NUCLEAR FISSION DISCOVERED - PMM 422 B,C,D.

MEITNER, L. (+) FRISCH (+) H. VON HALBAN (+) F. JOLIOT (+) L. KOWARSKI.

Disintegration of Uranium by neutrons: a new type of nuclear reaction (+) Products of the fission of the Uranium nucleus [L. Meitner & Frisch] (+) Liberation of neutrons in the nuclear explosion of Uranium [H. Von Halban, F. Joliot & L. Kowarski] (+) Physical Evidence for the Division of Heavy Nuclei under Neutron Bombardment [Frisch].

New York, Macmillian and Co, 1939. Royal8vo. In publisher's pictorial cloth with the original wrappers [in the back] with gilt lettering and Nature's logo to spine. Entire issue of "Nature", January - June, 1939, Vol. 143. "Emmanuel College" in gilt lettering to spine. Signs of label removal from spine, very slight wear to extremities, otherwise a very fine and clean copy. Rare in the publisher's binding. [Meitner & Frisch:] Pp. 239-40; Pp. 471-2. [H. Von Halban & F. Joliot & L. Kowarski:] Pp. 470-1. [Frisch:] P. 276. [Entire volume: LIV, 1080 pp.].

First printing of these seminal papers in which nuclear fission is first described. "In the famous paper by Meitner and Frisch [Disintegration of Uranium by neutrons], accordingly, the term nuclear fission is introduced." ( Brandt, The Harvest of a Century).

"Experiments conducted in 1938 at Berlin by Hahn and Strassman were reported to Lise Meitner, an Austrian scientist who had fled to Copenhagen to escape religious persecution. She and her nephew, O.R. Frisch, working in Niels Bohr's laboratory, found the true explanation of this phenomenon. The interpolation of a neutron into the the nucleus of a uranium atom caused it to divide into two parts and to release energy amounting to about 200,000,000 electron volts. This process bore such a close similarity to the division of a living cell that Frisch suggested the use of the term 'fission' to describe it." (Printing and the Mind of Man 422b, 422c). In the third article in the collection, Halban, Joliot and Kowarski established the theoretical possibility of a self-perpetuating reaction chain" (PMM 422d).

PMM 422b, c, d.

Order-nr.: 46933