HAHN, Professor Dr Otto (1879-1968)

Born 1879; educated at Klinger Oberrealschule, Frankfurt, University of Marburg an der Lahn and University of Munich, Germany; Doctor of Philosophy in organic chemistry, 1901; military service with 81 Infantry Regt, Frankfurt, Germany, 1901-1902; Assistant to Professor Theodor Zincke, 1902-1904; Sir William Ramsay's Institute, University College London, 1904-1905; discovered Radiothorium, 1905; works with Professor Ernest Rutherford, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1905-1906; discovered Radioactinium, 1906; joins Emil Fischer's Institute, Berlin, Germany, 1906-1907; discovered Mesothorium, 1907; Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Berlin, Germany, 1907; Professor, 1910; Member of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry, 1912; served in German Army Engineering Corps, Western Front, World War One, 1914-1918; discovered, with Lise Meitner, radioactive metallic element Protactinium, 1918; discovered Uranium-Z, the first nuclear isomer, 1922; awarded Emil Fischer Medal by Society of German Chemists, 1922; Direktor, Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fr Chemie, Berlin-Dahlem, 1928; Visiting Professor, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, 1933; awarded Canizzaro Prize by Royal Academy of Science, Rome, Italy, 1938; announcement, with Fritz Strassman, of fission of Uranium, 1939; awarded Copernicus Prize by the University of Knigsberg, 1941; awarded Cothenius Medal by German Academy of Naturalists, 1943; arrested by Allied forces and interned in UK, 1945; awarded 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1945; President, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (formerly Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft), 1946-1960; awarded Golden Paracelsus Medal from the Swiss Chemical Society, 1953; awarded Faraday Medal by the British Chemical Society, 1956; Hon President, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 1960-1968; Hon Fellow, University College London, 1968; died 1968. Publications: Was lehrt uns die Radioaktivitt ber die Geschichte der Erde? (Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 1926); Applied Radiochemistry (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, USA, 1936); Natrliche und knstliche Umwandlungen der Atomkerne (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Rome, 1941); Umwandlungen der chemischen Elemente und die Zerspaltung des Urans (Chalmers tekniska Hgskola Handlingar, Gteborg, Sweden, 1944); Knstliche Atomumwandlungen und die Spaltung schwerer Kerne (German Scientific Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 1944); Die Kettenreaktion des Urans und ihre Bedeutung (Deutscher Ingenieur-Verlag, Dsseldorf, Germany, 1948); New atoms. Progress and some memories (Elsevier, New York, USA, 1950); Nutzbarmachung der Energie der Atomkerne (Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, 1950); Atomenergie und Frieden by Lise Meitner and Hahn (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Vienna, Austria, 1954); Cobalt 60. Gefahr oder Segen fr die Menschheit (Musterschmidt Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Gttingen, Germany, 1955); Vom Radiothor zur Uranspaltung (Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig, Germany, 1962); Otto Hahn: a scientific autobiography (MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1967); Mein Leben (Bruckmann, Munich, Germany, 1968); My life, translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (Macdonald, London, 1970).

Presented to the Centre by Jean Loudon in 1999.