This tweet is disgusting. It's 2020, and the Nobel Prize is still actively upholding past sexist and anti-semitic decisions.
Here's why calling Hahn the "father" of nuclear chemistry (and leaving her at the back of the picture - literally) is such an injustice:
Here's why calling Hahn the "father" of nuclear chemistry (and leaving her at the back of the picture - literally) is such an injustice:
Meitner, a Jewish woman, worked with Hahn and Fritz Strassman in Berlin at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, but was displaced by Nazi persecution in the run up to WW2. She escaped to Sweden, but maintained correspondence with Hahn.
[pic: Meitner & Hahn before she became a refugee]
[pic: Meitner & Hahn before she became a refugee]
She wrote to Nature in February 1939, with the help of nephew Otto Frisch, and was the first person to describe how splitting atoms happens. She coined the term "nuclear fission." She was instrumental in the discovery of fission and in our modern understanding of it.
Yet only Hahn won the coveted prize in 1944 because as a displaced Jewish woman, she was simply forgotten and ignored. It has long and widely been regarded as one of the worst examples of racism & sexism in modern science, yet the Nobel prize STILL do not acknowledge this.
Based on how categorically useless the Nobel prize are at modernising and correcting past mistakes, I think they are self-interested in not discussing this stuff.
They have the cheek to tweet about crap they did in the past and do nothing to correct it so they can save face.
They have the cheek to tweet about crap they did in the past and do nothing to correct it so they can save face.
I am fed up of a closed-door committee deciding on what does or does not constitute the pinnacle of scientific achievement, both in the public eye and within our own scientific communities. The Nobel committee does not represent us.
This Conversation piece summarises the history of her work & the injustice behind the 1944 prize really well: theconversation.com/lise-meitner-t…
See also:
See also:
Another great thread to check out:
