Books in the California Studies in the History of Science series

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was a pioneer of nuclear physics and co-discoverer, with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, of nuclear fission. Braving the sexism of the scientific world, she joined the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and became a prominent member of the international physics community. Of Jewish origin, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Stockholm in 1938 and later moved to Cambridge, England. Her career was shattered when she fled Germany, and her scientific reputation was damaged when Hahn took full credit-and the 1944 Nobel Prize-for the work they had done together on nuclear fission. Ruth Sime's absorbing book is the definitive biography of Lise Meitner, the story of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary life illustrates not only the dramatic scientific progress but also the injustice and destruction that have marked the twentieth century.

The Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, was the birthplace of particle accelerators, radioisotopes, and modern big science. This title presents the laboratory's history. It helps you learn how Ernest Lawrence used local and national technological, economic, and manpower resources to build the cyclotron.

Recounts the development of physics in Soviet Russia up to World War II. This title focuses on Leningrad, center of Soviet physics until the late 1930s, discusses the impact of scientific, cultural, and political revolution on physicists' research and professional aspirations.

A biography of Hermann von Helmholtz, a 19th-century scientist renowned for the co-discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and his invention of the ophthalmoscope. It relates how von Helmholtz also made contributions to the fields of physiology, philosophy of science and mathematics.