power of Nuclear Fission
• Twenty-Nine: A Letter from Einstein
• Thirty: The Race for the Bomb
• Thirty-One: A Lab of One’s Own
• Thirty-Two: Another Physicist Escapes
• Thirty-Three: The German Nuclear Program
• Thirty-Four: What to do With Nazi Scientists?
• Thirty-Five: The Mother of the Bomb
• Thirty-Six: The Americans did What?!
• Thirty-Seven: Meitner in America
• Thirty-Eight: The Nobel Prize for Nuclear Fission Goes To
• Thirty-Nine: After The War: Working for Nuclear Peace
• Forty: A Prize of her Own
• Afterword
• Author’s Note
• Timeline of Meitner’s Life and Achievements
• Glossary of Select Terms in Physics
• Profiles of Scientists Mentioned
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Image Credits
• Acknowledgments
• Index of Searchable Terms