Otto Hahn [1879-1968]

German chemist, who studied in London (with William Ramsay ) and Canada (with Ernest Rutherford) before returning to Germany in 1907.

In 1917, together with Lise Meitner , he discovered protactinium . In the late 1930s he collaborated with Fritz Strassmann (1902- ) and in 1938 bombarded uranium with slow neutrons . Among the products was barium , but it was Meitner (now in Sweden) who the next year interpreted the process as nuclear fission. In 1944 Hahn received the Nobel Prize for chemistry.