first edition Original wrappers
1939 · London
by MEITNER, LISE; FRISCH, OTTO
London: Macmillan, 1939. First edition. Original wrappers. Fine. FIRST PRINTING IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DISCOVERY OF NUCLEAR FISSION. A FINE COPY. PMM 422B. "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 these 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). IN: Nature, Vol. 143, No. 3615, pp. 239-40. London: Macmillan & Co., February 11, 1939. Octavo, original wrappers; custom box. Small chip at top of spine. A beautiful, fine copy; rare in such outstanding condition. (Inventory #: 2341)