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Lise Meitner an Otto Hahn: Briefe aus den Jahren 1912 bis 1924: Edition und Kommentierungby Sabine ErnstReview by: Ruth Lewin SimeIsis, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), p. 726Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/235348 .
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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 85: 4 (1994) BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 85: 4 (1994) BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 85: 4 (1994)
responsibility for a situation in which people are receptive to silliness-the leaders of the scientific community who have persistently "had better things to do" than enriching pub- lic understanding about what making scien- tific knowledge, in all its diversity, is ac- tually like. The attack on "anti-science" needs to be better directed and more precisely ar- gued.
All of these essays have appeared else- where in quite similar form in recent years. There are good things here (as there usually are in Holton's writings), but throwing the pieces together in this way serves only to highlight their disconnectedness.
STEVEN SHAPIN
Sabine Ernst. Lise Meitner an Otto Hahn: Briefe aus den Jahren 1912 bis 1924: Edition und Kommentierung. Foreword by Fritz Krafft. (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Pharmazie, 65.) vi + 267 pp., illus., figs., bibl., index. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992. DM 45 (paper).
Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn worked under the same roof for thirty-one years, beginning in 1907 with radioactivity and ending in 1938, when Meitner fled Germany just before their uranium project culminated in the discovery of nuclear fission. The 1938 correspondence between Meitner in Stockholm and Hahn in Berlin, available in archives for many years and published in part, documents that Meit- ner, despite her forced absence, continued to function as part of the Berlin team, although the discovery was attributed to Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and the Nobel Prize went to Hahn alone.
Remarkably, Hahn and Meitner made an earlier discovery that also is described more accurately in private letters than in the pub- lished record. In 1982 the Max-Planck-Ge- sellschaft acquired over a hundred previously unknown letters written by Meitner to Hahn between 1912 and 1934 (his part of the cor- respondence is not extant). In this volume, Sabine Ernst has published the sixty-eight let- ters (including some cards) that Meitner wrote between 1912 and 1924. The volume will un- doubtedly be of significant value to historians of science.
Ernst presents the letters meticulously, un- abridged, with explanatory notes. Meitner wrote in a clear, spare German and lively de-
responsibility for a situation in which people are receptive to silliness-the leaders of the scientific community who have persistently "had better things to do" than enriching pub- lic understanding about what making scien- tific knowledge, in all its diversity, is ac- tually like. The attack on "anti-science" needs to be better directed and more precisely ar- gued.
All of these essays have appeared else- where in quite similar form in recent years. There are good things here (as there usually are in Holton's writings), but throwing the pieces together in this way serves only to highlight their disconnectedness.
STEVEN SHAPIN
Sabine Ernst. Lise Meitner an Otto Hahn: Briefe aus den Jahren 1912 bis 1924: Edition und Kommentierung. Foreword by Fritz Krafft. (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Pharmazie, 65.) vi + 267 pp., illus., figs., bibl., index. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992. DM 45 (paper).
Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn worked under the same roof for thirty-one years, beginning in 1907 with radioactivity and ending in 1938, when Meitner fled Germany just before their uranium project culminated in the discovery of nuclear fission. The 1938 correspondence between Meitner in Stockholm and Hahn in Berlin, available in archives for many years and published in part, documents that Meit- ner, despite her forced absence, continued to function as part of the Berlin team, although the discovery was attributed to Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and the Nobel Prize went to Hahn alone.
Remarkably, Hahn and Meitner made an earlier discovery that also is described more accurately in private letters than in the pub- lished record. In 1982 the Max-Planck-Ge- sellschaft acquired over a hundred previously unknown letters written by Meitner to Hahn between 1912 and 1934 (his part of the cor- respondence is not extant). In this volume, Sabine Ernst has published the sixty-eight let- ters (including some cards) that Meitner wrote between 1912 and 1924. The volume will un- doubtedly be of significant value to historians of science.
Ernst presents the letters meticulously, un- abridged, with explanatory notes. Meitner wrote in a clear, spare German and lively de-
responsibility for a situation in which people are receptive to silliness-the leaders of the scientific community who have persistently "had better things to do" than enriching pub- lic understanding about what making scien- tific knowledge, in all its diversity, is ac- tually like. The attack on "anti-science" needs to be better directed and more precisely ar- gued.
All of these essays have appeared else- where in quite similar form in recent years. There are good things here (as there usually are in Holton's writings), but throwing the pieces together in this way serves only to highlight their disconnectedness.
STEVEN SHAPIN
Sabine Ernst. Lise Meitner an Otto Hahn: Briefe aus den Jahren 1912 bis 1924: Edition und Kommentierung. Foreword by Fritz Krafft. (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Pharmazie, 65.) vi + 267 pp., illus., figs., bibl., index. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992. DM 45 (paper).
Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn worked under the same roof for thirty-one years, beginning in 1907 with radioactivity and ending in 1938, when Meitner fled Germany just before their uranium project culminated in the discovery of nuclear fission. The 1938 correspondence between Meitner in Stockholm and Hahn in Berlin, available in archives for many years and published in part, documents that Meit- ner, despite her forced absence, continued to function as part of the Berlin team, although the discovery was attributed to Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and the Nobel Prize went to Hahn alone.
Remarkably, Hahn and Meitner made an earlier discovery that also is described more accurately in private letters than in the pub- lished record. In 1982 the Max-Planck-Ge- sellschaft acquired over a hundred previously unknown letters written by Meitner to Hahn between 1912 and 1934 (his part of the cor- respondence is not extant). In this volume, Sabine Ernst has published the sixty-eight let- ters (including some cards) that Meitner wrote between 1912 and 1924. The volume will un- doubtedly be of significant value to historians of science.
Ernst presents the letters meticulously, un- abridged, with explanatory notes. Meitner wrote in a clear, spare German and lively de-
tail, revealing her personality, her scientific independence and friendship with Hahn, their institutional setting, social and political is- sues, and something of their colleagues, in- cluding Planck, Einstein, James Franck, Hans Geiger, Fritz Haber, Richard Willstatter, and others. Scientifically, the most cohesive cor- respondence took place during World War I, when Hahn was in the army and Meitner, as the letters show, did nearly all the chemical separations and physical measurements that resulted in the discovery of protactinium (231Pa) in early 1918. Hahn was absent and Meitner was in the lab, but they shared credit for pro- tactinium-a remarkable antiparallel to the fission discovery. Later, neither Hahn nor Meitner remembered correctly how the pro- tactinium discovery was made, a good ar- gument for the preservation and study of pri- vate letters and records.
In addition to the letters, Ernst provides historical and scientific context on a number of topics, including the Kaiser Wilhelm In- stitute for Chemistry, Meitner's politics, her war service as a nurse in the Austrian army, professional advancement, an overview of ra- dioactivity, the protactinium discovery, and Meitner's work on beta-gamma spectra in the 1920s. Ernst correctly concludes that Meit- ner's scientific stature, subsequently clouded by her exclusion from credit for the fission work, is evident in this period. Appendixes include brief biographical sketches of the named scientists. The volume is a reliable source for interested scholars, and a must for libraries.
RUTH LEWIN SIME
Bettina Gundler. Technische Bildung, Hochschule, Staat und Wirtschaft: Entwick- lungslinien des Technischen Hochschulwes- ens 1914-1930: Das Beispiel der TH Braun- schweig. xiv + 592 pp., figs., tables, app., bibl., index. Hildesheim: Olms Weidmann, 1991.
The Weimar Republic has been a favorite topic for historians, but while German science and universities in Weimar have received a fair amount of attention, engineers and technical universities (Technische Hochschulen) have not. Bettina Gundler's thorough, critical, and insightful book goes beyond the specific his- tory of the TH Braunschweig to examine the German technical universities in general and
tail, revealing her personality, her scientific independence and friendship with Hahn, their institutional setting, social and political is- sues, and something of their colleagues, in- cluding Planck, Einstein, James Franck, Hans Geiger, Fritz Haber, Richard Willstatter, and others. Scientifically, the most cohesive cor- respondence took place during World War I, when Hahn was in the army and Meitner, as the letters show, did nearly all the chemical separations and physical measurements that resulted in the discovery of protactinium (231Pa) in early 1918. Hahn was absent and Meitner was in the lab, but they shared credit for pro- tactinium-a remarkable antiparallel to the fission discovery. Later, neither Hahn nor Meitner remembered correctly how the pro- tactinium discovery was made, a good ar- gument for the preservation and study of pri- vate letters and records.
In addition to the letters, Ernst provides historical and scientific context on a number of topics, including the Kaiser Wilhelm In- stitute for Chemistry, Meitner's politics, her war service as a nurse in the Austrian army, professional advancement, an overview of ra- dioactivity, the protactinium discovery, and Meitner's work on beta-gamma spectra in the 1920s. Ernst correctly concludes that Meit- ner's scientific stature, subsequently clouded by her exclusion from credit for the fission work, is evident in this period. Appendixes include brief biographical sketches of the named scientists. The volume is a reliable source for interested scholars, and a must for libraries.
RUTH LEWIN SIME
Bettina Gundler. Technische Bildung, Hochschule, Staat und Wirtschaft: Entwick- lungslinien des Technischen Hochschulwes- ens 1914-1930: Das Beispiel der TH Braun- schweig. xiv + 592 pp., figs., tables, app., bibl., index. Hildesheim: Olms Weidmann, 1991.
The Weimar Republic has been a favorite topic for historians, but while German science and universities in Weimar have received a fair amount of attention, engineers and technical universities (Technische Hochschulen) have not. Bettina Gundler's thorough, critical, and insightful book goes beyond the specific his- tory of the TH Braunschweig to examine the German technical universities in general and
tail, revealing her personality, her scientific independence and friendship with Hahn, their institutional setting, social and political is- sues, and something of their colleagues, in- cluding Planck, Einstein, James Franck, Hans Geiger, Fritz Haber, Richard Willstatter, and others. Scientifically, the most cohesive cor- respondence took place during World War I, when Hahn was in the army and Meitner, as the letters show, did nearly all the chemical separations and physical measurements that resulted in the discovery of protactinium (231Pa) in early 1918. Hahn was absent and Meitner was in the lab, but they shared credit for pro- tactinium-a remarkable antiparallel to the fission discovery. Later, neither Hahn nor Meitner remembered correctly how the pro- tactinium discovery was made, a good ar- gument for the preservation and study of pri- vate letters and records.
In addition to the letters, Ernst provides historical and scientific context on a number of topics, including the Kaiser Wilhelm In- stitute for Chemistry, Meitner's politics, her war service as a nurse in the Austrian army, professional advancement, an overview of ra- dioactivity, the protactinium discovery, and Meitner's work on beta-gamma spectra in the 1920s. Ernst correctly concludes that Meit- ner's scientific stature, subsequently clouded by her exclusion from credit for the fission work, is evident in this period. Appendixes include brief biographical sketches of the named scientists. The volume is a reliable source for interested scholars, and a must for libraries.
RUTH LEWIN SIME
Bettina Gundler. Technische Bildung, Hochschule, Staat und Wirtschaft: Entwick- lungslinien des Technischen Hochschulwes- ens 1914-1930: Das Beispiel der TH Braun- schweig. xiv + 592 pp., figs., tables, app., bibl., index. Hildesheim: Olms Weidmann, 1991.
The Weimar Republic has been a favorite topic for historians, but while German science and universities in Weimar have received a fair amount of attention, engineers and technical universities (Technische Hochschulen) have not. Bettina Gundler's thorough, critical, and insightful book goes beyond the specific his- tory of the TH Braunschweig to examine the German technical universities in general and
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