nuclear fission
12/19/1938 AD discovered
Nuclear fission of heavy elements is discovered by Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann in cooperation with Lise Meitner.
Hahn understood that a "burst" of the atomic nuclei had occurred. Meitner explained it theoretically in January 1939 along with her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. Frisch named the process by analogy with biological fission of living cells.
For heavy nuclides, it is an exothermic reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where fission takes place). Like nuclear fusion, for fission to produce energy, the total binding energy of the resulting elements must be greater than that of the starting element.
Subjects Who or What discovered?
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Max Planck Society (Kaiser Wilhelm Society) According to its primary... -
Lise Meitner A leading Austrian-Swedi... -
Otto Hahn German chemist who was a...
Objects To Whom or What was discovered?
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Nuclear fission A reaction in which the ...
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