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The Women of The Atomic Age

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Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie";s

When Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, she kick-started the field of atomic physics and inspired two other female physicists whose work gave rise to the atomic age. Her daughter, Irene (and son-in-law, Frederic) Joliot-Curie, discovered a method of inducing artificial radioactivity. And Austrian-born Lise Meitner figured out nuclear fission.

Lise Meitner was twenty years Irene Joliot-Curie's senior, but Austrian law delayed her education by a decade, making the two colleagues. And there are many parallels in the lives of Meitner and Joliot-Curie: both chose a career in physics because of Marie Curie; both partnered with a (male) chemist to make their biggest breakthroughs; both endured nearly unending sexism; both worked as field nurses (a.k.a. X-ray technicians) during World War I; and both were appalled that nuclear physics was used to make weaponry, and put their own efforts into nuclear energy. 

But that doesn't mean they were friends, or even friendly. Indeed, the two were bitter competitors throughout their careers. In one indicative interaction, the Joliot-Curies presented their latest findings to a prestigious meeting, only to be dismissed out-of-hand by Meitner, and then the rest of the gathered scientists.

The dismissal was, perhaps, not entirely unwarranted. The Joliot-Curies had a track record of mistakes. At one point, they announced that they’d found gamma rays, only to have other researchers say they’d misinterpreted their data. In fact, they’d found something even more fundamental - neutrons. The same thing happened again, shortly thereafter, when they failed to realize that they’d discovered positrons. And, then, they theorized that protons were made up of neutrons and positrons.

Meitner's rebuke ended up being a lucky break for the Joliot-Curies, who returned to their laboratory with renewed determination and realized the true meaning of their results - that they'd discovered a way to induce artificial radioactivity. It was an advance that led to a new race to create new elements and, eventually, enabled Meitner's discovery of nuclear fission.

Meitner was not immediately credited with that world-changing discovery. She was in Sweden, in exile from Germany during World War II, when her long-time partner, Otto Hahn, published their results without her. But it had been Meitner, again, who had worked through their puzzling data to find the true meaning.

In her new biography of Irene Joliot-Curie and Lise Meitner, Winifred Conkling writes: “In science, it is essential both to isolate the evidence and to explain it.” It is tempting to simply say the Joliot-Curies’ strength was the evidence, Meitner’s the explanation. Of course, it's not that simple. All were brilliant minds and superb experimentalists, without whom we would live in a very different world.

Guest: Winifred Conkling, author of Radioactive: How Irène Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World.

 

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