Background
Otto Hahn was born on March 8, 1879 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Heinrich Hahn, a glazier, and Charlotte Giese (Stutzmann) Hahn.
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1936
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1950
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1966
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1970
Otto Hahn was born on March 8, 1879 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Heinrich Hahn, a glazier, and Charlotte Giese (Stutzmann) Hahn.
In 1897 Otto Hahn entered the University of Marburg and four years later, in 1901, attained Doctorate Degree in organic chemistry. Hahn studied at McGill University during the period from 1905 till 1906.
He also attended University of Munich.
Otto started his career as an instructor in 1902 at the University of Marburg, a position he held till 1904. Soon thereafter, hoping to better his chances at a job in the German chemical industry, Hahn decided to spend a year in an English-speaking institution where he could polish his language skills while advancing his knowledge in chemistry. Through the efforts of a former teacher, in 1904 Hahn was offered a research post with Sir William Ramsay in his laboratory at University College, in London and stayed there until 1905.
Ramsay’s fame rests primarily on his discovery of the inert gases argon, neon, krypton, and xenon. In the early 1900s, however, he had become interested in a new topic, radioactivity. When Hahn arrived in London, it was a problem in radioactivity, therefore, to which Ramsay assigned him. In some ways that decision was a peculiar one, since nothing in Hahn’s background in organic chemistry had prepared him for research on radioactive materials. Ramsay seemed to believe that Hahn’s lack of background in radioactivity might be an advantage, since he could proceed with no preconceived notions as to what to expect. The problem he assigned the young German chemist was to extract radium from a 100-gram sample of barium carbonate. After familiarizing himself with this new field of research, Hahn completed Ramsay’s assignment, obtaining a few milligrams of radium. He discovered, however, that the radioactivity of the sample was greater than expected and eventually isolated a second radioactive material from the impure radium. The scientist called the new substance "radiothorium", later identified as an isotope of thorium that decays into thorium-X.
Hahn began to work at the Chemical Institute in Berlin in the fall of 1907, was appointed a Privat dozent (university lecturer) a year later and was promoted to professor of chemistry in 1910, a post he held till 1912. One of the most significant events of this period was the arrival of Lise Meitner as a student at the Chemical Institute. Prejudice against women in the sciences was very strong at the time, and Meitner was not allowed to work in the same laboratories as male students. Fischer did, however, allow her to share a tiny makeshift laboratory with Hahn in a converted workshop. Hahn and Meitner worked well together, with the former’s chemical approach to problems complementing Meitner’s outlook as a physicist. Thus a collaboration began that was to last for three decades. During their work together at the Chemical Institute, Hahn and Meitner concentrated on a study of beta emitters and, in the process, discovered more new radioactive isotopes.
In 1912 Kaiser Wilhelm authorized the establishment of a new research institute to consist of several separate departments. Invited to head up the section on radioactivity at the new Institute for Chemistry in Dahlem (Berlin), Hahn asked Meitner to join him there. One of the advantages of the new setting — in addition to much more space — was that radioactive materials had never been used in the rooms before, so that Hahn and Meitner were able to detect far lower levels of radiation than they could in their former laboratories. This allowed them to discover weakly radioactive isotopes of potassium and rubidium that had not yet been observed. Otto served as a head of radioactivity section until 1933, and from 1934 to 1944.
Hahn’s professional life was soon to be disrupted by the onset of World War I. In July, 1914, he was called into the army. After serving with distinction in the infantry at the battlefront for two years, Otto was ordered back to Berlin, where he was assigned to work with a poison gas research unit for the next three years.
During his stays in Berlin, Hahn was able to spend some time in his own laboratory at the Institute for Chemistry. One of the projects that he and Meitner pursued during this period was a study of a new radioactive element that had previously been announced by Kasimir Fajans and Oswald Gohring in 1913, an element they had named "brevium". Hahn and Meitner found the element in the residues of pitchblende ore and showed its relationship to parent and daughter isotopes. The name they suggested for the element, "protoactinium" (now protactinium), eventually became preferred to that recommended by Fajans and Gohring.
By the 1930s Hahn’s fame had begun to spread. In 1933 he was invited to spend a year as visiting professor at Cornell University and to deliver the prestigious Baker Lectures there.
During World War II Hahn remained in Germany. Although he had no love for the Nazi party, he felt a loyalty to his homeland. He was able to avoid working on the German atomic bomb project, however, and instead carried out research on fission fragments during the war. That research came to an end in March, 1944, after the Institute for Chemistry was destroyed in a series of bombing raids. Hahn and his wife Edith Junghans soon moved to the southern German town of Tailfinger, where they were captured by an advance team of U.S. intelligence officers in April, 1945. The Hahns were sent to England, where they were held for almost a year.
In the early 1960s Otto tried to rebuild the scientific community of his native land.
Hahn also contributed to journals and periodicals, including Journal of the Chemical Society.
Otto Hahn was mostly known for his work on radioactive materials, which in 1938 led to his discovery, with physicist Lise Meitner and chemist Fritz Strassmann, of the process of nuclear fission. In recognition of their work, Hahn and Strassmann received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Hahn, Strassmann, and Meitner received the Fermi Award in 1966.
Otto also gained prominence as the discoverer of chemical elements, such as Radiothorium (1905), Radioactinium (1906), Mesothorium (1907), Ionium (1907), Radioactive recoil (1909) and Protactinium (1917).
In 1999, he was elected the third most important scientist of the 20th century in a survey of 500 engineers, natural scientists and physicians by Focus, a German news magazine. The first two were Albert Einstein and Max Planck.
Hahn was an opponent of national socialism and Jewish persecution by the Nazi Party.
Quotations:
"I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition."
"First we attacked the Russian soldiers with our gases, and then when we saw the poor fellows lying there, dying slowly, we tried to make breathing easier for them by using our own life-saving devices on them."
"At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did."
Otto Hahn was a member of scientific societies in Berlin, Goettingen, Munich, Halle, Stockholm, Vienna, Madrid, Helsinki, Lisbon, Mainz, Rome, Copenhagen and Boston. The scientist was also a member of Nibelungia Society.
Otto Hahn married Edith Junghans on March, 1913. The couple had a son, Hanno.
