Here’s a reminder to stay curious, tenacious, and passionate. Lise Meitner, an Austrian-Swedish physicist, loved math and science from an early age and eventually helped discover nuclear fission. In fact, she had *tons* to do with nuclear physics, but never received the credit she deserved—even after 19 Nobel Prize nominations in chemistry and 30 nominations in physics.
Despite such challenges, Meitner approached her work with zeal that inspires us today. “Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity,” she shared. “It teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep joy and awe that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.” [anon]

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In 1909, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, a heated argument echoed through the halls. Otto Hahn, a rising chemist, was clashing with his colleague Lise Meitner—a physicist whose insight would later reshape science.
A witness recalled her sharp retort from the stairs:
“Chicken, you don’t know anything about physics!”
The insult carried a pun: Hahn means rooster in German, while Huhn means chicken. Beneath the joke lay a deeper truth: for decades, Meitner provided the physics behind Hahn’s chemistry.
When Hahn and Fritz Strassmann split uranium atoms in 1938, it was Meitner—exiled in Sweden for being Jewish—who explained the results. She gave the world the theory of nuclear fission.
But in 1944, the Nobel Prize went solely to Hahn. History forgot her name, even as atomic energy and the bomb were born from her insights.
Lise Meitner never sought weapons. She became known—unfairly—as “the mother of the atomic bomb,” a title she rejected until her death. What she truly embodied was resilience, brilliance, and integrity in a world that denied her credit.
Today, the story of Hahn and Meitner is more than a tale of discovery. It’s a reminder that genius is not always recognized in its time—yet its echoes remain, powerful as ever.