chapter two

A Shy and Quiet Girl

Lise Meitner wanted to continue her scientific research and decided the best place to do so was at Marie Curie’s laboratory in Paris. Lise applied to study with the noted scientist, but she was saddened to read the response letter: Curie had rejected her application to study in her laboratory. Lise Meitner didn’t know why. She thought of Marie Curie as the mother of radioactivity and had sent a letter not only expressing her interest in the field but also listing her qualifications, and that she believed she would fit quite nicely in the Parisian laboratory. But Lise had been denied.

Swallowing her disappointment, she continued her life in Vienna. But soon, seeing no future for herself beyond teaching, she decided that attending Max Planck’s noted series of lectures in Berlin would be worthwhile. Planck was a noted German physicist, and while he was not her first choice, Lise knew that he would have much to teach her. However, she didn’t know whether he would be open to the possibility of having her study with him. She knew that while Planck was not thrilled about women scientists and academics, believing them mainly capable of being mothers and housewives, he sometimes made exceptions. To her surprise, he agreed; he would allow her to attend his lectures at the University of Berlin. Although this was not Lise’s original plan, it was a new direction and a new opportunity, so she took it, assuring her parents that she would remain in Berlin for only three months, six at most. She didn’t think she would find the environment in Berlin as stimulating as Vienna’s, she told them, or the one she would have found in Paris with Marie Curie. However, she needed to give it a go, regardless.

Lise adjusted herself in her seat and felt the train chugging forward and watched the cityscape of Vienna morph into more pastoral surroundings. She thought back to how her journey had started so many years ago, and how her love of physics had brought her to this life-changing moment.

She had entered the kitchen one morning, as she did every morning, to have her usual breakfast. She had found her father sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper before heading to work. He was always very interested in the latest news, and splattered across the pages often were stories of Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, who had just discovered radium. The papers suggested that one day, radium would be the cure for everything.

Lise did not ask her father what radium was, nor did she bug him for more information about the Curies. Even within her family, she was a shy and quiet girl who had a hunger for books. She would remain that way growing up—though when her notoriety as a scientist grew, her shyness gave way to confidence.

She grew up in a household that thrived on knowledge. Her father, Philipp Meitner, was a prominent lawyer. Her mother, Hedwig, was a homemaker whose parents had paid for her to attend high school—even though public education commonly ended at fourteen for girls in Vienna in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, Hedwig was a very progressive woman. She had a broad view of politics and history and wide-ranging interests in music and art, which she tried to impart to Lise and her siblings. Hedwig was also the ruler of the house. She taught her eight children to obey their parents, especially their father, as well as to be able to think for themselves.

Despite the fact that her father had a demanding career, it was to him that Lise felt closest. She liked the fact that he had dedicated his life to his profession and that he had learned everything there was to learn about the law. He could debate anyone with respect to the law, in any setting and at any time. She loved to watch him do so.

Lise enjoyed spending hours with him, out in the city, just the two of them, talking about the various monuments and the history behind them. As the years rolled by, these outings with her father took the place of playtime with friends, such as the ones her siblings had, and later on made up for her lack of dates with boyfriends, such as the ones her sisters brought home. While she remained devoted to her studies, she always looked back on her time with her father with great affection.

Growing up in Vienna in the late 1800s, Lise Meitner was a student at the Elevated High School for Girls, but she was unsure of what her future held. She was reserved and, unlike most others her age, did not make much of an effort to attract a husband. Still, she was certain that she did not want to be a part of the “kitchen, children, church” lifestyle that all her schoolmates were striving for. While others considered her unusual, she often stared at them and wondered why they would fall into the role that society had assigned to them.

Since childhood, Lise’s true interests had been science and mathematics. Several other girls at her school preferred math and science, too; a most unusual bunch, they often stuck together. From her father, Lise had heard of Madame Curie, and while she had not asked him for further information at the time, she later read about her accomplishments. In her success and in her experiments, Curie had shown that it was possible for a woman to build a life in science.

But if Lise wished to follow in Madame Curie’s footsteps, she would need to learn more about mathematics and physics. She knew that she needed to do something drastic, such as attend the University of Vienna. But one problem stood in her way: Only a few women were admitted to the University of Vienna each year, and of those women who had gone there, several had said, “You have to be twice as good as a man to get in!”

Undeterred, Lise worked up the courage to bring up the subject with her father. Surprising even herself, she stood her ground, firmly telling him that she intended to go to the university. She wished to learn all that Madame Curie had learned, and possibly even more. So her father agreed. Not only that, but he paid for a tutor to prepare her for the entrance exam.

Lise and two other young women joined professor Arthur Szarvassy, who helped prepare them for the exam. He was enthusiastic about women’s education, so he made it his business, and his mission, to teach them as much as he could about mathematics, chemistry, and physics. And Professor Szarvassy knew a lot. Lise’s lessons took her way back to ancient Greece, and she learned about the first man who had conceived of the atom and how that idea had changed the ways of looking at the world.

The university entrance exam was held in a large boys’ school. It should have been held in a place attended by both girls and boys, Professor Szarvassy said, but that was the government policy, and they had to go along with it. It did not surprise him that his three pupils felt intimidated. Of the hundreds of people who had shown up to take the test, only fourteen were young women, Lise included; and they came from all over Austria. When they finished the long and arduous exam, they were herded into the corridor to wait for the results. The women glanced at one another with looks of doom on their faces, while the men smirked, heartily believing that they would pass while the women would naturally fail.

Professor Szarvassy came out to meet them, bringing with him the good news: His students had passed the exam.

Lise Meitner enrolled at the university, eager to gain as much knowledge as she could, and she promptly filled her schedule by enrolling in lectures on chemistry, physics, calculus, botany, history, literature, art, and music—as if she couldn’t get enough of everything the university had to offer.

In a lecture attended by hundreds of students, she was often the only woman in a sea of men. Their heads would turn as she walked into the room, and they would watch her as she settled into her seat. Quickly enough, she discovered the prevailing attitude drifting through the university hallways: Women could attend the lectures, but they should remain quiet and not ask any questions or intrude on the men’s serious business of learning. Women should merely sit, silent and docile, and be grateful that they had been allowed inside the hallowed classrooms.

She learned that most people, teachers and students alike, believed that women and scientific knowledge did not mix. Age-old customs held that men and women were born with different character traits: Women were good in the home, where they could indulge their natural tendencies for cooking, cleaning, and rearing children. The university and laboratory environments were no place for women, most people thought, believing that women did not have the mental energies or physical strength needed for a life devoted to science. Lise Meitner found it disturbing to come face-to-face with such mentalities sometimes, especially in a university.

She noticed that female students at the school were not so much included as tolerated, while some of the men actually showed downright hostility toward them. That this attitude was present not only among the students but also among the teachers bothered her even more. She often muttered to herself: “It’s not fair.” Indeed, it was not fair that the women had to prove themselves not only equal but also superior to the men.

In spite of her own frustrations, she persevered and even thrived.

When Ludwig Boltzmann returned to teach at the university the following fall semester after a sabbatical, life changed for Lise Meitner. Professor Boltzmann was a pioneer in thermodynamics. Lise Meitner became determined to take his classes. She wasn’t aware of it yet, but he would have a great influence on her life.

She often found herself sitting at his lectures in the Institute for Theoretical Physics, an old run-down apartment building not far from her other classes. She liked Professor Boltzmann; she liked his way of teaching, his enthusiasm, and his innovative theories, which very few others appreciated—and ultimately divided the scientific community. Occasionally, his classes were canceled for what were deemed “personal reasons,” which she suspected had to do with his frequent bouts of dark moods. She was sorry then, not only because she found herself with an empty block of time she needed to fill, but also because she despised the idea of her professor suffering.

It was another professor, Franz Exner, who incited Lise’s eagerness to take exams for her doctorate. She could be the second woman to earn a PhD in physics from the University of Vienna, he told her one day.

She turned in her dissertation on November 20, 1905, and prepared to wait. Days passed and she heard nothing. She didn’t even bump into Professor Exner in the hallways, as she usually did several times a day, in order to gauge his demeanor for a clue as to whether or not she had done well. Paranoia took over, and she became convinced that he was avoiding her so that he wouldn’t have to share the terrible news. She resigned herself to the fact that she had failed. Then, on the morning of November 28, she saw Exner rushing toward her with the news that her thesis had been approved. She would now have to sit for two sets of orals, one on December 19 and a more detailed exam to defend her work on December 23. Finally, in February 1906 she was officially awarded her degree. It was an extremely proud moment for Lise and her family.

But her happiness was later marred by a news report she happened to read: Pierre Curie had been run over and killed by a horse-drawn wagon. The newspapers called it a “senseless tragedy.”

Although she now held a doctorate, she began work in Professor Boltzmann’s laboratory at the university as one of his assistants, alongside another assistant named Stefan Meyer. It was not a terrific job for someone with her qualifications, but it was a first step toward the career she desired, and she enjoyed the work. At the same time, she was also getting her teaching certificate, which was something her father wanted her to do, as there was safety as well as status in a teaching job. But the more she thought about teaching, the more she realized that what she really wanted was to be a scientist and to make a life and a living out of it.

When her first article on radiation was published, she was eager to show it to Professor Boltzmann, and she rushed to his classroom, expecting to find him as she always did, sitting behind his desk. Instead she found only Stefan Meyer, his eyes red and puffy from crying. The professor wasn’t there, he told her through mumbled whispers. Exhausted by a recent illness, the professor had requested time to travel to the Italian seaside town of Trieste, where he was to decompress and recharge. He had planned on returning the day before. But something must have happened. Meyer held out a newspaper for her to see. She took it from him and read the news: Professor Boltzmann had killed himself while in Trieste. He must have been overcome by one of his fits of desperation, Meyer said, and gone there in the hope of feeling better.

Lise had a difficult time dealing with the professor’s death. He was a strong and intelligent man whom she had admired, and the laboratory was a somber place without him. His presence was everywhere, and his death cast a shadow over the entire staff.

The next spring, a visitor came by the institute. Max Planck—the same professor Lise would seek out after learning that she had not been accepted in Marie Curie’s laboratory—was the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin. After Professor Boltzmann’s death, Planck received a letter offering him the position at the laboratory.

He decided to visit the lab, eager to talk about the job with Stefan Meyer, who was temporarily in charge, and to tour the facilities. Afterward, he directed his attention to Lise, extending his hand toward her and telling her that he was very happy to shake the hand of a “lady doctor.” Like the rest of the staff, Planck was saddened by the death of Professor Boltzmann, a man who had been a huge influence on his life and especially on his work in quantum theory.

Lise was surprised. She had known Professor Boltzmann for many years, and he had never mentioned Dr. Planck to her. She ventured to tell him of the work she was doing and the paper that would be published in the summer, along with the ones she hoped to publish in the years to come. Professor Boltzmann had been a great influence on her life, too, she told Dr. Planck. Talking to Dr. Planck helped Lise on two levels: It helped her to understand new theories on physics, and it helped ease her mind away from Professor Boltzmann’s suicide.

As it turned out, Dr. Planck did not take the job at the institute but returned to his position at the University of Berlin. Lise soon began to think that there was no future for her beyond the laboratory. She knew that she needed to learn more about the new theories in physics, and the only way to do that was to leave Vienna and study abroad.

She made the decision to leave Vienna at the age of twenty-nine. She told her parents that she intended to stay in Berlin about three months, maybe six if she found that she had a lot to learn. But she lived there for more than thirty years.