Tuesday’s Nuclear History Quiz

Chemist Lise Meitner with students (Sue Jones Swisher, Rosalie Hoyt and Danna Pearson McDonough) on the steps of the chemistry building at Bryn Mawr College. Courtesy of Bryn Mawr College. (April 1959)

An internationally renowned physicist, left, talks to students on the steps of the chemistry building at Bryn Mawr College circa 1959. Some consider her to be among the most significant women scientists of the 20th century. She was honored with the Enrico Fermi Award by the Atomic Energy Commission (the NRC’s predecessor agency) in 1966. In 1992, an element – the heaviest known in the universe – was named for her.

What is her name?

What is the name of the element?

Photo courtesy of Bryn Mawr College

Author: Moderator

Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

9 thoughts on “Tuesday’s Nuclear History Quiz”

  1. Lise Meitner’s life portrait makes an interesting reading and her rise to fame was not that very simple. In those formative years, atomic research was pretty much a man’s world! She had to work in anonymity and could not show her face for two years in the wood shop at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, where she worked initially with Otto Hahn . She was the second woman ever to earn a PhD at Vienna and Einstein would call her “The German Madame Curie.”

    I think, in addition to the Quizzes, the moderator ought to direct the present day physics enthusiasts and the current younger generation to read historians such as Richard Rhodes. There is a treasure trove of information available.

  2. I wonder what she would say about Fukushima and/or how the Nuclear Industry is being run if she were alive today?

Comments are closed.