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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn
Otto Hahn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Otto Hahn
Frankfurt am Main,
Contents
1 Early life
2 Research in London and Montreal (19041906)
2.1 Discovery of radiothorium and other
'new elements'
3 Research in Berlin (19061944)
3.1 Discovery of mesothorium I (Ra 228)
3.2 Discovery of radioactive recoil
3.3 Marriage with Edith Junghans
3.4 Discovery of protactinium
3.5 Discovery of nuclear isomerism
4 Applied radiochemistry
5 Discovery of nuclear fission (1938)
6 Internment in England (1945)
7 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1944
8 Founder and President of the Max Planck
Society
9 Spokesman for social responsibility
10 Honors and awards
11 Legacy
12 Publications in English
13 See also
8 March 1879
Hesse-Nassau, Prussia,
German Empire
Died
Nationality
German
Fields
Radiochemistry
Nuclear chemistry
Alma mater
University of Marburg
Doctoral
Theodor Zincke
advisor
Other academic Adolf von Baeyer, University of
advisors
Munich;
Sir William Ramsay, University
College London;
Ernest Rutherford, McGill University
Montreal;
Emil Fischer, University of Berlin
Doctoral
Roland Lindner
students
Walter Seelmann-Eggebert
Johannes Heidenhain
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14 References
15 Bibliography
16 External links
Jan de Vries
Truus de Vries-Kruyt
Aristid von Grosse
Boris Nikitin
Laszlo Imre
Early life
Clara Lieber
Fritz Strassmann
Radiothorium (1905)
Radioactinium (1906)
Mesothorium (1907)
Ionium (1907)
Radioactive recoil (1909)
FajansPanethHahn Law
Protactinium (1917)
Nuclear isomerism (1921)
Applied Radiochemistry (1936)
Rubidium-strontium dating (1938)
Nuclear fission (1938)
Influenced
Frdric Joliot-Curie
Enrico Fermi
Glenn T. Seaborg
Edwin McMillan
Albert Ghiorso
Emilio Segr
Philip Abelson
Joseph W. Kennedy
Nikolay Semyonov
Igor Kurchatov
Georgy Flyorov
Isaak Kikoin
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he took up a post at
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1944)
University College
Max Planck Medal (1949)
London in 1904,
Paracelsus Medal (1952)
working under Sir
Henri Becquerel Medal (1952)
William Ramsay,
Pour le Mrite (1952)
known for having
discovered the inert
Faraday Lectureship Prize (1956)
gases. Here Hahn
ForMemRS (1957)[1]
worked on
Wilhelm Exner Medal (1958)
radiochemistry, at
Hugo Grotius Medal (1958)
that time a very new
Lgion d'Honneur (1959)
field. In early 1905,
Enrico Fermi Award (1966)
in the course of his
work with salts of
Spouse
Edith Junghans (19131968)
radium, Hahn
Signature
discovered a new
substance he called
radiothorium
(thorium-228), which
at that time was
believed to be a new radioactive element. (In fact, it was a still undiscovered
isotope of the known element thorium. The term isotope was only coined in
1913, by the British chemist Frederick Soddy).
Ramsay was very enthused when yet another new element was found in his
institute, and he intended to announce the discovery in a correspondingly
suitable way. In accordance with tradition this should be done before the
committee of the venerable Royal Society. At the session of the Royal
Society on the 16 March 1905 Ramsay communicated Hahn's discovery of
radiothorium,[5] and even the press was interested. The Daily Telegraph
informed its readers:[6]
"A NEW ELEMENT - Very soon the scientific papers will be agog with a new discovery which has
been added to the many brilliant triumphs of Gower Street. Dr. Otto Hahn, who is working at
University College, has discovered a new radioactive element, extracted from a mineral from
Ceylon, named Thorianite, and possibly, it is conjectured, the substance which renders thorium
radioactive. Its activity is at least 250,000 times as great as that of thorium, weight for weight. It
gives off a gas (generally called an emanation), identical with the radioactive emanation from
thorium. Another theory of deep interest is that it is the possible source of a radioactive element
possibly stronger in radioactivity than radium itself, and capable of producing all the curious
effects which are known of radium up to the present. - The discoverer read a paper on the subject
to the Royal Society last week, and this should rank, when published, among the most original of
recent contributions to scientific literature."
For the first time the name of Otto Hahn was mentioned in connection with radium research, and his "New
radioactive Element, which evolves Thorium Emanation" (so the original title) was published in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society in the issue of 24 March 1905 (76 A, pages 115-117). It was the first of more than 250
scientific publications of Otto Hahn in the field of radiochemistry.
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"Hahn is a capital fellow and has done his work admirably. I am sure that you would enjoy having
him to work with you."
wrote Ramsay to Ernest Rutherford in May 1905.[7]
Rutherford agreed and, from September 1905 until mid-1906, Hahn worked in his team at McGill University in
Montreal, Canada where he discovered thorium C (later identified as polonium-212), radium D (later identified
as lead-210), and radioactinium (later identified as thorium-227), and investigated the alpha rays of
radiothorium,[8] while Rutherford used to say in these days: "Hahn has a special nose for discovering new
elements."[9]
In his Rutherford biography the BBC Science Correspondent David Wilson analysed:[10]
"Greatest of all Rutherford's McGill collaborators was Otto Hahn, who became the world's leading
radio-chemist, a Nobel Prize winner, a man whose experiments showed the natural fission of
uranium, the crucial piece of work which opened the door to the atomic age in 1939."
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After the physicist Harriet Brooks had observed a radioactive recoil in 1904, but interpreted it wrongly, Otto
Hahn succeeded, in late 1908 and early 1909, in demonstrating the radioactive recoil incident to alpha particle
emission and interpreting it correctly.
"...a profoundly significant discovery in physics with far-reaching consequences",
as the physicist Walther Gerlach put it.[12] And Ernest Rutherford in Manchester wrote in a letter to his mother:
"He is doing the best work in Germany at present."[13]
In 1910 Hahn was appointed professor by the Prussian Minister of Culture and Education August von Trott zu
Solz and, in 1912, he became head of the Radioactivity Department of the newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (today 'Hahn-Meitner-Building' of the Free University, Berlin,
Thielallee 63). Succeeding Alfred Stock, Hahn was director of the institute from 1928 to 1946. In 1924, Hahn
was elected to full membership of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin (proposed by Albert Einstein,
Max Planck, Fritz Haber, Wilhelm Schlenk, and Max von Laue).
Discovery of protactinium
During the First World War, Hahn was conscripted into the army, where he was assigned, together with James
Franck and Gustav Hertz, to the special unit for chemical warfare under the direction of Fritz Haber. The unit
developed, tested, and produced poison gas for military purposes, and was sent to both the western and eastern
front lines. In December 1916, Hahn was transferred to the "Headquarters of His Majesty" in Berlin, and was
able to resume his radiochemical research in his institute. In 1917-1918, Hahn and Lise Meitner isolated a
long-lived activity, which they named "proto-actinium". Already in 1913, Kazimierz Fajans and Ghring had
isolated a short-lived activity from uranium X2 (later known as 234mPa), and called the substance "brevium".
The two activities were different isotopes of the same undiscovered element number 91. For their discovery
Hahn and Meitner were repeatedly nominated for the Chemistry-Nobel Prize in the 1920s by a number of
scientists, among them Max Bergmann, Viktor Moritz Goldschmidt, and even Kazimierz Fajans himself. In
1949, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named the new element definitely
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Applied radiochemistry
In the early 1920s, Otto Hahn created a new field of work. Using the "emanation method", which he had
recently developed, and the "emanation ability", he founded what became known as "Applied radiochemistry"
for the researching of general chemical and physical-chemical questions. In 1936 he published a book in English
(and later in Russian) entitled Applied Radiochemistry, which contained the lectures given by Hahn when he was
a visiting professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1933. This important publication had a major
influence on almost all nuclear chemists and physicists in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and
the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1966, Glenn T. Seaborg, co-discoverer of many transuranium elements and President of the United States
Atomic Energy Commission, wrote about this book as follows:[15]
"As a young graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley in the mid-1930s and in
connection with our work with plutonium a few years later, I used his book "Applied
Radiochemistry" as my bible. This book was based on a series of lectures which Professor Hahn
had given at Cornell in 1933; it set forth the "laws" for the co-precipitation of minute quantities of
radioactive materials when insoluble substances were precipitated from aqueous solutions. I recall
reading and rereading every word in these laws of co-precipitation many times, attempting to derive
every possible bit of guidance for our work, and perhaps in my zealousness reading into them more
than the master himself had intended. I doubt that I have read sections in any other book more
carefully or more frequently than those in Hahn's "Applied Radiochemistry". In fact, I read the
entire volume repeatedly and I recall that my chief disappointment with it was its length. It was too
short."
And Seaborg added:
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"It has been given to very few men to make contributions to science and to humanity of the
magnitude of those made by Otto Hahn. He has made those contributions over a span of nearly two
generations, beginning with a key role in the earliest days of radiochemistry in investigating and
unraveling the complexities of the natural radioactivities and culminating with his tremendous
discovery of the nuclear fission of uranium. I believe that it is fair to refer to Otto Hahn as the
father of radiochemistry and of its more recent offspring nuclear chemistry. For his special genius
the world of science will be forever grateful."
Between 1934 and 1938, Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann found a great number of radioactive transmutation
products, all of which they regarded as transuranic.[16] At that time the existence of actinides was not yet
established, and uranium was wrongly believed to be a group 6 element similar to tungsten. It followed that first
transuranic elements would be similar to group 7 to 10 elements, i.e. rhenium and platinoids. The Hahn group
established the presence of multiple isotopes of at least four such elements, and (mistakenly) identify them as
elements with atomic numbers 93 through 96. They were the first scientists to measure the half-life of 239U and
to establish chemically that it was an isotope of uranium, but they were unable to continue this work to its
logical conclusion and identify the decay product of 239U namely, neptunium (the real element 93); this task
was only completed by Edwin McMillan and Philip H. Abelson in 1940.
On 13 July 1938, with the help and support of Hahn, Lise Meitner born into a Jewish family escaped to the
Netherlands;[17] before she left, Hahn gave her a diamond ring he had inherited from his mother, to be used to
bribe the frontier guards if required. Meitner emigrated to Stockholm, and Hahn continued to work with
Strassmann. In late 1938 they found evidence of isotopes of an alkaline earth metal in their sample. The metal
was detected by the use of an organic barium salt constructed by Wilhelm Traube. Finding a group 2 alkaline
earth metal was problematic, because it did not logically fit with the other elements found thus far. Hahn initially
suspected it to be radium, produced by splitting off two alpha-particles from the uranium nucleus. At the time,
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the scientific consensus was that even splitting off two alpha particles via
this process was unlikely. The idea of turning uranium into barium (by
removing around 100 nucleons) was seen as preposterous. On 10
November during a visit to Copenhagen, where he was invited to lecture
in Bohr's Institute, Hahn discussed these results with Niels Bohr, Lise
Meitner, and Otto Robert Frisch.[17] Further refinements of the
technique, leading to the decisive experiment on 1617 December 1938
(the celebrated "radium-barium-mesothorium-fractionation"), produced
puzzling results: the three isotopes consistently behaved not as radium,
but as barium. Hahn, who did not inform the physicists in his Institute,
described the results exclusively in a letter to Meitner on 19 December:
"...we are more and more coming to the awful conclusion that our Ra
isotopes behave not like Ra, but like Ba. ... Perhaps you can suggest
some fantastic explanation. We ourselves realize that it can't really burst
into Ba."[18] In her reply, Meitner concurred that Hahn's conclusion of
the bursting of the uranium nucleus was very difficult to accept, but
considered it possible.
On 22 December 1938, Hahn sent a manuscript to Naturwissenschaften
reporting their radiochemical results, which were published on 6 January
1939.[19] On 27 December, Hahn telephoned the editor of
Naturwissenschaften and requested to add a paragraph to the article,
speculating that some platinum group elements previously observed in
irradiated uranium, which were originally interpreted as transuranium
elements, could in fact be technetium (then called "masurium") and
lower platinum-group metals (atomic numbers 43 through 46). By
January 1939 he was sufficiently convinced that formation of light
elements was occurring in his setup that he published a new revision of
the article, essentially retracting former claims of observing transuranic
elements and neighbors of uranium, and concluding instead that he was
seeing light platinoids, barium, lanthanum, and cerium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn
As a chemist, Hahn was reluctant to propose a revolutionary discovery in physics,[16] but Lise Meitner and her
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nephew, the young physicist Otto Robert Frisch, in Sweden, came to the same conclusion (a bursting) as Hahn
and were able, because they had a lead of time, to work out the first theoretical interpretation of nuclear fission
the term that was coined by Frisch, and which subsequently became internationally known. Over the next few
months, Frisch and Meitner published two articles discussing and experimentally confirming this hypothesis.
[21][22]
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"Your discovery has caused a huge sensation in the whole scientific world, and every laboratory
which has the necessary means is now working on the consequences of your discovery."
During the war, Otto Hahn together with his assistants Hans-Joachim Born, Siegfried Flgge, Hans Gtte,
Walter Seelmann-Eggebert, and Fritz Strassmann worked on uranium fission reactions. By 1945 he had drawn
up a list of 25 elements and about 100 isotopes whose existence he had demonstrated.
"A man of the world. He has been the most helpful of the
professors and his sense of humour and common sense has
saved the day on many occasions. He is definitely friendly
disposed to England and America."[25]
In Farm Hall the German scientists learned of the dropping of the atom
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the American airforce on 6 and 9
August 1945. Otto Hahn was on the brink of despair.
The historian Lawrence Badash (from the University of California at
Santa Barbara) wrote in his essay:[26]
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recognized the possible military use of fission; now, with the blame of its realization drawn
squarely upon his shoulders, suicide again seemed a way to escape his desolation. Fearing this,
Max von Laue remained with him until he passed this personal crisis. Never has social
responsibility hit a scientist with such impact."
On January 3, 1946, the group was allowed to return to Germany, and Hahn, Heisenberg, and von Laue were
brought to the city of Gttingen, which was controlled by the British occupation authorities.
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Leyburn, UK):[37]
"Uranium fission is exclusively chemical, and had not been
proved physically, and, to be precise, had been demonstrated
by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann alone. Lise Meitner had
repeatedly conceded and emphasised the recognition of the
achievement of these two, and that the chemical proof of the
physics effect of uranium fission could have been carried out
by no other research team in the world in 1938. [...] In the
radiochemical analytical work in the second half of the year
of 1938, which immediately led to the proof of the fission of
the nucleus, the absent Lise Meitner had no part at all.
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In early 1954 he wrote an article "Cobalt 60 - Danger or Blessing for Mankind?" about the misuse of atomic
energy, which was widely reprinted and transmitted in the radio in Germany, Norway, Austria, and Denmark,
and in an English version worldwide via the BBC. The international reaction was encouraging.
The next year Hahn initiated and organized the Mainau Declaration of 1955, in which he and a number of
international Nobel Prize-winners called attention to the dangers of atomic weapons and warned the nations of
the world urgently against the use of "force as a final resort", and which was issued a week after the similar
Russell-Einstein Manifesto. In 1956 Hahn repeated his appeal with the signature of 52 of his Nobel colleagues
from all parts of the world.
He was also instrumental in and one of the authors of the Gttingen Manifesto of April 13, 1957, in which,
together with 17 leading German atomic scientists, he protested against a proposed nuclear arming of the new
West German armed forces (Bundeswehr).
On November 13, 1957, in the 'Konzerthaus' (Concerto Hall) in Vienna, Hahn warned in his Vienna Appeal of
the "dangers of A- and H-bomb-experiments", and declared that "today war is no means of politics anymore - it
will only destroy all countries in the world". His highly acclaimed speech was transmitted internationally by the
Austrian radio, sterreichischer Rundfunk (R). On December 28, 1957, Hahn repeated his appeal in an
English translation for the Bulgarian Radio in Sofia, which was broadcast in all Warsaw pact states.[42]
In January 1958, Otto Hahn, together with his friend Albert Schweitzer signed the Pauling Appeal to the United
Nations in New York for the "immediate conclusion of an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear
weapons" and, in October, together with Clement Attlee, Edgar Faure, Tetsu Katayama, et al. he signed the
international "Agreement to call a meeting to draw up a world constitution".
Since 1958 Hahn was sending messages to the annual conferences of the recently founded "Japan Council
Against A and H Bombs" in Tokyo. In 1960, for instance, he wrote to president Koshiro Okakura:
"As I have often emphasized on official occasions and in my lectures, I consider the manufacturing
of A and H bombs a great danger to mankind, especially when small countries, one after another,
wish to produce them, too. It would be satisfactory if the USA and Britain on one hand and the
Soviet Union on the other be neutralized by the possession of those bombs.
We must reach an agreement through negotiations with these 'A-bomb-manufacturing nations', and
even after that I am against any further increasing of A bombs and support all that is opposed to the
expansion of them. - I wish a full success to the Japan Council Against A and H Bombs."[43]
In 1959 Hahn co-founded in Berlin the Federation of German Scientists (VDW), a non-governmental
organization, which has been committed to the ideal of responsible science. The members of the Federation feel
committed to taking into consideration the possible military, political, and economical implications and
possibilities of atomic misuse when carrying out their scientific research and teaching. With the results of its
interdisciplinary work the 'VDW' not only addresses the general public, but also the decision-makers at all levels
of politics and society.
Right up to his death, Otto Hahn never tired of warning urgently of the dangers of the nuclear arms race between
the great powers and of the radioactive contamination of the planet.[44]
The philosopher Sir Karl R. Popper wrote in his last book:
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"Ever since my early youth, I have admired Otto Hahn as a scientist and a human being. The reason
for Hahn's peace work was simply that, knowing more than other citizens about atomic weapons, he
felt it his duty to speak about this issue that was so crucial for mankind. He could make things clear,
he had to use his knowledge. And it is why Otto Hahn, with atomic weapons in mind, wrote shortly
before his death of the necessity of world peace." [45]
The historian Lawrence Badash analysed:
"Otto Hahn is widely portrayed as a warm, considerate, charming person. The characterization is
accurate. In fact, precisely because the personality of this decent human being suffered no great
changes throughout his career, he offers us a touchstone to determined the extent of changes in
scientists' perceptions of their obligations to society during the twentieth century. [...]
The important thing is not that scientists may disagree on where their responsibility to society lies,
but that they are conscious that a responsibility exists, are vocal about it, and when they speak out
they expect to affect policy. Otto Hahn, it would seem, was even more than just an example of this
twentieth-century conceptual evolution; he was a leader in the process." [46]
From 1957, Hahn was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a number of international
organizations, including the largest French trade union, the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT). - Linus
Pauling, the 1962 Nobel Peace laureate, once described Otto Hahn as "an inspiration to me." [4]
37 of the highest national and international orders and medals, among them the Gold Medals Emil Fischer,
Cannizzaro, Copernicus, Henri Becquerel, Paracelsus, Fritz Haber, Marie Curie, Cothenius, Senckenberg,
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On 28 July, in his 90th year, our Honorary President Otto Hahn passed away. His name will be
recorded in the history of humanity as the founder of the atomic age. In him Germany and the world
have lost a scholar who was distinguished in equal measure by his integrity and personal humility.
The Max Planck Society mourns its founder, who continued the tasks and traditions of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Society after the war, and mourns also a good and much loved human being, who will live
in the memories of all who had the chance to meet him. His work will continue. We remember him
with deep gratitude and admiration.
Fritz Strassmann, Hahn's pupil and assistant, wrote:[50]
The number of those who had been able to be near Otto Hahn is small. His behaviour was
completely natural for him, but for the next generations he will serve as a model, regardless of
whether one admires in the attitude of Otto Hahn his humane and scientific sense of responsibility
or his personal courage.
Otto Robert Frisch, Lise Meitner's nephew, recollected:[51]
Hahn remained modest and informal all his life. His disarming frankness, unfailing kindness, good
common sense, and impish humour will be remembered by his many friends all over the world.
And the Royal Society in London wrote in an obituary:[52]
Otto Hahn's achievements are known universally and will hold a special place in the history of
science. He is remembered too for his whole character, his generosity of spirit, his belief in the
proper use of scientific discovery, and for his humanity.
Legacy
Hahn's death did not stop his
public acclamation. Proposals
were made at different times, first
in 1971 by American chemists,
that the newly synthesized
element no. 105 should be named
hahnium in Hahn's honor; in
1997 the IUPAC (International
Union of Pure and Applied
Otto Hahn on a stamp of the German
Chemistry) named it dubnium,
Democratic Republic, 1979
Hahn monument at the site of his
after the Russian research center
birthplace in Frankfurt
in Dubna (see element naming
controversy). Although element 108 was given the name hassium by its
officially-recognized German discoverers in 1992, a 1994 IUPAC committee recommended that it be named
hahnium (Hn),[53] in spite of the long-standing convention to give the discoverer the right to suggest a name.
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Publications in English
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1936. Applied Radiochemistry. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1936. Humphrey Milford,
London 1936. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1936.
1950. New Atoms Progress and some memories. Edited by W. Gaade. Elsevier Inc., New
York-Amsterdam-London-Brussels.
1966. A Scientific Autobiography. Introduction by Glenn T. Seaborg. Translated and edited by Willy Ley.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. British edition: McGibbon and Kee, London 1967.
1970. My Life. Preface by Sir James Chadwick. Translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins.
Macdonald & Co., London. American edition: Herder and Herder, New York 1970.
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