- German physical
chemist who discovered nuclear fission (see nuclear energy). In 1938
with Fritz Strassmann (1902-1980), he discovered that uranium nuclei
split when bombarded with neutrons. Hahn did not participate in the
resultant development of the atom bomb. Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1944.
In 1918, Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered the longest-lived isotope
of a new element which they called protactinium, and in 1921 they discovered
nuclear isomers - radioisotopes with nuclei containing the same subatomic
particles but differing in energy content and half-life.
Hahn was born in Frankfurt-am-Main and studied at Marburg. From 1904
to 1906 he worked in London under William Ramsay, who introduced Hahn
to radiochemistry, and at McGill University in Montréal, Canada,
with Ernest Rutherford. Returning to Germany, Hahn was joined at Berlin
in 1907 by Meitner, beginning a long collaboration. Hahn was director
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin 1928-44, and
then president of the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen.
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