**Note from JM: To help me review more books here and touch on more genres, the Hot Husband is stepping in to review some books.**
About Fission
First they tried to deny her.
Then they tried to destroy her.
But she survived to discover nuclear fission
and spark the race for the atomic bomb.
Imagine if you would, a story of greed and betrayal, intrigue and danger, war and destruction, the slaughter of the innocents on a biblical scale and the collapse of empire. And imagine at the centre of it all one little woman, brilliant but shy, victimized but resolute, and ultimately vindicated. What a story that would make! Well, you don’t have to imagine it, because that is the Lise Meitner story. And I didn’t have to invent any of it . . . it’s all true.
Review
This is a story on a number of levels. As a practical story, it is the life of Lise Meitner, remembered as “A Physicist who never lost her Humanity” and a woman I had only vaguely heard of across the years. Just before Man Moon-walked for real, she died, having lived a life of 90 years and seen arguably the most tumultuous times ever.
Lise began in Vienna, amid a group of friends who read like a Who’s Who of Science. Albert Einstein came to Vienna and became a member of a group already famous. Max Planck was like a father to Lise and Niels Bohr fought for her honour when she was denied the Nobel.
Lise overcame sexism and anti-Semitism, she survived war and betrayal, and she was the shining light that opened the path to nuclear fission.
For most of this book I thought this was a story about how her nephew finally got her recognised for the Nobel; I resolutely refused to go check the internet for whether or not it was so. But at the end of the book I had tears in my eyes as I realised this is a bok about the courage to be yourself, no matter what, and to be all you can be without bothering to trumpet how wonderful you are.
Lise was a woman who makes me envious, and ashamed. Envious that one could go through so much and remain a person of honour and ashamed that I have done so little in my time and that I could probably not live a life like hers.
This is a story worth reading, for the courage, the knowledge, the insight into humans and how we behave, and above all, for the honour of being human , a race that can produce such people as Lise Mietner.
There’s not much about Tom Weston in this review; I think maybe, given his treatment of Lise, he’d like that…
***
Available at Amazon.com
Paperback: 330 pages
Publisher: Tom Weston Media (October 29, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0981941370
ISBN-13: 978-0981941370
9:05 am on December 15th, 2011 1
Thank you for such a great review and for helping me to spread the word about this remarkable woman, Lise Meitner. I, too, am envious of her accomplishments.
My biggest fear in writing FISSION was that I would not do her story justice; so yes, like a referee at a football game, the more you talk about Lise and less about me, the better job I am doing.
Regards,
Tom Weston
A portion of all sales of Fission go to the ‘Because I am a GiRL’ campaign by Plan, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children since 1937. Visit PlanUSA at http://www.planusa.org/content1619891 or get involved with your own national/regional Plan office.
Tom Weston recently posted..Mad Moose Mama