Lise Meitner: Discoverer of Nuclear Fission (Great Scientists (Greensboro, N.C.).)

Lise Meitner faced two obstacles in her career as a nuclear physicist: she was Jewish and she was a woman. But Lise was not to be deterred. Her work was the most important thing in her life. When the Nazis came to power, Lise and her partner were making break-through discoveries in how the nucleus of the atom could be split. But, because she was Jewish, her contributions to the discovery of nuclear fission were kept secret. After the war, when her partner was awarded the Nobel Prize, she was not mentioned. For fifty years she was denied her rightful honor as the co-discoverer of nuclear fission.