Did Lisa Meitner discover nuclear fusion?

December 1938: Discovery of Nuclear Fission. Lise Meitner. In December 1938, over Christmas vacation, physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch made a startling discovery that would immediately ... Upon returning to Berlin she was made head of a physics section at the KWI, where she did research in nuclear physics. read more

Meitner was born November 7, 1878, the third of eight children in a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. read more

Arguably as important as any award or prize, was Hahn's, Meitner's and Strassman's staunch refusal to be involved in the development of nuclear weapons, which their discovery had made possible. They also declared their fierce opposition to the use of nuclear technologies for military purposes. read more

Among the most outstanding yet under-celebrated of these pioneering women is the Austrian physicist Lise Meitner (November 7, 1878–October 27, 1968), who led the team that discovered nuclear fission but was excluded from the Nobel Prize for the discovery, and whose story I first encountered in Alan Lightman’s illuminating 1990 book The Discoveries. read more