The Search for Transuranium Elements and the Discovery of Nuclear Fission

Physics in Perspective

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 48-62

  Sime, Ruth Lewin ^a  

^a Sacramento City College   (United States)

Author keywords

Enrico Fermi; Fritz Strassmann; Glenn T. Seaborg; History of science; Lise Meitner; Niels Bohr; Nuclear fission; Nuclear physics; Otto Hahn; Periodic system; Philip H. Abelson; Radiochemistry; Transuranium elements

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346672497     PISSN: 14226944     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s000160050036     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. Lise Meitner, "Wege und Irrwege zur Kernenergie," Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 16 (1963), 167-169; in English: "Right and Wrong Roads to the Discovery of Nuclear Energy," Advancement of Science 19 (1963), 363-365.
2. Lise Meitner, "Wege und Irrwege zur Kernenergie," Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 16 (1963), 167-169; in English: "Right and Wrong Roads to the Discovery of Nuclear Energy," Advancement of Science 19 (1963), 363-365.
3. Emilio Segrè, Enrico Fermi: Physicist (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 217.
4. Roger H. Stuewer, History as Myth and Muse (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 1999), pp. 5-7.
5. Emilio Segrè, ed., Enrico Fermi: Collected Papers (Note e Memorie) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 641.
6. Otto Frisch, What Little I Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 88.
7. Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 91.
8. Glenn T. Seaborg, Nuclear Milestones (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1972), p. 5; Seaborg, introduction to Otto Hahn, A Scientific Autobiography, Willy Ley, transl. and ed., (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967).
9. Glenn T. Seaborg, Nuclear Milestones (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1972), p. 5; Seaborg, introduction to Otto Hahn, A Scientific Autobiography, Willy Ley, transl. and ed., (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967).
10. Philip H. Abelson, "Discovery of Neptunium," in L. R. Morss and J. Fuger, eds., Transuranium Elements: A Half Century (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1992), p. 51.
11. Roger H. Stuewer, "The Origin of the Liquid-Drop Model and the Interpretation of Nuclear Fission," Perspectives on Science 2 (1994), 76-129.
12. Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 204-210; also see Hilde Levi, George de Hevesy: Life and Work (Bristol: Adam Hilger Ltd, 1985), pp. 51-56.
13. Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 204-210; also see Hilde Levi, George de Hevesy: Life and Work (Bristol: Adam Hilger Ltd, 1985), pp. 51-56.
14. Pais, ibid., p. 207, suggests that Bohr began the second rare-earth group with element 90, but in Bohr's 1922 paper, reproduced in L. Rosenfeld, ed., Niels Bohr: Collected Works, 9 Vols., Vol. 4, (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1972), p. 405, he states that "no family similar to the rare earths occurs in the known part of the seventh period," and in 1923 his published table (shown in figure 6) indicates the second rare-earth series as starting after uranium.
15. Pais, ibid., p. 207, suggests that Bohr began the second rare-earth group with element 90, but in Bohr's 1922 paper, reproduced in L. Rosenfeld, ed., Niels Bohr: Collected Works, 9 Vols., Vol. 4, (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1972), p. 405, he states that "no family similar to the rare earths occurs in the known part of the seventh period," and in 1923 his published table (shown in figure 6) indicates the second rare-earth series as starting after uranium.
16. J. W. van Spronsen, The Periodic System of Chemical Elements: A History of the First Hundred Years (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1969), pp. 317-320.
17. For the discovery of protactinium, see Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), chap. 3.
18. Ida Noddack, "Über das Element 93," Zeitschrift für Angewandte Chemie 47 (1934), 653-655; translation in H. G. Graetzer and D. L. Anderson, The Discovery of Nuclear Fission: A Documentary History (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971), pp. 16-20.
19. Ida Noddack, "Über das Element 93," Zeitschrift für Angewandte Chemie 47 (1934), 653-655; translation in H. G. Graetzer and D. L. Anderson, The Discovery of Nuclear Fission: A Documentary History (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971), pp. 16-20.
20. For the Noddack controversy, see Teri Hopper, She was Ignored, Master's Thesis, Stanford University 1990; Pieter Van Assche, "Ignored Priorities: First Fission Fragment (1925) and First Mention of Fission (1934)," Nuclear Europe 6-7 (1988), 24-25; Segrè, Fermi (ref. 2), p. 76; Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 314-317.
21. For the Noddack controversy, see Teri Hopper, She was Ignored, Master's Thesis, Stanford University 1990; Pieter Van Assche, "Ignored Priorities: First Fission Fragment (1925) and First Mention of Fission (1934)," Nuclear Europe 6-7 (1988), 24-25; Segrè, Fermi (ref. 2), p. 76; Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 314-317.
22. For the Noddack controversy, see Teri Hopper, She was Ignored, Master's Thesis, Stanford University 1990; Pieter Van Assche, "Ignored Priorities: First Fission Fragment (1925) and First Mention of Fission (1934)," Nuclear Europe 6-7 (1988), 24-25; Segrè, Fermi (ref. 2), p. 76; Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 314-317.
23. For the Noddack controversy, see Teri Hopper, She was Ignored, Master's Thesis, Stanford University 1990; Pieter Van Assche, "Ignored Priorities: First Fission Fragment (1925) and First Mention of Fission (1934)," Nuclear Europe 6-7 (1988), 24-25; Segrè, Fermi (ref. 2), p. 76; Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 314-317.
24. For the work of the Berlin team, see Sime, Lise Meitner (ref. 13), chaps. 7, 9, 10.
25. L. Meitner, O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, "Über die Umwandlungsreihen des Urans, die durch Neutronenbestrahlung erzeugt werden," Zeitschrift für Physik 106 (1937), pp. 249-270; abridged translation in Graetzer and Anderson, Fission (ref. 14), pp. 31-33.
26. L. Meitner, O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, "Über die Umwandlungsreihen des Urans, die durch Neutronenbestrahlung erzeugt werden," Zeitschrift für Physik 106 (1937), pp. 249-270; abridged translation in Graetzer and Anderson, Fission (ref. 14), pp. 31-33.
27. Hahn, Autobiography (ref. 7), p. 175.
28. Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 15), pp. 220-221.
29. Abelson, "Neptunium" (ref. 8), pp. 51-53.
30. Seaborg, in Hahn, Autobiography (ref. 7), p. ix.
31. Lawrence L. Quill, "The Transuranium Elements," Chemical Reviews 23 (1938), pp. 87, 138 ff.
32. Sime, Lise Meitner (ref 13), chaps. 10, 11, 12.
33. Lise Meitner, interview by Thomas Kuhn, May 12, 1963: American Institute of Physics Oral History Project, Tape 65a, transcript pp. 19-20.
34. Meitner, Hahn, and Strassmann, "Umwandlungsreihen" (ref. 17), p. 269.
35. Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 15), pp. 208, 210.
36. O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, "Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten der bei der Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle," Naturwissenschaften 27 (1939), 11-15;
37. abridged translation in Graetzer and Anderson, Fission (ref. 14), pp. 44-47.
38. L. Meitner and O. R. Frisch, "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction," Nature 143 (1939), 239-240.
39. Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, Mark Walker, "A Nobel Tale of Wartime Injustice," Nature 382 (1996), 393-396; "A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice," Physics Today 50 (September 1997), 26-33.
40. Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, Mark Walker, "A Nobel Tale of Wartime Injustice," Nature 382 (1996), 393-396; "A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice," Physics Today 50 (September 1997), 26-33.
41. H. Menke and G. Herrmann, "Was waren die 'Transurane' der dreißiger Jahre in Wirklichkeit?" Radiochimica Acta 16 (1971), 119-123.
42. Emilio Segrè, A Mind Always in Motion: The Autobiography of Emilio Segrè (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 152-153; Abelson, "Neptunium" (ref. 8), pp. 53-55.
43. Emilio Segrè, A Mind Always in Motion: The Autobiography of Emilio Segrè (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 152-153; Abelson, "Neptunium" (ref. 8), pp. 53-55.
44. Glenn T. Seaborg, The Transuranium Elements (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 89, 140-144; Seaborg and Walter D. Loveland, The Elements Beyond Uranium (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1990), p. 65 ff.
45. Glenn T. Seaborg, The Transuranium Elements (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 89, 140-144; Seaborg and Walter D. Loveland, The Elements Beyond Uranium (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1990), p. 65 ff.