Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was a pioneer of nuclear physics and co-discoverer, with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, of nuclear fission. Braving the sexism of the scientific world, she joined the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and became a prominent member of the international physics community. Of Jewish origin, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Stockholm in 1938 and later moved to Cambridge, England. Her career was shattered when she fled Germany, and her scientific reputation was damaged when Hahn took full credit—and the 1944 Nobel Prize—for the work they had done together on nuclear fission. Ruth Sime's absorbing book is the definitive biography of Lise Meitner, the story of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary life illustrates not only the dramatic scientific progress but also the injustice and destruction that have marked the twentieth century.

Ruth Lewin Sime is on the chemistry faculty at Sacramento City College. She co-wrote and narrated a BBC-TV program on Lise Meitner, A Gift From Heaven, which was named one of the best science programs of the year by The Royal Society in 1992.

"Sime…has written the definitive scientific biography of Meitner, a riveting and masterful account of a scientist's steadfast devotion to physics. Sime blends the science and history with seamless ease… Sime's extensive research offers fresh insights into the devastating legacy of Nazism's distortion of the scientific truth." —Marcia Bartusiak, Washington Post Book World, March 17, 1996

"This book is an extraordinary and rewarding read…Sime has written the definitive biography of Lise Meitner and much more." —Dr. L. F. Cohen, Physics and Society, October 1996

"The story told by Sime is a powerful one…She not only explains how scientists went about their work in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century but how they came to grips with the tragedies of those years." —Mary Jo Nye, American Historical Revew, October 1997

"Ruth Sime…has written a moving, artfully detailed biography that should reestablish Lise Meitner among the greats…Sime maintains that elusive balance between scientific exposition, personal insight and political and cultural analysis that good scientific biographers strive for but seldom attain." —Laurence A. Marschall, The Sciences, May/June 1996

"Sime…provides an insider's account of the discovery of fission and the treatment of Jewish intellectuals and scientists during the rise of Nazi Germany… Her insights into the distortion of reality and memory help to explain why this extremely talented and significant contributor to atomic physics has been neglected." —M. H. Chaplin, Choice, July/August 1996

"Sime…has infused the writing with a passion that is both refreshing and exhilarating. This is a book that deserves to be widely read and deliberated. Its significance exceeds the boundaries of the history of nuclear physics and chemistry."—Stanley Goldberg, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1996

"Sime is to be applauded for bringing to life the story of a brilliant physicist whose contributions to science—and personal integrity—were unparalleled."—Susan Petro, San Francisco Chronicle

"This is a good book. The characters include the whole pantheon of European physicists. The several story lines of Meitner's life are carefully and smoothly interwoven, and once the war starts, the plot becomes breathtaking. . . . Meitner's story is moving, and the book is clearly a labor of love. Such labors are worth attending."—Ann Finkbeiner, The New York Times Book Review

"Sime has produced a magnificent biography that should help rescue Meitner from oblivion. . . . The story, especially in the lead-up to the discovery of fission by Hahn, Meitner, and Strassman, is absolutely gripping, full of twists and false dawns."—Tania Monteiro, New Scientist

“Sime tells a suspenseful tale. . . .Her epitaph was ‘Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.’ It is precisely that combination that Sime captures in this scrupulously researched biography.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Dramatically lays bare the Nazi efforts...to obliterate Meitner’s preeminence in 20th-century physics. This meticulously researched biography goes a long way to restoring it.”—Publishers Weekly

"This book is an extraordinary and rewarding read…Sime has written the definitive biography of Lise Meitner and much more." Dr. L. F. Cohen, Physics and Society, October 1996

"Deprived of the Nobel Prize she so clearly deserved for her contribution to the discovery of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner has never been given the attention she deserves in the history of twentieth-century physics. Now, with grace, style, and great authority, Ruth Sime sets the record straight."—Susan Quinn, author of Marie Curie: A Life

Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize, History of Science Society 1998
Silver Medal for nonfiction, Commonwealth Club of California 1997
Finalist, PEN Center USA West 1997
Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award
Best Books List, Library Journal 1996