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Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. Fission is a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei and often other particles.
The feat was popularly known as "splitting the atom", and would win them the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for "Transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles", although it was not the nuclear fission reaction later discovered in heavy elements. [28] English physicist James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932. [29]
[9] [10] Once this was experimentally confirmed and announced by Frédéric Joliot-Curie in 1939, scientists in many countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union) petitioned their governments for support of nuclear fission research, just on the cusp of World War II, for the development of a ...
KTSdesign/SciencePhotoLibrary via Getty ImagesNobel laureate Otto Hahn is credited with the discovery of nuclear fission. Fission is one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, yet ...
The discovery of nuclear fission led to the development of atomic bombs and nuclear reactors during World War II. Meitner did not share the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission, which was awarded to her long-time collaborator Otto Hahn. Several scientists and journalists have called her exclusion "unjust".
Otto Hahn (German: [ˈɔtoː ˈhaːn] ⓘ; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry.He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
Only a few years later, in December 1938 nuclear fission was discovered by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann. Hahn understood that a "burst" of the atomic nuclei had occurred. [8] [9] Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch gave a full theoretical interpretation and named the process "nuclear fission".
Nuclear fission is a substantial part of the world’s energy mix, but out in the broader universe, fission is much harder to come by. Now, a new study from Los Alamos National Laboratory and ...