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Marietta Blau: Pioneer of Photographic Nuclear Emulsions and Particle Physics

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Abstract

During the 1920s and 1930s, Viennese physicist Marietta Blau (1894–1970) pioneered the use of photographic methods for imaging high-energy nuclear particles and events. In 1937 she and Hertha Wambacher discovered “disintegration stars” – the tracks of massive nuclear disintegrations – in emulsions exposed to cosmic radiation. This discovery launched the field of particle physics, but Blau’s contributions were underrecognized and she herself was nearly forgotten. I trace Blau’s career at the Institut für Radiumforschung in Vienna and the causes of this “forgetting,” including her forced emigration from Austria in 1938, the behavior of her colleagues in Vienna during and after the National Socialist period, and the flawed Nobel decision process that excluded her from a Nobel Prize.

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Notes

  1. This is a revision of my article, "Zertrümmerung: Marietta Blau in Wien," in Fengler and Sachse, Kernforschung in Österreich (ref. 44), pp. 211-238.

  2. The Ignaz L. Lieben Prize was established in 1862 and administered by the Austrian Academy of Sciences until the Anschluss in 1938, when the Lieben family was persecuted and the Prize was discontinued. In 2004 the Prize was reinstated as an annual award, funded by Alfred Bader, a Jewish émigré who fled Vienna in 1938 at age 14, and Isabel Bader. Alfred Bader, personal communication, June 5, 2006; Philipp Steger, "The Lieben Prize–History Interrupted and Time Regained, Bridges 2 (July 20, 2004); website <http://jewishnews.at/jewish-news-from-austria-9/2007/1/4/850460.html> (accessed May 6, 2012).

  3. Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007) was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and President of Austria from 1986 to 1992. During his presidential campaign it was revealed that he had lied about his World War II military service in Bosnia, including his participation in and knowledge of war crimes against Jews and other civilians. The resulting “Waldheim Affair” precipitated, for the first time since the war, a national discussion in Austria about its role during the National Socialist period and the Holocaust.

References

  1. Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Österreichische Wissenschaftsemigration am Beispiel des Institute für Radiumforschung der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,” in Friedrich Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft II: Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft (Wien and München: Jugend und Volk, 1988), pp. 709-729, esp. pp. 720-722.

  2. Leopold E. Halpern, “Marietta Blau,” unpublished manuscript Tallahassee 1992; idem, “Marietta Blau (1894-1970),” in Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, and Miriam H. Rafailovitch, ed., Women in Chemistry and Physics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook (Westport, Connecticut, and London: Greenwood Press, 1993), pp. 57-64; idem, “Marietta Blau: Discoverer of the Cosmic Ray ‘Stars’,” in Marelene F. Rayner-Canham and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, ed., A Devotion to their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation and Montreal & Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), pp. 196-204; Leopold Halpern and Maurice M. Shapiro, “Marietta Blau (1894-1970),” in Nina Byers and Gary Williams, ed., Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 109-126.

  3. Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), chapter 3, pp. 143-238; idem, “Marietta Blau: Between Nazis and Nuclei,” Physics Today 50 (November 1997), 42-48; “More on Marietta Blau and the Physicists of Pre-, Postwar Vienna,” ibid. 51 (August 1998), 81-84.

  4. Brigitte Bischof, Physikerinnen: 100 Jahre Frauenstudium an den Physikalischen Instituten der Universität Wien (Wien: Ausstellung Brochüre, 1998); idem, “… junge Wienerinnen zertrümmern Atome…”: Physikerinnen am Wiener Institut für Radiumforschung (Mössingen-Talheim: Talheimer Verlag, 2004), pp. 90-116.

  5. Maria Rentetzi, Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental Practices: Radium Research in Early Twentieth Century Vienna (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), and website <http://www.gutenberg-e.org/rentetzi/>.

  6. Robert Rosner and Brigitte Strohmaier, ed., Marietta Blau – Sterne der Zertrümmerung: Biographie einer Wegbereiterin der modernen Teilchenphysik (Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2003); Brigitte Strohmeier and Robert Rosner, Marietta Blau – Stars of Disintegration: Biography of a Pioneer of Particle Physics, ed. Paul F. Dvorak (Riverside, Calif.: Ariadne Press, 2006).

  7. For a list of Blau’s publications, see Rosner and Strohmeier, Sterne (ref. 6), pp. 210-215, and Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 189-204.

  8. Berta Karlik and Erich Schmid, Franz S. Exner und sein Kreis: Ein Betrag zur Geschichte der Physik in Österreich (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982), pp. 89-95; Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Stefan Meyer, A Pioneer of Radioactivity,” Physics in Perspective 3 (2001), 106-127.

  9. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 148-149.

  10. Bischof, Physikerinnen (ref. 4); idem, Physikerinnen am Wiener Institut (ref. 4), chapter 4; Maria Rentetzi, “Gender, Politics, and Radioactivity Research in Interwar Vienna: The Case of the Institute for Radium Research,” Isis 95 (2004), 359-393; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 21-24; Rentetzi, Trafficking (ref. 5), chapter 4.

  11. Marelene F. Rayner-Canham and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, “Pioneer Women of Radioactivity,” in Rayner-Canham and Rayner-Canham, Devotion (ref. 2), pp. 12-28, on pp. 25-27; Rentetzi, Trafficking (ref. 5), chapter 3; Annette Lykknes, Helge Kragh, and Lise Kvittingen, “Ellen Gleditsch: Pioneer Woman in Radiochemistry,” Phys. in Persp. 6 (2004), 126-155.

  12. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 148; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 27.

  13. Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Das Jahr 1938 und seine Folge für die Naturwissenschaften an Österreichs Universitäten,” in Stadler, Vertriebene Vernunft (ref. 1), pp. 664-680; Engelbert Broda, “Wissenschaft, Emigration, und Exil,” ibid., pp. 681-692; Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Doppelter Verlust: Die Vertreibung der jüdischen Intelligenz (1938/1945),” Das Jüdischer Echo: Europäisches Forum für Kultur & Politik 50 (October 2001), 260-268.

  14. Reiter attributes the quote to Gustav Jäger; see “Österreichische Wissenschaftsemigration” (ref. 1), p. 728, n. 33 (emphasis in original). See also Halpern, “Blau: Discoverer of the Cosmic Ray ‘Stars’” (ref. 2), p. 197.

  15. “Franziska Seidl,” “Berta Karlik,” and “Hertha Wambacher” in Bischof, Physikerinnen(ref 4), unpaginated. For the effect of anti-Semitism and gender discrimination on women physicists, see Brigitte Bischof, “Die Vertreibung der Physik aus Wien: R/Emigration und Entwicklung des Studiums unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Beteiligung von Frauen,” in Sandra Wiesinger-Stock, Erika Weinzierl, and Konstantin Kaiser, ed., Vom Weggehen: Zum Exil von Kunst und Wissenschaft (Wien: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2006), pp. 219-230.

  16. Roger H. Stuewer, “Artificial Disintegration and the Cambridge-Vienna Controversy,” in Peter Achinstein and Owen Hannaway, ed., Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1985), pp. 239-307; Jeffrey Hughes, “The Radioactivists: Community, Controversy, and the Rise of Nuclear Physics,” Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1993, chapters 3 and 4. I thank Dr. Hughes for making these chapters available to me. For the institutional culture in Vienna, see also Rentetzi, Trafficking (ref. 5), Chapter 5.

  17. Thomas Schönfeld, “Zur photographischen Methode in der Kernphysik: Marietta Blaus bedeutende Wiener Forschungsergebnisse (1925-1938),” in Rosner and Strohmaier, Sterne (ref. 6), pp. 111-141; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6) pp. 34-39, 145-162; Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 149-154. See also website: http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Blau,_Marietta@843727247.html (accessed June 14, 2012).

  18. Marietta Blau, “Dr. Marietta Blau, geb. 1894 in Wien” (unpublished manuscript). I am grateful to Leopold E. Halpern for a copy of this document. Unless otherwise specified, German is the original language of all citations.

  19. Schönfeld, “Zur photographischen Methode” (ref. 17), pp. 130-131, 138-139; Marietta Blau and Hertha Wambacher, “Vorläufiger Bericht über photographische Ultrastrahlenuntersuchungen nebst eingen Versuchen über die ‘spontane Neutronenemission’. Auftreten von H-Strahlen ãhnlichen Bahnen entsprechend mehreren Metern Reichweite in Luft,” [Mitteilungen des Institutes für Radiumforschung Nr. 404] Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse Sitzungsberichte Abteilung IIa 146 (1937), 469-477.

  20. M. Blau and H. Wambacher, “Disintegration Processes by Cosmic Rays with the Simultaneous Emission of Several Heavy Particles,” Nature 140 (October 2, 1937), 585; reproduced in Rosner and Strohmaier, Sterne (ref. 6), p. 190. Berta Karlik translated the Nature note into English; Karlik to Pettersson, August 23, 1937, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek, Hans Pettersson archive – Karlik correspondence H 2000:7; henceforth GUB-HP; Karlik to Stefan Meyer, August 24, 1937, Archiv der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, FE-Akten, Institut für Radiumforschung; henceforth AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 14, Fiche 235.

  21. Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 47-48; Maurice M. Shapiro, “Tracks of Nuclear Particles in Photographic Emulsions,” Reviews of Modern Physics 13 (1941), 58-71, on 67; interview of Maurice Shapiro by Laurie Brown on May 30, 1978, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute for Physics, College Park, MD USA, <http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4887.html> (accessed May 22, 2012).

  22. Blau to Meyer, September 8, 1937, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 11, Fiche 235; Fritz Paneth Nachlass, Archiv der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (henceforth MPGA), Abt. III, Rep. 45, Nr. 17: 77.

  23. In 1929 Pettersson inquired about a proposal to provide 1200 Swedish crowns for Blau: Pettersson to Meyer, November 12, 1929, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 17, Fiche 281. In 1933 Pettersson commissioned Blau for an analysis of earth samples: Blau to Pettersson, September 25, 1933, GUB-HP. In 1936 Pettersson tried to find a Swedish stipend for Blau to collaborate with Ilford for a year: Pettersson to Meyer, April 29, 1936, AÖAW, NL Meyer: Karton 17, Fiche 284, and Karlik to Pettersson, May 11, 1936, GUB-HP.

  24. Karlik to Pettersson, December 30, 1937 (in English), GUB-HP.

  25. From Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 146, and Galison, “Marietta Blau” (ref. 3), p. 42.

  26. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 153, 157, 158.

  27. Hess to Meyer, December 10, 1947, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 13, Fiche 210.

  28. Hess to Meyer, January 22, 1948, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 13, Fiche 210.

  29. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 153.

  30. Karlik to Pettersson, December 30, 1937 (in English), GUB-HP.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Pettersson to Karlik, January 3, 1938 (incorrectly dated 1937); Karlik to Pettersson, January 8, 1938, GUB-HP.

  33. Pettersson to Karlik, January 10, 1938, GUB-HP (emphasis in original).

  34. Marietta Blau and Hertha Wambacher, “II. Mitteilung über photographische Untersuchungen der schweren Teilchen in der kosmischen Strahlung. Einzelbahnen und Zertrümmerungssterne,” [Mitteil. Inst. Radium 409] Akad. Wissen. Wien, Math.-naturwissen. Kl. Sitz. Abt. IIa 146 (1937), 623-641; reproduced in Rosner and Strohmaier, Sterne (ref. 6), pp. 191-209.

  35. Pettersson to Karlik, January 10, 1938, GUB-HP.

  36. Ellen Gleditsch to Paneth, November 15, 1938 (in English), MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 45, Nr. 39.

  37. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 155; Einstein to Gustav Bucky, February 14, 1938, in Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 48-50, 118. n. 87, 89.

  38. Pettersson to Karlik, February 17, 1938 (in English), GUB-HP; Blau to Karlik, March 15, 1938, AÖAW, Karton 39.

  39. Blau to Paneth, March 21, 1938; MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 45, Nr. 17; see also Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 51.

  40. Reiter, “Das Jahr 1938” (ref. 13), pp. 667-670. The University of Vienna lost 32% of its physics professors and lecturers; the percentage was higher in other sciences, altogether 36% (97 members) of the Philosophical Faculty. Of these, 37 emigrated, 8 returned. See also Rentetzi, Trafficking (ref. 5), chapter. 6.

  41. Reiter, “Das Jahr 1938” (ref. 13), p. 672; Reiter, “Österreichische Wissenschaftsemigration” (ref. 1), pp. 711-716; Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 159; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 68-69.

  42. Archiv der Universität Wien, Personalakt Hertha Wambacher; Österreichische Unterrichtsministerium, April 7, 1938; directive to Dekanat der Universität, April 15, 1938, AÖAW, Karton 32, Fiche 441.

  43. Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 81.

  44. Hertha Wambacher, “Mehrfachzertrümmerung von Atomkernen durch kosmische Strahlung: Ergebnisse aus 154 Zertrümmerungsternen in photographischen Platten,”Physikalische Zeitschrift 39 (1938), 883-890. Apparently Steinke had mentioned to Blau in 1933 that emulsions might be “very suitable” for detecting the disintegration of lead by cosmic radiation; see Vanessa Cirkel-Bartelt, “Kooperation und Konkurrenz: Die Erforschung der kosmischen Strahlung vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Silke Fengler and Carola Sachse, ed., Kernforschung in Österreich: Wandlungen eines interdisciplinäaren Forschungsfeldes 1900-1978 (Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2012), pp. 341-365, on p. 357.

  45. Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 37, 39, 45.

  46. Dieter Hoffmann, “Die Ramsauer-Ära und die Selbstmobilisierung der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft,” in Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker, ed., Physiker zwischen Autonomie und Anpassung (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2007), pp. 173-215, on p. 178.

  47. Gleditsch to Paneth, November 15, 1938 (in English), MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 45, Nr. 39.

  48. Pettersson to Paneth, December 3, 1938, MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 45, Nr. 36.

  49. Ibid.

  50. Schönfeld, “Zur photographischen Methode” (ref. 17), pp. 134-135; Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 183.

  51. Shapiro, “Tracks of Nuclear Particles” (ref. 21), p. 70; idem, personal communication, November 17, 1997.

  52. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 178-183.

  53. Marietta Blau, “Photographic Tracks from Cosmic Rays,” Nature 142 (October 1, 1938), 613.

  54. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 156.

  55. In 1939, for example, Blau asked Elizabeth Rona for literature on radioactivity and petroleum. Rona to Karlik, November 25, 1939, AÖAW, NL Karlik, Karton 47, Fiche 683.

  56. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 178-183, 186.

  57. According to Elizabeth Rona, Blau had “finally found the right working group and the position that corresponds to her nature and talents”; Rona to Meyer, May 3, 1948, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 18, Fiche 292. See also Blau to Meyer, March 14, 1948, August 5, 1948, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 11.

  58. For Blau’s research after 1948, see Arnold Perlmutter, “Marietta Blaus wissenschaftliche Arbeiten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Rosner and Strohmeier, Sterne (ref. 6), pp. 143-178; also Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 172-188; Halpern and Shapiro, “Blau” (ref. 2), pp. 113-123; Rentetzi, Trafficking (ref. 5), chapter 7.

  59. Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 88-92; Perlmutter, “Arbeiten” (ref. 58), pp. 162-171; Perlmutter, in “More on Marietta Blau” (ref. 3), p. 81.

  60. In the 1960s $200 was a decent monthly income in Austria: personal communications Robert Rosner, June 2003, and Roger H. Stuewer, September 2003. See also Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 93.

  61. According to Halpern and Shapiro, “Blau” (ref. 2), p. 122, Blau went to Vienna only for the cataract operation and hoped to return to the United States (“Medicare” for retirees began only in 1966).

  62. Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 93-102.

  63. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 144.

  64. Nobel Foundation, Nobel Lectures: Physics 1942-1962 (Amsterdam, London, New York: Elsevier, 1964), p. 137.

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  65. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 167ff.

  66. Erwin Schrödinger to Nobel Committee for Physics, January 8, 1950 (in English), Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Center for History of Science, Nobel Archive; see also Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 76-79.

  67. Meyer to Karlik, November 23, 1949, AÖAW, NL Meyer, Karton 45, Fiche 235.

  68. Axel E. Lindh, “Utredning över Marietta Blaus och Hertha Wambachers till prisbelöning föreslagna arbeten,” July 1, 1950 (in Swedish), pp. 132-140, Nobel Archive. I am grateful to the late Elisabeth Crawford for translations and discussion.

  69. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 203-204.

  70. Axel E. Lindh, “Utredning om prof. Powells till prisbelöning föreslagna arbeten,” July 30, 1949, pp 128-185 (in Swedish); idem, “Kompletterrande utredning över prof. Powells till prisbelöning föreslagna arbeten,” July 1, 1950, p. 106 (in Swedish), Nobel Archive.

  71. For the first fifty years of Nobel politics, see Robert Marc Friedman, The Politics of Excellence: Behind the Nobel Prize in Science (New York: Times Books Henry Holt and Company, 2001).

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  72. Elisabeth Crawford, personal communication, April 2002.

  73. Elisabeth Crawford, The Nobel Population 1901-1950: A Census of the Nominators and Nominees for the Prizes in Physics and Chemistry (Stockholm: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Tokyo: Universal Academy Press, 2002), pp. 188, 190, 192; also available on CDRom.

  74. I am grateful to the late Elisabeth Crawford, personal communication, May 3, 2002, for bringing this to my attention.

  75. Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, and Mark Walker, “A Nobel tale of wartime injustice,” Nature 382 (August 1, 1996), 393-395; idem, “A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice,” Physics Today 50 (September 1997), 26-32.

  76. Friedman, Politics (ref. 71), pp. 221-223.

  77. The Svedberg, “Kompletterande redogörelse för undersökningar rörande klyvning av atomkärnor,” March 20, 1941, p. 6, Protokoll KVA Nobelstiftelsen 1941, Nobel Archive.

  78. Friedman, Politics (ref. 71), pp. 215-219, 224.

  79. Strohmeier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 87.

  80. Nobel Foundation, Nobel Lectures (ref. 64), p. 137 ff. For Powell’s Nobel speech, see also http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1950/powell-lecture.pdf (accessed May 3, 2012).

  81. For example, Blau is not mentioned in the otherwise detailed recent account by Per Carlson, “A century of cosmic rays,” Physics Today 65 (February 2012), 30-36.

  82. Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Doppelter Verlust” (ref. 13); idem, “Verdrängte Vertreibung: Über die Vertreibung der Vernunft, die Verhinderung ihrer Rückkehr und die bis heute spürbaren Folgen,” heureka! Das Wissenschaftsmagazin im Falter 2 (February 1998); idem, “Naturwissenschaften und Remigration,” in Wiesinger-Stock, Weinzierl, and Kaiser, Vom Weggehen (ref. 15), pp. 177-218.

  83. Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), p. 57.

  84. Georg Wagner, “In Memoriam Hertha Wambacher,” Natur und Technik 4 (1950), 142.

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  86. G. Stetter and H. Thirring, “Hertha Wambacher,” Acta Physica Austriaca 4 (1950), 318-320. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), p. 186, notes that none of the “followers” was more fortunate than Cecil Powell and those who manufactured emulsions at Kodak and Ilford.

  87. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 184-186.

  88. Ernst Glaser, “Zum Problem der ‘Inneren Emigration’ am Beispiel von Hans Thirring,” in Stadler, Vertriebene Vernunft (ref. 1), pp. 1064-1074.

  89. I am grateful to the late Prof. Leopold E. Halpern for his analysis of Thirring’s conciliatory postwar attitude to Nazi colleagues and for his unpublished 1992 manuscript (ref. 3), pp. 9-13, and I thank Robert Rosner for further discussion on this point.

  90. Reiter, “Verdrängte Vertreibung” (ref. 82), emphasis in original.

  91. Marelene F. Rayner-Canham and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, “…And Some Other Women of the Austro-German Group,” in Rayner-Canham and Rayner-Canham, Devotion (ref. 2), pp. 226-228; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 29-31.

  92. Galison, Image and Logic (ref. 3), pp. 183-186; Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 82-84.

  93. Halpern, 1992 manuscript (ref. 2), p. 20.

  94. Blau to Leopold Halpern, April 28, 1964, Sondersammlung Leopold Halpern, Zentralbibliothek für Physik, Wien; cited in Strohmaier and Rosner, Stars (ref. 6), pp. 97-98.

  95. Carola Sachse, “‘Persilscheinkultur’: Zum Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheit in der Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,” in Bernd Weisbrod, ed., Akademische Vergangenheitspolitik: Beiträge zur Wissenschaftskultur der Nachkriegszeit (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2002), pp. 217-246.

  96. Ruth Lewin Sime, “The Politics of Memory: Otto Hahn and the Third Reich,” Phys. in Perspect. 8 (2006), 3-51; idem, “The Politics of Forgetting: Otto Hahn and the German Nuclear-Fission Project in World War II,” ibid. 14 (2012), 59-84; idem, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1996), chapter 13, pp. 309-325; idem, “No Return: Jewish Emigres and German Scientists after the Second World War,” in Ulrich Charpa and Ute Deichmann, ed., Jews and Sciences in German Contexts: Case Studies from the 19th and 20th Centuries (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), pp 245-262.

  97. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Penguin, 1961, reissued 1968), p. 6.

  98. Berta Karlik, “Die große alte Dame der Kernphysik: Nachruf auf die Atomforscherin Lise Meitner,” Die Presse (October 29, 1968); idem, “Gedenkworte für Lise Meitner,” in Akademische Gedenkfeier zu Ehren von Otto Hahn und Lise Meitner am 21. Februar 1969 in Berlin (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft—Dokumentstelle, 1969), pp. 35-42; idem. “Lise Meitner,” Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Almanach für das Jahr 1969 119 (1970), 345-354; idem, “In memoriam Lise Meitner,” Physikalische Blätter 35, No. 2 (Februar 1979), 49-52; idem, “Lise Meitner (1878-1968),” in Neue Österreichische Biographie ab 1815, Band XX (Wien and München: Amalthea Verlag, 1979), pp. 106-111.

  99. Berta Karlik, “Bericht aus den Institut für Radiumforschung und Kernphysik,” Österreich. Akad. Wissen. Almanach 1970 120 (1971), 200.

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  102. Memoria del homenaje a Marietta Blau, 19 de Octubre de 2005 (México City: 2006); Robert Rosner, personal communications, May 20, 2005, August 13, 2005.

  103. See website <http://www.dieuniversitaet-online.at/dossiers/beitrag/news/marietta-blau-saal/74.html> (accessed March 3, 2011).

  104. See for example Manfred Drosg and Peter Galison reply in “More on Marietta Blau” (ref. 3), pp. 82-84.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Nina Byers for calling Blau's work to my attention, to the late Leopold E. Halpern and Maurice M. Shapiro for generously sharing with me their memories of Blau’s life and work, and to the late Elisabeth Crawford for her knowledge and insight. For access to archival material I thank Stefan Sienell and the staff of the Archiv der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Anders Larsson of the Göteborgs Universitetsbibliotek, Wolfgang Kerber of the Österreichischen Zentralbibliothek für Physik in Wien, Karl Grandin of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Archive, the staff of the Archiv der Universität Wien, and Marion Kazemi and the staff of the Archiv der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. I am grateful to Robert Rosner, Wolfgang Reiter, Arnold Schmidt, Wolfgang Kerber, Silke Fengler, Carola Sachse, and Jeffrey Hughes for their help and good discussions, and I owe special thanks to Roger H. Stuewer for his valuable critique and careful editorial attention to this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Emeritus, Sacramento City College, 3835 Freeport Boulevard, Sacramento, CA, 95822, USA

    Ruth Lewin Sime

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  1. Ruth Lewin Sime
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Correspondence to Ruth Lewin Sime.

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Ruth Lewin Sime, the author of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, is currently writing a biographical study of Otto Hahn.

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Sime, R.L. Marietta Blau: Pioneer of Photographic Nuclear Emulsions and Particle Physics. Phys. Perspect. 15, 3–32 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-012-0097-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-012-0097-6

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