Y2
Part of my Matildas series. The pattern is a portrait. I never say so on the wall, and people find the face on their own.
Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
Built the theoretical explanation for nuclear fission using the liquid-drop model. Coined the term “fission.”
The Matilda Effect
Credit for the discovery went to her longtime collaborator Otto Hahn, who published the experimental data without listing her as co-author. He won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alone.
Hahn cited her interpretation in his Nobel lecture but never used his laureate status to nominate her. In his memoirs, he erased her role entirely, going as far as claiming physics had impeded the discovery.
The Nobel committee framed fission as a purely chemical achievement, sidelining the physics, sidelining her.
Nominated 49 times for Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. Never won.
Shown at Rouen National Arts 2026, Halle aux Toiles, next to Y¹.
