Lesser Known Atomic Scientists

Dr N K Srinivasan

Introduction

The development of atomic energy ,both for peaceful and for

military purposes, marks a high point of scientific

achievement in the 20th century. Every school boy has heard

about the making of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos,New Mexico

and the dropping of two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

in Japan in the year 1945. Less well known is the story of

constructing the nuclear reactor with crude equipment at the

University of Chicago by Enrico Fermi and his team, thus

proving the nuclear chain reaction to generate lot of energy

by nuclear fission.This happened in 1942.

The story of atom bomb , the involvement of the US army and

other details have been well chronicled.

Almost every educated person has heard of the famous

mathematical formula:

E = m c2

the Einstein's equation, linking mass and the energy released when mass m

is converted to energy.

Several names of scientists pop into our mind when we talk of atomic

energy and atom bomb and later developments: Albert Einstein, Neils

Bohr,Max Planck, Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi,Paul Dirac, John Oppenheimer,

Edward Teller,Otto Hahn among others.

We also hear the names of early pioneers who unraveled the stucture of

atoms and discovered several "Sub-atomic' particles, thereby laying the

foundation of atomic physics: J J Thompson [discovery of electron],W

Roentgen [ discovery of x rays], Ernest Rutherford [ structure of

nucleus], Chadwick [discovery of neutrons], Marie Curie [discovery of

Radium],Becquerel [radioactivity], Neils Bohr[structure of hydrogen atom],

Erwin Schrodinger[ wave mechanics], Werner Heisenberg [ matrix mechancis

and the uncertainty principle] and so on.

Some were awarded Nobel prizes, either for physics or chemistry, and thus

became instantly famous in the eyes of the public.[Rutherford was amused

when he got Nobel prize for chemistry and not for physics. Till recently

the sharp division among physicists and chemists as professional groups

remained.] There were and are anomalies in the award of Nobel prizes that

one would not take this aspect of award of  Nobel prize to any

one seriously. For instance, Albert Einstein was awarded Nobel prize for

his formulation of photo-electric effect using quantum theory and not for

his theory of Relativity ! Some died before they could be given,for

instance Moseley.

What is interesting , many did not receive Nobel prizes at all, even

though their work was seminal or pivotal in the development of atomic

physics. Their works were either ignored or side-lined in the public

domain ,though their works are carefully studied by students of atomic

physics and became important foundation pillars of atomic and nuclear

physics. [In this article, I use the term atomic physics to include

nuclear physics too.]

This article is an attempt to bring out the great contributions of the

lesser known scientists of this era-- along with some of the anecdotes and

ironies one find in their lives.In this effort, a number of biographies of

individual scientists as well as some autobiographies have been

extensively consulted. I  must add that this is only a small sample of

much that is available or known about these scientists and several others

not mentioned here.

In writing this article, I am inspired by some life stories which could be

inspiring to others as well---to  the younger generation of science

students and general public.It is indeed my personal opinions and

proclivities that surface here...no rational argument or logical analysis

can be attributed to this selection of scientists.

The story of atomic physics and the growth of this field are colored by

two factors: 1 The contribution of Jewish scientists who faced many

persecutions or were victims of prejudices in Europe and to a lesser

extent in the United States and their migration to the USA and 

2 the circumstances surrounding World War I and WW 2.

[ How many young promising scientists went to the battles of these wars

and died there? --This could be a separate study in itself. A prominent

case is that of Moseley [who studied characteristic X ray spectra and

developed periodic table of elements based on atomic number] who was

killed in Gallipoli during world war 1.]

I may also add that while many well-known women scientists contributed so

much, their works have not been high-lighted or described adequately for

young readers, with the exception of Marie Curie.Some women scie,ntists

are included in this article----  Lise Meitner, Madame Wu , Marietta Blau,

Marguerita catherine Perey and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.

Some of the scientists who were not living in Europe or USA but doing

great research in physics had only marginal expression in mainstream

physics. A notable exception was Satyendranath Bose . S N Bose had

corresponded with Albert Einstein and developed independently the

statistical distribution that governs the behavior of certain particles

[photon,for instance]; Einstein approved his formulation,edited his paper

and after translation from English to German, communicated to a German

journal. This distribution is called 'Bose-Einstein distribution'' and

those particles following this distribution are called 'Bosons'. Later

Einstein developed the concept of Bose-Einstein condensation which was

proved experimentally only in 1995. Many have heard of 'Bosons' but not

about S N Bose from University of Calcutta in India. He is included in

this article.

There is also a story of a physicist who disappeared suddenly in Italy.

I include  brief life sketches of the following scientists:

1 Leo Szilard

2 Madame Wu

3 John von Neumann

4 George Gamow

5 John R Dunning

6 Maria Goeppert Mayer

7 Frederick Reines

8 Ettore Majorana

9 Llewellyn Thomas

1o Marietta Blau

11 Arnold Sommerfeld

12 Marguerite Catherine Perey

13 Lise Meitner

14 Satyendranath Bose

Leo Szilard

A Hungarian by birth, he was a genius who invented several

things.After he heard about the nuclear fission [discovered by

Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann] Szilard immediately

thought of the possibility of chain reaction to produce nuclear

energy. He designed an atomic reactor in a London hotel room. He

even patented the design. Later he would also patent the design

of a cyclotron--a particle accelerator.

He worked with Max von Laue on x-ray difraction experiments in

Berlin and later with Albert Einstein  on thermodynamics and

designed a refrigerator which went into commercial production, to

be replaced by Freon system later.[1922-1930]

Later Szilard ,fleeing from Germany in 1933, worked in Oxford for

some years. Later he moved to the USA and  was working  with

Enrico Fermi at Columbia University in 1938.  He performed simple

experiments at Columbia to prove the multiplication of neutrons

with nuclear fission using Uranium and graphite as moderator to

slow down the neutrons, along with John Dunning.

Leo Szilard , more than any other person at that time, realized

the full import of nuclear chain reaction; he wrote that night

after the successful experiment of chain reaction at the

laboratory: "That night there was very little doubt in my mind

that the world was headed for grief." [ Walter Zinn worked with

Szilard at Columbia University and later at Chicago.] 

[The Germans were also close on the heels of this work, trying to

produce nuclear chain reaction.They used a graphite derived from

silicon carbide which contained boron as an impurity. Boron is a

good absorber of neutrons and hence they could not achieve chain

reaction.What a blessing! Szilard gathered graphite without the

boron impurity and so was successful in achieving chain reaction.

 Later he would persuade Einstein at Princeton to sign the famous

letter to the president F D Roosevelt which Szilard drafted--- on

the necessity of developing an atomic weapon.The Manhattan

project is a brainchild of Leo Szilard.

Then he moved to University of Chicago along with Enrico Fermi to

build the "Atomic Pile" and the nuclear reactor went critical on

Dec 2nd , 1942 [Chicago Pile 1].

Szilard moved to Los Alamos laboratory to join hands with Fermi

and Oppenheimer to work on the atomic bomb. He was critical of

war efforts and was disillusioned with greater control of the

project by  military generals.He had many arguments with Gen

Leslie Groves, the military director of the project while J

Oppenheimer was the scientific director. He was against the use

of the atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and much of what

happened during the cold war. Like many atomic scientists, he was

a pacifist and truly beleived that the atom bomb should not be

used in any war.

After the war, he switched from atomic physics to molecular

biology and colloborated with Aaron Novick, the founder of the

Institute of Molecular Biology at Eugene, Oregon.The European

Microbiology Lab was established at his suggestion. Its library

is named after Szilard.

He was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1960. For his own

treatment, he devised an equipment for Cobalt 60 radio-isotope

treatment for cancer.

During the last few  years, he worked at  the Salk Institute in

San Diego in the company of his old friend Jacob Bronowski. He

died at the age of 66.

A crater in the Moon is named after Leo Szilard.

Madame Wu

Chien Shing Wu, widely known as Madame Wu , is a woman physicist

born in Jiangsu province in China. She studied in Nanjing

University and later moved to Taiwan.Like many women scientists

of her era, she sought a school teaching career, before taking up

research.From 1930 to 1934, she studied at the physics department

of National Central University in Taiwan, and became a researcher

at the Institute of Physics there.

She is best known for her work on proving experimentally the

violation of parity principle , proposed by T D Lee and C Y Yang

at Columbia University. It is interesting that all the three

scientists were of Chinese origin. Yang and Lee got the

Noble prize for their theoretical work, but Madame Wu did not get

it. [Incidentally both Yang and Lee studied at the University of

Chicago and an anecdote has that S Chandrasekhar [the Indian

astrophysicist who also received the Nobel prize later] would

drive several miles to teach Yang and Lee and later told that his

entire class of two students got the Nobel prize.] 

She came to University of California at  Berkeley with a

fellowship and became a student of E.O.Lawrence of cyclotron fame

and received her Ph D in 1940. She later went to Princeton and

from there to Columbia University [New York city] where she

remained from 1944 to 1980--her entire career.

It is interesting to note that as an experimenter she was highly

accomplished--a fact not very well known.She was part of

Manhattan Project which started at Columbia lab. Her major role

as an experimenter was to develop the diffusion process for

enriching uranium---that is ,separating U 235 from U 238 using

gaseous diffusion of uranium hexafluoride---a process at once

diifcult and risky.

She had several nick-names such as " First Lady of

Physics'and "The Chinese Madame Curie".An unassuming lady, she

received the first Wolf prize for physics from Israel. She died

in 1997.

John von Neumann

John von Neumann belongs to the

rare category of versatile genius

and child prodigies. [Many

child prodigies do not flower into

geniuses in later life.]He was a polymath, with wide interests

and mastery of different fields. 

   He is best known for his mathematical 'game theory' and work

on opearations research;indeed he was one of the greatest

mathematicians of 20th century.He was not only a pure

mathematician, but applied mathematician as well---he was a great

mathematical physicist and also a mathematical

economist ,contributing to econometrics. His contribution to

early computer science is well-known. The computer architecture

with sequential processing is still called ' Neumann

architecture'. He even wrote the instruction set for the first

large computer ENIAC .

His memory was phenomenal and could recite literary pieces of

several pages; he did much mental calculations at fantastic

speed, including summing up an infinite series.

He is also well known for his work on atom bomb at Los Alamos

laboratory , along with Fermi, Oppenheimer,and later with Edward

Teller on thermonuclear or hydrogen bombs with nuclear fusion. He

had no qualms about working on these military projects---he was

against fascism and communism. He was not a pacifist . He held

the view that  nuclear weapons could be a deterrent too.

John von Neumann was born in Budapest in 1903 to wealthy Jewish

parents. His father was a banker and a lawyer. Affectionately

called 'Johnny" of "Jancsi", he was far ahead of his school

curriculum; so his father appointed private tutors for him. At

the age of 8, he was familiar with Newton's calculus.When he was

15, he had mastered calculus and other math subjects  that his

tutor Gabor Szego, on meeting him first was moved to tears. By

the age of 19, he wrote his first mathematical paper. A legend

has it that he received his undergraduate degree and Ph D at the

same year--when he was 22 years old.

Then he moved to ETH in Switzerland, where he learned math under

Georg Polya. Under his father's pressure, he also got a degree in

chemical engineering from ETH--- a subject that could be

more useful for later life.!

He became a privat-dozent at the young age of 23 in Berlin.By

1929, he had published 32 mathematical papers, at the rate of one

paper  every month. 

In 1930, he was invited to join the Institute for Advanced

Studies in Princeton, New Jersey; the other persons invited along

with him were Albert Einstein and Kurt Godel. Johnny remained

with the Insitute till his death in 1957.He became a US citizen

in 1938.

His early work was to put quantum mechanics on a firm

mathematical basis ,using operator formalism and Hilbert

space. He applied group theory and other mathematical tools for

economics, which were later developed by many Nobel Laureates,

such as  Kenneth Arrow and John Nash.He also developed much of

operations research [OR] and linear programming methods and

duality theorem, colloborated with George Dantzig at Stanford.His

work on linear programming was immediately applied for many

commercial problems.

His lasting work was in Los Alamos laboratory---with early work

on 'explosive lenses' and shaped charges for efficient thermo-

nuclear (hydrogen) bombs to compress plutonium core for Nagasaki

bomb.He fully supported such military efforts as he was much

against communism and also the fascist regimes in Germany and in

Italy. 

After the war in 1945, he continued as a consultant to US

government on designing bombs and ICBMs. He was the head of a

committee for ICBMs ,called Neumann Commitee. He coined the

term " MAD" --Mutually Assured Destruction. Along with Stanislaw

Ulam, a close friend and a Polish mathematician, he developed

simulation methods  using random numbers,called Monte-Carlo

method. For all his passionate work for the military, he inspired

the character of Dr Strangelove.He filed a secret patent for a

hydrogen bomb design along with Klaus Fuchs in 1946.[Klaus Fuchs

later defected to Soviet Union and became the first nuclear spy.]

He continued to be a consultant for various corporations such as

RAND and IBM,staying at Princeton.

In personal life, he was one  with lot of appetite for jokes.He

used to share jokes with his friend Stanislaw Ulam till the

end.He could work in a noisy place without getting

disturbed,because of his  power of  intense concentration. He was

married and had a daughter.

In 1955, he was diagnosed with cancer---may be due to his

exposure to nuclear radiations during the underwater

nuclear tests at Bikini islands.He stayed at Walter Reed Hospital

in Washington D.C. for nearly 18 months and then died .

A crater in the Moon is named after 'Johnny" von Neumann.

George Gamow

George Gamow is better known for his popular science books such

as "Mr Tompkin in wonderland" and "One,two, three---infinity"

which educated a generation of young persons including me on

modern physics. Gamow, a Russian Jew who emigrated to USA under

trying circumstances, was a scientist who made great

contributions to the theoretical aspects of Quantum mechanics and

astrophysics.

His theory of alpha decay from radio-active substances

developed "Quantum tunneling process" in which a few particles

can escape from the potential well or barrier of a nucleus---a

result of probabilistic nature of wave function---a particle can

exist outside its confines though only a few can do so. Gamow

also developed, when he was in Neils Bohr institute, a

simple "liquid   drop model" for nuclear fission or fusion of two

atoms, taking into account conversion of mass into energy, like

two drops may coalesce to reduce its surface tension.This model,

later developed by Neils Bohr and John Wheeler became a working

model for nuclear physicists for many years.

In later years, he devoted his time  to problems of astro-

physics. He was an early advocate of big-bang theory.

   Gamow was born in Odessa in Ukraine to Jewish parents. He

studied at University of Leningrad. One of his friends was Lev

Landau. 

He came to Gottingen, the Mecca of atomic physicists at that

time-- when Max Born was training many young physicists

there.Later he spent three years [1928-1931] with Neils Bohr at

Copenhagen. He spent a few years as Rockefeller Fellow at

Cambridge university,in Ernest Rutherford laboratory.

In 1928, he solved the alpha decay problem using the tunneling

effect. Simulataneously R W Gurney and E U Condon also came with

the the same solution, but their calculations were less rigorous.

Gamow was able to calculate the half life of isotopes with alpha

decay and introduced a " Gamow factor' into this process.[Read

his popular book with plenty of anecdotes: " Thirty years that

shook physics"--Dover pub].

  He returned to Russia---may be a wrong move for him!---and

built a cyclotron at the Radium Institute which was completed

only in 1937.In 1931, he had bad encounter with the  communist

regime. He was denied the permission to attend a scientific

conference in Italy. Gamow decided to escape from Russia with his

wife 'Rho" . He made two attempts to escape. In one attempt , he

stayed in a sea-side resort near the black sea; he planned to

rent out a boat and then escape at night with his wife  by rowing

to a place in Turkey..During this journey,however, there was

heavy storms in the sea and Gamow returned to the resort, without

authorities getting any information on his attempt. The second

attempt was to reach Norway from Murmansk.Again bad weather

prevented this escaapade and so Gamow failed in both the attempts

to escape from Russia.

  Things changed for the better in 1933. He got the permission to

attend the Solvay Conference [ a prestigeous conference in which

almost all top atomic scientists participated] in Brussels. He

left with his wife who posed as his secretary-- with official

passports. With the generous spirit of Marie Curie and Neils

Bohr, the couple could stay outside Russia. Gamow went to the

Curie Insitute in Paris and later to  University of London. He

moved to University of Michigan, Aan Arbor in USA later and

emigrated to USA.

   His work now turned to nuclear explosions. He became a

professor at George Washington University at Washington D C . He

invited Edward Teller from Hungary to join him [1936]. The basic

work relating to thermo-nuclear [H-Bomb] devices were done at

that time. His theory of beta decay took shape and he  wrote a

paper on 'Gamow-Teller selection rule".

During the war years, he did not work on Manhattan project when

Teller moved to Los Alamos. But Gamow stayed at George Washington

University in D C and consulted for U S Navy on sub-marine

related problems with other professors.

After the war , he turned his attention to problems of

astrophysics---things relating to star formations. A major paper

was produced in 1945 with Carl Weizsacker. With Raplh Alpher and

Hans Bethe [Cornell University], Gamow worked out the nuclear

reactions in stars and synthesis of chemical elements from

hydrogen in stars. Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory was called "alpha-

beta-gamma " theory by him!.

Gamow predicted the background microwave radiation in the

Universe due to Big-bang explosion; [a prediction which was later

observed by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1978 for which they

received Nobel prize.]

In later years Gamow moved to University of  Colorado, Boulder,

where he would do some work relating to molecular biology;he

worked on the synthesis of proteins from the molecular blocks in

DNA chains.

He was a gifted writer on popular science, as mentioned earlier,

comparable to the younger author Isaac Asimov.He also wrote an

autobiography--" My World Line--An informal autobiography" Viking

Press , 1970.

He died at the age of 64, in 1968.

[Note: The present author met him in 1960 when he gave a lecture

on the "Age of the Earth' with pronounced  Russian accent. He was

already obese .He said later that his liver was sending him a

bill.]

John R Dunning

John Dunning is a well-known experimenter who proved the release

of neutrons during the nuclear fission and also measured the

enormous amount of energy theoretically postulated by Lise

Meitner and Otto Frisch in Europe. He led a team which formed the

group to develop the conditions for the nuclear reactions in

Manhattan project initiated by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard that

started in Columbia University, New York. The work was done in

great secrecy in the basement of Pupin building ,the physics

department there.

  The frenzy of activity started after Neils Bohr who was

visiting Princeton for a conference received a telegram from Otto

Frisch from Stockholm [Jan 1939]. Frisch was the nephew of Lise

Meitner. Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner both met during the

Christmas vacation [Dec 1938] and discussed the discovery of

nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Strassmann, both earlier

colleagues of Lise Meitner in Berlin. This was indeed a secret

information, conveyed  to Lise Meitner before the publication by

Otto Hahn. Meitner immediately worked out the calculations for 

the process of a Uranium atom splitting into two halves [one half

being Barium atom found in the experiment] and realised, using

mass defect, that enormous energy [about 200 Mev per fission]

would be released. The exciting possibility of releasing this

energy occupied the heated discussion between Meitner and Frisch

during the breakfast stroll in snow-covered garden in Meitner's

home. Frisch, being a fellow of the Bohr Institute, wanted to

communicate this to Neils Bohr in Princeton.

Neils Bohr, excited by the news from Otto Frisch, immediately

walked into the conference room and spilled the beans ----

announced this discovery that uranium atom could be split, with

formation of barium atom to the assembly of great physicists.

[There is another version of this story; Lise Meitner told Neils

Bohr about the results of Otto Hahn on uranium fission and her

calculations before Neils Bohr left Stockholm by boat to New

York. During the travel in the ship, Bohr discussed this problem

with Leon Rosenfeld and forgot to mention that the information

should  be kept secret. It was Rosenfled who told other

physicists. Soon after that, Bohr realised the mistake and tried

to preserve the priority of Otto Hahn and Strassmann and Lise

Meitner, the Berlin team; the paper,however, was  was already

published by these authors in Germany, a fact not known to Neils

Bohr at that time.]

This triggered a frenzy of activity among the physicists in the

US, in various universities... Whoever had a source of neutron

went ahead to try it out. John Dunning who received the news at

New York , along with Enrico Fermi, was the first one to try out

and develop a series of experiments leading to the demonstration

of nuclear chain reaction.

John Dunning grew up in Nebraska and was an experimenter from his

early days at school;he built a radio transmitter as a school

boy. Later, along with his father, built several radio stations 

and sold them later. 

He came to Columbia University as a student in physics and had

enormous encouragement as an experimenter. He had built a neutron

source by the method used in Berlin by Lise Meitner and others--a

small quantity of radon gas enclosed in a tube with a piece of

beryllium.[Radon gas can be collected from the emanations from a

piece of radio-active radium.]

His first aim was to note the large release of energy and also

the production of 'more than one neutron per fission' so that a

chain reaction could be initiated for nuclear fission of uranium

atoms. With his students [Harold Anderson, E T Booth,G N Glascoe

and FG Slack] he built an ionisation chamber to detect the large

energy release of energy from the fission of uranium atoms. He

would establish later that the fission comes from U 235    isotope

of uranium.

The energy release from the fission was indeed in the range

of 100 to 200 MeV, as predicted by Lise Meitner with Otto

Frisch. The classic paper by Dunning's team  was published

in the year 1939: " The Fission of Uranium" by H L Anderson,

E T Booth, J R Dunning, E Fermi, G N Glascoe and F G Slack,

Phys Rev March 1, 1939.

This work not only triggered the Manhattan project but

would lead to the construction of first atomic reactor with

chain reaction {Chicago-Pile 1] at University of Chicago by

Fermi and later to the making of atom bomb at Los Alamos

laboratory, in New Mexico.

John Dunning requested Prof Arnold Nier, a chemist who was

expert in mass spectrograph to isolate U-235 isotope from

the abundant U-238 in a sample of Uranium ---at University

of Minnesota---in 1940.. [A piece of uranium typically

consists of 0.7% U 235 isotope and the rest U 238

isotope.] A small tiny bit of U 235 was received by Dunning

for establishing the fission of U 235 atoms by slow

neutrons.The separation of U 235 from normal Uranium or

enrichment of uranium in sufficient quantities of a few

kilograms  would be a major undertaking for the bomb makers.

  John Dunning immediately set about the separation process

for U -235. He chose the gas diffusion method ,using uranium

hexa-fluoride---a tough material to handle. There were lot

of chemical problems to solve...Prof Dunning had

colloboration with the chemist Prof Harold Urey , also at

Columbia,to conduct this project.[H C Urey received Nobel

prize for his early work on Deuterium and heavy water.]

A large scale plant to make U-235 by diffusion was set up

with Dunning's consultations at Oak Ridge Laboratory at

Tennessee.. [This process would also consume lot of electric

power.]

Meanwhile Fermi, Harold Anderson and his team moved to

Chicago to build the pile using natural Uranium, as part of

the Manhattan project. They would discover that Plutonium

was produced in  nuclear reactors which could be separated

from uranium rods; plutonium also is a fissile material and

could be used for building an atom bomb. A plutonium plant

was set up at Hanford,Washington state and some of Fermi's

assistants moved there for the Hanford plant.

Another group of  scientists gathered at Los Alamos

laboratory, New Mexico to design  and to fabricate the bomb.

John Oppenheimer was the scientific director and Gen Leslie

Groves was the military director at Los Alamos. Dunning

became a consultant to the Los Alamos team but stayed at

Columbia University.

Meanwhile John Dunning spearheaded two projects.He built a

highly successful cyclotron in his laboratory. This

cyclotron is a permanent exhibit now at Smithsonian museum

in Washington D C. The second project was the building of a

large synchro-cyclotron for nuclear experiments.[SAM

project]

Dunning received many awards and a also a substantial amount

in lieu of patent rights from U S|Atomic energy commission.

This amount he donated to Columbia University. He became a

full professor in 1946 and later Dean of Engineering and

Apllied Sciences school there.

John Dunning was an inspired experimenter and trained many

young scientists in experimental nuclear physics. He was at

the critical time of enormously significant nuclear work at

the right place with E Fermi. Gen Leslie Grove said later: "

I feel very strongly that Dr Dunning has not been

appreciated by his country for his work on the {Manhattan}

project." Be that as it may, he was admired and loved by his

students and collagues.

He died at the age of 67 years in 1975.

---------------------------------------------------

Maria Goeppert-Mayer

A legend in her lifetime, this woman physicist from Germany had

excellent education but also her share of problems as a woman in

professional circles. She was born in Poland in 1906 ,in an

intellectual family atmosphere. On her father's side, there were

seven generations of professors. She studied at University of

Gottingen, a place of active physics presided over by Max Born.

She was in the compnay of great physicists like Enrico Fermi,

Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauli and James Franck in Gottingen and other

centers. 

While in Gottingen she married the American physicist Dr Joseph

Edward Mayer in 1930. Being Jewish , she realised that the

political atmosphere was getting hostile in Germany. The couple

moved to the US in 1930.

She spent many years in several universities as a scientific

assistant; Johns Hopkins [1931-39], Columbia [1940 -46] and

Chicago. After work at Chicago,she got a teaching position for

sometime at Sarah Lawrence college.In between she had worked in

Los Alamos atom project in New Mexico.The jobs were few those

days  and it was indeed difficult for a woman to get any academic

position .

Finally she had a part-time job at Argonne National Lab,during

which time she developed the shell structure for nucleus. This

answered the question why certain isotopes were more stable than

others, the so called 'magic numbers'.[Isotopes with number of

neutrons or protons in this sequence are found to be very stable:

2,8,20,28,50,82 and 126.]

This work was immediately recognized and Maria Mayer received

Nobel prize in 1963, the second woman to receive Nobel prize for

physics after Marie Curie.

She became a full professor at Univ of California, San Diego and

helped to build a physics department there. She died in 1972.

A crater on Venus is named after her.

Frederick Reines

Frederick Reines is credited with the identification of neutrinos

, along with his coworker Clyde Cowan. Reines's background is

interesting.Born in a middle class Jewish family in Paterson, New

Jersey, he grew up in a small community in upstate New York. His

father, an immigrant from Russia, ran a country store. Reines was

exposed  to country life and lot of music and literature studies.

He was good in history subjects but did poorly in math and

science at school.He had a great singing voice and even

considered a singing career. He graduated from Union Hill school

and took interest in science due to some teachers at high school

days.

Later he obtained MS degree from Stevens Institute of Technology,

Hoboken and then Ph D from New York University. Towards the end

of war, he went to Los Alamos laboratory and worked under Richard

Feynman. Soon he was hooked to fundamental particles physics and

nuclear reactor work.

Neutrino is a small tricky particle to trace. It has very little

mass and no charge. It can pass through miles of rock easily,

since it has weak interactions with atoms.

Neutrino was postulated by Wolfgang Pauli [of "exclusion

principle" fame] in 1930 ---to explain the interaction between

neutron, proton and electron/positron in the nucleus, following

the theory of beta decay by Enrico Fermi. But neutrino  has been

elusive to find . In 1950, Reines worked at the nuclear reactor

facility at Hanford ,Washington and did  basic experiments to

track the neutrino. Note that neutrino cannot be detected by

cloud chamber and other devices.The neutrinos are  generated from

nuclear reactors. Reines , along with Clyde Cowan moved to

Savannah Reactor facility [at Augusta ,Georgia] where a powerful

reactor was available.

  The experimental set up of Reines appears simple. The neutrinos

[or anti-neutrinos] were led from the reactor  to large water

tanks containing  water mixed with cadmium chloride . Cadmium

atoms would absorb the neutrons. Reines and Cowan shielded the

apparatus from stray cosmic rays. A bank of 5 inch

photomultiplier tubes lined the water tank to record feeble light

sparks signalling the creation of neutrino-related reactions.The

number of observed positrons coincided with Fermi's theory.The

presence of neutrinos was proved in 1956.

Later Reines turned his attention to stars which would emit

neutrinos. A copious stream is expected during the explosion of

stars or supernovas.He discovered neutrinos in supernovas ,thus

opening up neutrino astronomy, a field growing even today. As

professor and head of physics department, he served at Case-

Western University from 1959 to 1966.His work on cosmic

rays ,hunting for neutrinos, went on when he moved later to

University of California , Irvine. He also initiated programs for

radiation therapy in later years.

He was one of those scientists who were awarded Nobel prize much

later than their year of work. Reines got nobel prize in 1995. He

died in 1998.

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Ettore Majorana

Ettore Majorana was in the forefront of research in nuclear

physics and quantum mechanics. In fact he found neutron before

its  discovery by James Chadwick but missed publishing it. His

work on statistical model for atomic structure with Enrico Fermi

brought him a permanent place in quantum theory. His work on

fermions, called Majorana fermions , led to work on particles

which are of fundamental significance ; the Majorana fermions are

intensely studied and were found in April 2011.

For all his reputation, especially in Italy,Majorana disappeared

in 1938 during a boat trip from Palermo to Naples.More about this

later.

Ettore Majorana was born in Sicily in 1906. His father was also a

physicist. Gifted in mathematics from boyhood, he studied first

engineering in 1923. After that, at the urging of Emilio Segre [a

Nobel prize winner later and a student of Fermi],he took to

physics and became a student of Enrico Fermi at the University 

of Rome.This was in 1928. His scintific career extended only for

ten more years.

His early work was on atomic spectroscopy.In his first paper in

1928, he developed a model for atomic structure. This potential

model is now called "Thomas -Fermi model" ,since Lowellyn Thomas

also independently developed this model. This model has been

widely used in solid state physics. He also developed "auto-

inonisation' for certain explanantion in atomic spectra in 1931.

He obtained doctorate with Fermi as thesis advisor from

University of Rome. Fermi remained his mentor for the rest of 

his short life.

In 1932, he published a paper on the behaviour of aligned atoms

in varying magnetic fields-- a problem that  led I I Rabi and

others to radio-frequency spectroscopy.  He did work on

relativistic theory for mass spectrum. Many of his papers were

written in Italian and therefore went unnoticed for several

decades in western Europe and USA.

He was the first to propose the presence of neutrons based on

radio-active data of Joliot and Irene Curie [daughter of Marie

Curis and Nobel prize winners]. Fermi told him to write a paper

on this work but Majorana postponed and the credit of finding

neutron went to James Chadwick.

Majorana equation yields particles that are their own

antiparticles which are called Majorana Fermions. Majorana

remained humble and often considered his own work as trivial.

At Fermi's insistence, Majorana left Italy and joined W

Heisenberg at Leipzig, Germany in 1933. [1933 was a sensitive

year when Nazi power was rising and scientists of Jewish faith

had tough time to work in peace and many left Germany.]He

extended the theory of nucleus using exchange forces developed by

Heisenberg. He also went to Copenhagen to work with Neils Bohr.He

also did seminal work on neutrinos. His last paper in 1937 was on

electrons and positrons ,written in Italian.

In the fall of 1933, Majorana returned to Italy in poor health,

with abdominal problems and nervous exhaustion. He became a

recluse and remained at home for nearly four years. He was also

harsh towards family members. He practically stopped publishing,

though some minor work was done in geophysics and electrical

engineering. Meanwhile he became a full professor at University

of Naples in 1937.

  While on a boat trip from Palermo to Naples, Majorana

disappeared. Several investigations were made, but his body was

never found. He had apparently withdrawn his money from bank

earlier to the trip. On Mar 25,1938, Majorana had written a

letter to the Dirctor of Physics Institute at Naples that he

should be remembered and he had made an unavoidable decision.

Did Majorana commit suicide? Did he escape to Argentina or join a

monastery?

Was he kidnapped and killed by those against nuclear weapons? Did

Nazi military establishment abduct him to force him to work on

nuclear bomb and send him later to Argentina after the war? --

Many such questions are asked even today.Several books have been

written on the disappearance of Majorana. Emilio Segre told that

most probably he had committed suicide.

[Note: On March 2011, one witness appeared stating that he had

met Majorana in Buernes Aires after World War II. On June 7th

2011, a photo taken in 1955 in Argentina was presented. Therefore

there is a possibility that Majorana was forced to work for

Germany military on nuclear bomb related work and later sent to

Argentina to avoid punishment from the Allies. This is my

conjecture.]

[Note: Recently in 2011, Majorana Fermions have been detected in

nano-material research and this has raised hopes of quantum

computing again.See BBC news- 13th April, 2012]

His mentor, Enrico Fermi paid his tribute to Majorana towards the

end of his own life in 1954: "There are many categories of

scientists--There are also people of first class, who make great

discoveries,fundamental for the development of science. But then

there are the geniuses, like Galileo Galilee and Newton. well,

Ettore Majorana was one of them. "

Llewellyn Thomas

Llewellyn Thomas is best known for his work labelled "Thomas-

Fermi potential" for heavy atoms---- to apply  Schrodinger's 

wave equation for larger atoms.Thomas developed this model first

and Fermi came up with this a year later and expanded it. This

model--'Thomas--Fermi model' ---has many applications and is

widely used in Solid State Physics. Thomas made another great

development ---introduced 'Thomas factor' for explaining the

Zeeman effect with 'spin-orbit coupling". Both the works ---

Thomas-Fermi model and Thomas Factor--- were done before he was

23 years old.

Born in London in 1903 in a Welsh family, he was home-schooled

till 7th grade by his mother. He was a voracious reader . He

entered Trinity College, Cambridge and studied under E A Milne.

Later he went to Copenhagen, the Mecca of Atomic Physicists , in

1925,  and spent a year with Neils Bohr.It was an exciting time

at Bohr's Institute with Heisenberg and Schrodinger bring in

their works on matrix mechanics and wave mechanics. By his own

admission, Thomas was slow in learning the new things

and "understood nothing for 4 to 5 years!".

It was around this time, however, Thomas developed the two works

mentioned earlier. He studied the fine structure of atomic

spectra and applied relativistic corrections, having studied

theory of relativity with Arthur Eddington a year before. He did

the required calculations and came up with the Thomas factor,

which he discussed with Kramers and Bohr. Bohr urged him to

publish this in 1926. He returned to Trinity College ,Cambridge

and obtained his Ph D in 1927.

In 1929, he moved to the USA, and became an assistant professor

at Ohio State University, Columbus. He had always the streak of

doing practical work too.He developed the isochronous cyclotron

and did  work on numerical methods. He stayed at Ohio State for

17 years.

During the war years, 1943-45, he went to Aberdeen Proving

Grounds for work in Ballistics Research Lab where he had the

company of luminaries like Edwin Hubble,Joseph Mayer, John von

Neumann,I I Rabi and S Chandrasekhar. He did theoretical work on

shock waves .

Soon after the war, IBM started the Thomas Watson computing lab

at Columbia Unviersity, and Rabi and Eckert induced Thomas to

join .Interestingly his title at Watson lab was a "technician".

Soon he became a faculty member of Columbia 's physics department

as well.It was here that he developed large computing devices and

also algorithms for numerical methods. He did practical work in

making magnetic core memories for computers. He was so highly

respected by the computing fraternity that he was nick-named "the

sage of 116th street" ---the first location of IMB-watson lab

near Columbia University in Broadway, Manhattan, New York city.

After retirement from Columbia, Thomas moved to North Caroline

State University and was considered an encyclopaedic scholar by

students. He died in Raleigh ,N C in 1992.

Marietta Blau

Marietta Blau was an Austrian physicist of Jewish family. She is

credited with early work on photographic emulsion method for

detecting nuclear particles, finding their tracks and

characterisitics ,besides cloud chambers and scintillation

counters. She detected cosmic ray particles by this method at

high altitudes [above 2500 meters] using baloons.

 Her work was pioneering ,though C F Powell received far greater

credit for his work later and also received Nobel Prize. Marietta

Blau did experiments with limited facilities , often making her

own emulsions with paraffin and carbon soot.

Like many other Jewish scinetists, she had to flee Austria when

it was annexed [Anschluss] with Germany by Adolf Hitler. For most

of the early years, she worked as unpaid assistant...the

reason---She was a woman;she was Jewish--period.Even in the USA,

her position was not satisfactory and she did not receive the

recognition she deserved.

She studied at the University of Vienna from 1914-18 and obtained

her doctorate in 1919.  Her career began in the Radium Institute

in Vienna , from 1923 to 1938, where she worked unpaid. It was

here that she developed the emulsion technique and recorded the

tracks of atomic particles. She could separate the tracks of

alpha particles from that of protons.Her family was well-off,

making money out of selling sheet music and had to support

her. The institute did give her small funds for experimental

work. For her significant work, she received Leiben prize from

Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1937. This was the only formal

recognition for her work.

In the fateful year of 1938, like many other scientists, Marietta

Blau escaped from Vienna . From there she moved to Paris and

joined the Curie Institute. Soon she got in touch with the

British photo-film maker Ilford and made better emulsion

films .One note says that she got some financial support frrom

the Austrian Association of University Women while she was in

Gottingen and later in Paris.

    With her student, Hertha Wambacher, she studied cosmic rays

wtih her emulsion method.She did this work at  high altitudes, at

2500 meters above sea level.She observed first nuclear

disintegrations ,which they called 'Blau-Wambacher Stars".Her

seminal publication was : "photographic tracks from cosmic rays"

Nature,142,613,1938.

Much credit was given later to Prof C F Powell and his team in

England for their work on emulsion technique and cosmic ray

studies leading to the discovey of pi-mesons or pions. Marietta

Blau's pioeering work was almost ignored by the science

establishment, though some British scientists did mention her

work from which Powell apparently derived his method. Powell, at

the University of Bristol, almost had a 'cottage industry'  with

links to chemists,theorists and many women scanners to do large

exploration of cosmic rays. Marietta balu's work consisted of a 

small team. Powell and Occhialini did receive Nobel prize and

Marietta Blau did not.[She was nominated several times by Erwin

Schrodinger for Nobel prize but still she did not receive the

prize.]

  [Her student and coworker for many years, Wambacher was a

member of Nazi party. This fact might have created some prejudice

against Blau's achievements.]

She moved to Oslo from Paris and then sailed to the USA. With

intercession of Albert Eistein she got a teaching position in

Technical University, Mexico city. She moved to Mexico city with

her ailing mother. She could do hardly any research work there.  

She even studied problems of local interest such as the effect of

solar radiation on a population living at high altitudes and

radioactivity of minerals found in Mexico.

After her mother's passing in 1944, she moved to the USA,to New

York city where his brother lived. For some time  she was

employed at the International Rare Metals Refiney, New York

[1944-48], a company doing extraction of uranium and other

metals.She developed instruments for industrial and medical

applications of  radium. Later she had short assignments at

Columbia University [1948-50] and Brookhaven National Lab [Long

Island][1950-55] and finally  a permanent teaching position at

University of Miami[1955-60].While at Brookhaven she developed

the emulsion method for detecting high energy particles generated

from particle accelerators [synchro-cyclotrons and Bevatrons] and

early work on photo-multiplier tubes to imporve the performance

of  scintillation counters.She received an award--the Leibnitz

award from the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. But the Academy was

located in East Berlin under Soviet union.The US State department

dissuaded her  to visit there. Blau declined the award.

In 1960, Blau did return to Vienna, partly being home sick and

personally not being healthy, and worked in the Radium Institute

again. Though she received the Schroedinger prize of the Austrian

Academy of Sciences, she could not become a regular member of the

Academy due to prejudices against women scientists.

She died in Vienna in 1970--at the age of 76.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------

Arnold Sommerfeld

Here is a quiz for you: Can you name the scientist who was

nominated for Nobel prize 81 times but failed to get the prize?

Can you name the physicist who trained four great physicists who

went on to get nobel prizes--namely Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang

Pauli, Peter Debye and Hans Bethe?

Can you name the scientist with whom three future nobel -prize

winners --Linus Pauling, I I Rabi and Max von Laue did post-

doctoral work?

If you answered 'Arnold Sommerfeld' for all the three

questions ,you are right!.

Sommerfeld was not only a great physicist, but also had the knack

of teaching and training students with lot of social interaction

that they grew into great scientists.

Sommerfeld also wrote the classic 6 volume work on " Atomic

Strucutre and Spectral Lines" which became a standard text for

several decades.

Albert Einstein told Sommerfeld: "What I admire about you is that

you have,as it were, pounded out of the soil such a large number

of young talents."

Sommerfeld is best known for his work on the structure

of hydrogen atom along with Neils Bohr---called "Bohr-

Sommerfeld theory."   While Bohr developed the circular

orbits of electrons around the hydrogen

nucleus,Sommerfeld worked out the elliptical orbits and

introduced the three quantum numbers in addition to

principal quantum number.He also introduced fine

structure constant [ alpha = e2  /hc = 1/137, a

dimensionless number] to explain the atomic spectra.

Sommerfeld was born in Koenisberg in 1868 and studied at

Albertina University. He studied math from Adolf Hurwitz and

David Hilbert. He received Ph D at the age of 23.

The important shift came  when he went to Gottingen University

and learned mathematical physics under Felix Klein. He taught at

Gottingen for many years and wrote text books as well.

In 1900, he became a professor at Aachen and worked on theory of

hydrodynamics. It was at this time, 1905, Albert Einstein

had formulated his special theory of Relativity. Sommerfeld was

an early supporter of this theory which was not fully accepted

then;he gave the mathematical framework for using the relativity

theory.

From 1906, he was the professor of theoretical physics at Univ of

Munich. His close colloborator was Max Born. These two

professors, Sommerfeld at Munich and Born at Gottingen nurtured 

a generation of great theoretical physicists.

In 1935, he went on a world tour for a year--visiting

India,China, Japan and the US.

When he returned to Germany, the turbulent years-- 1935-1940--

lay ahead.Sommerfeld was pained by the development of anti-

semiticism, which was always prevalent in Germany but then became

virulent---many of his friends were leaving the country including

Alber Einstein.  Meanwhile he helped many refugee scientists find

positions in other countries.

He continued to teach till 1947. In 1951  he met with an

accident---a passing truck hit him while he was taking a walk

with his grandchildren.He died two months later.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------

Marguerite Catherine Perey

Marguerite Perey was a radioactivity researcher without any

formal science education.She had the intelligence to study radio-

active substances and developed matchless skills in separating

radio-active elements and isotopes ,only equalling that of Marie

Curie and Otto Hahn.

She is credited with the discovery of Francium, an alkali metal

that was elusive for nearly 50 years after a suggestion from T W

Richards about its existence. The reason---this element is highly

unstable in elemental form..it is highly radioactive, decays into

lower atomic numbers in about two hours [half-life is only 2.34

hours] and is found in very small quantities in ores like Pitch

blende.

I am getting a little ahead of the story ---to illustrate how

tough it is to separate such elements.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Mendelyev's Periodic Table

[PT] was incomplete ,with several gaping holes for elements not

discovered then, but preumably existed in Nature. These elements

bore the name eka-X ,the word eka means in Sanskrit, "one

before"--a term used by Mendelyev for undientifed elements.

{Sanskrit ,the classical Indo-european language used in India is

close to Russian and hence the use of this word by Mendelyev.]

You recall the alkali metals in the first column of PT,the first

group of elements: Lithium,sodium,potassium, cesium; What comes

after cesium--we would call it eka-cesium.It would be assigned an

atomic number z= 83. Note that ,at that time, atomic numbners

were unknown;chemists searched for elements based on atomic

weights only. Theodore William Richards, an American chemist who

got Nobel prize for his work , was the authority on atomic

weights of elements; he surmised that eka-cesium ,if it exists,

would be highly unstable in a chemical sense and would be present

in small quantities in minerals.

To understand the story of eka-cesium, we have to dwell into the

work on actinium---another radioactive element with atomic number

z= 89. Now it is easy to 'imagine' that the element actinium

would give out an alpha particle [helium nucleus] and become z=

87 or eka-cesium.  Back then ,this was not understood that

easily--that is before the study of radioactive disintegration.

  You recall the work of Marie Curie, who treated large

quantities, nearly a ton, of pitch blende ore and isolated a few

grams of Polonium and Radium...well the same ore was used by

Andre Debierne to discover Actinium [z=89] in 1899.It is very

difficult to handle Ac and therefore very little was known since

that time.

Let us return to the early life of Marguerite Perey.

Marguerite Perey was born in 1909 in a little village near Paris.

His father ran a fluor mill.Stock-market crash and death of her

father followed. At the age of five, this girl in a middle class

Protestant family was left without any menas for a school

education.

Working hard Perey entered a private school which gave a diploma

in science---in chemistry--meant for girls. She graduated with

this diploma in 1929--at the age of 20 years. The diploma would

be helpful in getting a teaching job in a school.Fortunately for

her, in October 1929, she got a job of an assistant at the Radium

Insititute of Marie Curie. Her  skills, eagerness to learn and

intelligence caught the attention of the Director, Marie Curie.

Perey became the personal lab assistant of Marie Curie and later

her confidante as well.

Under Marie Curie's tutelage and mentoring,  Perey learnt the

techniques of radio-chemistry and would devote many years in

studying the difficult element Actinium [Z= 89].

The first work assigned to Perey by Curie was to enrich actinium

in a sample so that atomic spectrum work can be done to identify

its spectral lines. In those days,spectral lines of an element

served as finger-printing an element. Perey successfully prepared

a sample containing Ac ---the sample was sent to Zeeman's lab in

Amsterdam for spectral lines identification.

  She continued her work with actinium , purifying the substance

and studying its radioactive constituents. After Madame Curie's

death in 1934, Perey was guided by Andre Debierne and Curie's

daughter ,Irene Joliot-Curie. The elusive element eka-cesium is a

beta emitter and therefore difficult to detect. Further its

occurrence is small in nature:its content in earth's crust is

only several hundred grams.It is highly unstable and decays with

a half-life of 120 minutes.!

  In 1938, Perey found that a freshly purified actinium sample

exhibited  penetrating beta rays with intensity increasing in

about 20 minutes and then stayed steady for two hours.This

corresponds to the formation of eka-cesium from actinium.In Jan

1939, after several critical tests, Perey found that part of

Ac237 decays into the  new element--eka-cesium with properties of

an alkali metal.Thus eka-cesium was discovered--an element with

Z=87 and A= 237.

It is the custom that the discoverer of an element is previleged

to  name the element. Thus Curie named the new element 

discovered   by her after her native Poland--POLONIUM. Likewise,

Perey named the new element eka-cesium after her nativeland

France---thus FRANCIUM, WITH THE SYMBOL Fr  was named. [The

naturally occurring Francium is with the atomic mass 223.There

are 31 known isotopes of this element Fr.] Thus a modest 29 year-

old girl without an university degree,could discover an element

with rare skills,preseverance and ,of course, with mentoring of

Marie Curie.

She did university studies later, at the Sorbonne during the war

years and got her doctorate in 1946. In 1949, she was appointed

as Chairperson of the nuclear research centre ,CNRS, and also

headed the department of nuclear chemistry at the University of

Strasbourg.

In 1958, she co-founded the Department of Nuclear Chemistry in

the Institute for Nuclear Research.

She never married and devoted all her time to nuclear studies and

her students and colleagues.

In 1946, some form of cancer was detected in her left hand--

possibly due to many hours of working with strong radio-active

susbtances whose radition effects were little understood in the

early days. She taught other scientists how to handle these 'hot'

substances carefully in nuclear laboratories.

In 1967, she attended the centenary celebrations of Marie Curie's

birthday in Warsaw. Here she met other famous scientists

including Lise Meitner.Her latent cancer became virulent in 1973

and she died on May 13th, 1975 at the age of 65.

-----------------------------------------

Lise Meitner

I include Lise Meitner among the less known atomic physicists.

This is partly correct because she is not that well known like

the famous Marie Curie of France, though there work ran parallel

in the field of radio activity .But she was well known in Germany

and Austria where she was born, and famous among almost all

scientists.

Her life is one of poor recognition till late in Life. She was

persecuted because of her Jewish family though she had converted

to  Protestant faith in early years and she was not religious in

a traditional sense. Further she had less previleges in education

and in jobs because of her gender. Her life is so melodramatic

that one should read a detailed biography to appreciate her

devotion to science and remarkable faith in humanity.{Read the

detailed biography " Lise Meitner-by Ruth Lewin Sime-- University

of California press, Berkeley,1996]

She is known for her discovery of nuclear fission in

Uranium ,along with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. She and Otto

Hahn worked in the same laboratory at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in

Berlin; Hahn, a year senior, was a radio-chemist; Meitner a

physicist. Hahn was good in separating various radio-active

substances; Meitner did all the physical measurements. There was

an excellent understanding and cooperation between them for

almost thirty years.

Meitner had to flee Germany: She almost lost her professorship at

the University;later she was about to lose her postion a the

Kaiser Wilhelm institute during the sweeping anti-semitic

activites of Nazi party ; Her passport became invalid and she

would not be issued a passport again.She cannot travel anywhere

outside Germany after the Nazis came to power.She would lose her

apartments and also other possessions ,clothes and

books,confiscated by the Nazi authorities. Yet she was reluctant

to leave Germany.

Her native Austria was already  annexed by Hitler. She had a few

relatives still in Vienna, who could become the victims of

the holocaust.. She worried about the safety of them. Otto Hahn

was trying to help her but was limited by the pressure from Nazi

officials.

   Fortunately for her and for science, she had the support of a

few top scientists---Neils Bohr, Max Planck [her mentor in

Germany] ,Max von Laue and Dirk Coster. It was Neils Bohr who

made serious attempts to secure a position for her outside

Germany and smuggle her out of Berlin. Albert Einstein in the USA

also made some effort to entice her to emigrate.

In Juky 1938, following Neils Bohr's intense efforts, Dirk Coster

[the discoverer of the element Hafnium] went to Berlin, convinced

her to leave Germany and escorted her in a night train across the

border to Groningen, Netherlands . Coster ,through his influence,

had informed the border police  at the railway station across the

border about her escape. It was still a risky affair that the

German patrol might have arrested her. Lise Meitner and Dirk

Coster were nervous. But they could cross the border without any

incident.

  Lise Meitner then went to Sweden to work as an

assistant ,without any title, at Seigbahn's lab in the Nobel

Institute. When she was there, she heard from Otto Hahn about the

fission of uranium atom and formation of some barium atoms in his

experiments. Hahn was doing a line of work suggested by her

earlier.  She was having  a Christmas vacation,when she discussed

this with her nephew Otto Frisch who was working at the Bohr

Institute in Copenhagen. Lise immediately interpreted correctly

the results of this work and sent her explanation to Otto

Hahn.She calculated in  a snowy backyard during morning walk with

Frisch that the splitting of uranium atom had occurred and would

release incredible energy,almost 200 MeV per fission,and

explained this to Frisch.Otto Hahn had not yet published his

results...he would do so after two weeks. When the paper

appeared, the publication was in the name of Otto Hahn and

Strassmann... Lise Meitner's name did not appear. There could be

several reasons why her name was not included in this remarkable

work.It is true that Meitner had colloborated with Hahn

throughout.It is also ture that Hahn had consulted her a few

weeks before. Hahn acknowledged her contribution in numerous

letters between the two. But Meitner was not present during this

work in Berlin. Including her name would bring down the wrath of

Nazi officials---Hahn would be chastised and might even lose the

job. Meitner, being a Jew, could not be accepted as the author of

this work.

   I am getting ahead of this fascinating story. Otto Frisch

informed Neils Bohr of this great result from Otto Hahn and

Meitner's calculations.It was Neils Bohr who carried the news to

USA and informed the scientists there,especially Einstein and

Fermi. I had written about this in another story in previous

pages.

   As for Lise Meitner, she felt marginalised after this

situation. At Siegbahn's institute she had no formal position or

support for research though she started some experimental work

without any assistants. Her life became bitter and lonely. 

In 1940, Otto Hahn received the Nobel prize but Meitner was left

out. Otto Hahn did not even mention her name in his  Nobel

lecture. Mietner continued ,however, her friendship with

Hahn. Meitner was nominated twice by Einstein and by others for

Nobel prize, but od not receive it.

Early life and work

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878--in an intellectual

Jewish family , typical middle class background, given to studies

and music. In those days, even school education was scanty for

girls and often girls were trained for a teaching position or

nursing profession. Meitner would become a teacher. Formal

admission to universities for women did not obtain.Yet, Mietner

got an opportunity to study with Ludwig Boltzmann at the

University in Vienna. Boltzmann was her first mentor.His

remarkable lectures with clarity and concern for students were

legendary. Meitner got the full benefit of his mentoring. She

excelled in mathematics and physics,especially his work on

thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.

Meitner became fascinated by the studies on radio-activity by

Henri Becquerel and others and started experimental work at

Boltzmann's department.The classical work was done using a gold-

leaf electroscope. Meitner would investigate absorption of beta

and gamma rays by various metal foils.She also obtained her

doctorate. Unfortunately for her, Boltzmann died by commiting

suicide in 1906.

   Meitner then decided to  move to Berlin to study and work in

Physics in 1907.. She already had her doctoral degree and

had published a few papers; but prejudices against women were

high. Academic positions were usually denied for women. Meitner

joined Max Planck in Berlin as unpaid assistant.It was here that

her definitive interests in theoretical physics developed. Planck

became her second mentor---a father figure in Berlin for all

young physicists. Meitner could prove her worth as a first rate

scientist. Soon she was isolating various isotopes and decay

products in what we now call "radium series" and actinium

series"...these are tough experiements since several radio active

products or isotopes would form with different half

lives. Meitner also built cloud chambers for studying nucleur

reactions.

Her experimental work paralleled that of Irene Curie in Paris and

Ernest Rutherford in Cavendish lab in Cambridge.But Meitner had

her own series of experiments to isoalte and study the decay of

these elements.

The exciting work of Fermi in Rome on absorption of slow neutrons

by various elements across the periodic Table excited the group

in Berlin. Meanwhile Meitner and Otto Hahn became friends and

collobrators in a small laboratory of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

[KWI] under the guidance of Max Planck. Hahn headed the chemistry

division while Meitner was in charge of physics section.[Later

KWI would become the Max Planck Insititute after the war.] The

close interaction and mutual admiration between Meitner and Hahn

continued for nearly thirty years. Till the end of her life Lise

Meitner was always appreciative of Hahn and held her own work as

a support to his work. Nevertheless, on many specific issues

Meitner was assertive. For a long time , Meitner held that

transuranic elements have been formed by neutron absorption of

uranium atoms while fission had actually taken place.But towards

the end she wanted Hahn to look for fission fragments in the

uranium pieces,especially barium,which led to the discovery of

nuclear fission by them ...As political climate had changed, Lise

Meitner had to leave Berlin for Sweden.

The world war II years were diffiuclt for her. But she continued

in Sweden ,with some support from Neils Bohr. During this period,

Heisneberg and Hahn and others were pressed to work for a German

atomic weapon which they could not succeed. Later the allies

arrested many of them,including Otto Hahn, and were kept under

house arrest in London. In 1940, they were released. By this time

Otto Hahn took almost all the credit for the discovery of nuclear

fission, ignoring Lise Meitner except in private letters. The

friendship between Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn,howevern continued.

It should be noted that Hahn did help her to flee Germany and

remained with her till last train journey to Groningen.Lise

Meitner had fondness for Hahn's family too.

Lise Meitner, after the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

became famous as the one who gave the foundation for nuclear

weapons. She was under the public glare for many years.She made a

trip to the USA for a year.

In 1960, she moved to Cambridge and later,in 1968, passed on, a

few days before her 90th birthday.

The transuranic element ,with atomic number 109, Meitnerium [Mt}

is named after Lise Meitner.

  

Satyendranath Bose

  The word "boson" has become a common word--the name for certain

particles following a kind of statistical behaviour in atomic

physics. Photons or light-particles introduced by Max Planck is a

boson. One may wonder from where this name is derived.The word is

derived from the name of Satyendranath Bose---a little-

known theoretical physicist from University of Calcutta,

India.The story of his "colloboration" with Albert Einstein is a

story of 'Guru- disciple relationship' in traditional Hindu

style---a guru he had not met but mentally accepted and

communicated with  through letters.

  Satyendranath Bose was born in Calcutta in the year 1894. His

father was an engineer in the local Railroad company in British

India. Bose was a top-notch student in his class in Presidency

College,,especially in math and languages and stood first in

Science honours [tripos] course at Calcutta University. { The

second place went to his friend and colleague Meghnad Saha,

another physicist who interacted with Fermi on ionisation of

atoms in stars in the early stages of astro-physics.!]

While a student, Satyen Bose drew his scientific inspiration from

two giants at the University: Jagadish Chandra Bose ,a physicist

and biologist who had studied in England , and Prafulla Chandra

Roy, a noted Indian chemist who was a nationalist in spirit. [It

may be noted that C V Raman , of Raman effect, a noted physicist

and Nobel prize winner in 1930, was also a faculty member in

Calcutta University at that time.]

Satyen Bose joined as lecturer in the physics department of

Calcutta University in 1916.His early interest in quantum theory

and relativity led him to do pioneering work. He translated

Einstein's papers in relativity for the first time into English,

after getting permission from Einstein to do the translation.

This was his first interaction with Einstein.

He wrote a seminal paper in 1924 deriving Planck's law based on

particle statistics of identical particles [with integral spin] ;

in this paper, Bose introduced an important concept of volume in

phase space as h3  

where 'h' is the Planck's constant. He had difficulty in publishing

the paper.Bose decided to send the paper to Einstein

himself ,requesting him to translate this into German if he

[Einstein] thought it fit and send to 'Zietschrit fur Physik' for

publication. The letter, written in utter humility shows his

reverence for Einstein as his 'virtual guru', though he had not met

Einstein in person. He wrote:" Though a complete stranger to you, I

do not feel any hesitation in making such a request.Because we are

all your pupils though profiting only through your writings."  He

also mentioned his earlier correspondence seeking permission to

translate Einstein's papers into English.

Einstein recognised  the novel approach in that paper and

translated it himself; it was published in Bose's name in

Zietschrift fur Physik in 1924: "Planck's law and Hypothesis of

Light Quanta.".[This was like the return favour by Einstein for

translating his papers from German to English!] The new statistics,

henceforth called 'Bose-Einstein statistics ' for particles with

integral spin became part of quantum mechanics. The other

statistics is Fermi-Dirac statistics for particles with half spin,

[+1/2 or -1/2] such as electrons. These particles are

called "fermions'. Thus Bosons and Fermions became common words in

Atomic physics.

Later Einstein extended this statistics to atoms and showed that

certain particles would condense ---a dense collection of bosons--

called Bose-Einstein condensate. This condensate was experimentally

shown in 1995 by Eric Cornell and Carl Weimar using Rubidium-87

atoms and later by Wolfgang Ketterlee with  sodium-23 atoms at

temperatures close to absolute zero; the three scientists received 

the Nobel prize  for this work in 2001.

Satyen Bose ,however, did not recieve the Nobel prize. 

Later Life

In 1921, Bose took a Reader's position in the newly created

University of Dhaka, which is in Bangladesh now. He mainly

concentrated on building the new facilties for physics at the

University. Follwing his publication of the noted paper, Bose had

an invitation from the Curie Institute in Paris. Bose spent two

years in Paris --with Louis de Broglie, Marie Curie and other

scientists and  also met Einstein in Germany.

In 1926 he became the head of the physics department at Dhaka. He

did much work on x-ray crystallography,thermo-luminescence ,

electromagnetic properties of ionosphere and Einstein's unified

field theory. He also did applied work--extracting helium from

hot springs in Bakreshwar.

After independence, Dhaka became part of East Pakistan. So, Bose

moved back to Calcutta and became  a professor at his Alma Mater.

He taught till his retirement in 1956. Later he became the Vice

Chancellor of Vishva Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath

Tagore[ a Nobel prize winner for literature from India.]Tagore

dedicated his only science book to Satyen Bose.

Bose continued with his interests not only in science,but in

literature and music. He died in the year 1974 in Calcutta.

A recent biography of this little-known Indian physicist is by

Kameshwar Wali, published by World Scientific Publishers in 2009.

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Epilogue

In researching for this article, I was overwhelmed by the

generosity and by the genuine love of science exhibited by the

great scientists like Neils Bohr,Max Planck and Max von Laue

among others.They would welcome many young scientists, both men

and women , in their early twenties to do research at their

institutes. Neils Bohr also helped many Jewish scientists and

their families to emigrate from Nazi Germany. He also, along with

Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, would try to find some position

for these migrating scientists in USA and in other countries.

We should also appreciate the educational system in

Europe ,especially in Germany, which permitted easy migration of

young students from one university or institute to another. Such

transfers enabled scientists in early twenties to learn  and

interact with several masters in a span of 5 to 6 years--moving

from one 'hot spot' to another in atomic and nuclear physics--

Gottingen, Berlin,Copenhagen, Leiden,Cambridge, New York,

Chicago, Princeton and Rome. Several fellowships and stipends,

including Rockefeller fellowships enabled this smooth migration.

Oftentimes Russian students were admitted without valid visas or

passports. Such was the ferment of the growth of physics in that

period, roughly 1905 to 1945.[

There are three landmark years in this period: 1905 when Einstein

wrote the three famous papers on Special theory of relativity,

Brownian motion and Photo-electric effect.

1938 --When Hitler started the holocaust; and

1944 when the first atom bomb, the 'fat man' ,was exploded in

Alamogadro, New Mexico.

Things were not easy for women scientists in those days.Many

could not get excellent school education because they would

attend all-girls school or schools did not teach much of

mathematics or physics. Many women students would not be admitted

to the university courses as a matter of normal application.These

women invariably worked as unpaid assistants and could not get

regular positions except as junior research assistants. Only in

later years, they could secure university profesorships.

In USA, the anti-nepotism rules applied.So, if scientist-couple

worked in the same university or institute ,one spouse had to

lose the job. The subtle discrimination against women scientists

continued upto about 1945---the end of world war II.This subject

needs a careful study by historians of science.

Several studies have been made on the lives and works of women

scientists by recent science historians in the last two

decades.Though I have not included, Emmy Noether's biography

should be studied by any interested reader of this article.

Since astronomy and astrophysics could include a large number of

scientists, I have restricted my self to atomic scientists with

less contribution towards these fields. Some atomic physicists

did much work on astrophysics---for instance George Gamow and

Hans Bethe. Subramanyam Chandrasekhar did much work on

astrophysics and less on atomic physcis as such.

During the war years and later, many well known scientists were

accused of spy activities or communist leanings and subjected to

interrogation and indictments. A notable example is that of John

Oppenheimer. The other instances are that of E U Condon and James

Franck. Franck was accused for recruiting and bringing Klaus

Fuchs to Los Alamos since Fuchs turned a Soviet spy and defected

to the Soviet Union.

Suggested Reading List

In addition to the biographies or autobiographies of individual

scientists that are available, the following books may read for

much useful background for the period covered in this article:

1 George Gamow -- Thirty years that shook physics --Dover pub

2 Ruth Lewin Sime--- Lise Meitner--Univ of California press, 1995

3 Nina Byers and Gary Williams--Out of the shadows---cambridge

Univ press, 2006

4 Carl Sagan --- Cosmos-- Ballantine books, 1985.

5 Laura Fermi --- Atoms in the family....Univ of Chicago press,

1995

6 Richard Rhodes--- The amking of the atomic bomb---Simon and

Schuster, 1995 

7 G Gamow---MY World line--an informal autobiography...Viking

Press,1970

The Author

The present author obtained his doctorate from School of

Engineering and Applied Sciences, Columbia University, New York

in 1972. His thesis advisor was Prof Arthur S Nowick, a physicist

who also obtained his Ph D from Columbia. The author worked on a

project sponsored by U S Atomic Energy Commission, on

fundamentals of diffusion.