Annual General Meeting of the RSC East Anglia Local section via Zoom. On completion of business a talk on the life and work of Lise Meitner will be given by Dr Randal W Richards.
The Chairman and Treasurer will present reports of the activities over the past year and outline those proposed for the forthcoming year. Committee membership changes will be notified also. On completion of business a talk on the life and work of Lise Meitner will be given by Dr Randal W Richards.
After the First World War she had frequent interactions with Chadwick, followed Fermi’s work and became recognised as an expert in radioactive processes. Life became difficult for her, initially as an Austrian citizen she was safe but following the Anschluss in 1938 she effectively became stateless because her conversion from Judaism in the mid 1900s was not recognised. She was smuggled out of Germany and eventually arrived in Sweden where she remained throughout the war. Together with her nephew Robert Frisch it was here in Christmas 1939 that she correctly identified the process of nuclear fission from the results of experiments that Hahn sent her. She refused to participate in the Manhattan project but researched the existence of transuranic elements.
In 1960 she left Sweden and came to England to be near Robert Frisch in Cambridge. She died at the age of 90 in 1968
Register for the meeting by emailing Dr Randal Richards at rsc.eastanglia@gmail.com . All registrants will be sent a Zoom meeting link and link to AGM documents closer to the event date.
The Chairman and Treasurer will present reports of the activities over the past year and outline those proposed for the forthcoming year. Committee membership changes will be notified also. On completion of business a talk on the life and work of Lise Meitner will be given by Dr Randal W Richards.
Lise Meitner Constantly Curious about Physics
Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878 and studied physics at a time when major changes were happening gaining a PhD in 1905. Although her degree was in physics most of her research activity was in collaboration with the chemist Otto Hahn in Berlin. The developments in radioactivity will be outlined, with sketches of the people involved. The participation of Meitner in research was made difficult for her because of the resistance to women joining research laboratories. However Planck was supportive and helped become established. With Hahn she discovered protactinium, investigated beta decay.After the First World War she had frequent interactions with Chadwick, followed Fermi’s work and became recognised as an expert in radioactive processes. Life became difficult for her, initially as an Austrian citizen she was safe but following the Anschluss in 1938 she effectively became stateless because her conversion from Judaism in the mid 1900s was not recognised. She was smuggled out of Germany and eventually arrived in Sweden where she remained throughout the war. Together with her nephew Robert Frisch it was here in Christmas 1939 that she correctly identified the process of nuclear fission from the results of experiments that Hahn sent her. She refused to participate in the Manhattan project but researched the existence of transuranic elements.
In 1960 she left Sweden and came to England to be near Robert Frisch in Cambridge. She died at the age of 90 in 1968
Register for the meeting by emailing Dr Randal Richards at rsc.eastanglia@gmail.com . All registrants will be sent a Zoom meeting link and link to AGM documents closer to the event date.
