In 1938 Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann discovered nuclear fission by radiochemical means, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch shortly thereafter provided the physical explanation of the fission process.
Otto Robert Frisch was born on October 1, 1904 in Vienna – the son of Justinian Frisch, a publisher and painter, and Auguste Meitner Frisch, a concert pianist – and studied physics at the University of Vienna. He left Vienna at age 23 and for the next 20 years he worked at many different places: Berlin – Hamburg – London – Copenhagen – Birmingham – Liverpool – Los Alamos – Harwell – Cambridge. He settled in Cambridge in 1947 and stayed there until his death on September 22, 1979. Otto Robert Frisch was an experimental physicist of extraordinary talent, but his unassuming attitude left him largely unknown to the public. We would like to take the occasion of his 115th birthday and the 40-year anniversary of his passing to honor this great physicist from Vienna.
Programme:
17:00 Welcome and introduction
17:15 Monica Frisch, Cambridge - Personal recollections of my father Otto Robert Frisch
17:45 Walter Kutschera, University of Vienna - Physics achievements of Otto Robert Frisch
18:30 Intermission and a small buffet
19:15 Tanja Traxler and David Rennert, Der Standard - „The man with an aunt in every port” – Impressions from Otto RobertFrisch’s life and family
