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Max-Planck-Society e.V., Munich, Germany |
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==Biography==
Hahn was born in [[Frankfurt am Main]] and studied [[chemistry]] and mineralogy in [[Marburg]] and [[Munich]]. After receiving his [[Ph.D.]] in [[1901]] he worked initially at [[Marburg University]] then, from [[1904]], at [[London]], where in the lab of Sir William Ramsay discovered radiothorium, and from [[1905]] at [[McGill University]] in [[Montreal]] under [[Ernest Rutherford]], where he discovered thorium C, radium D and radioactinium. Back in [[Berlin]], Hahn discovered mesothorium I (radium 228), mesothorium II and - independently from Boltwood - the mother substance of radium, ionium. In the winter 1908/09 Hahn discovered the radioactive recoil.
Hahn became professor in 1910 and head of the department of radioactivity at the newly founded ''Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Chemistry'' in Berlin in [[1912]]. From 1928 to 1945 he was director of the whole institute. In 1924 Hahn was made an member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
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After [[World War II]] Hahn was among those German scientists put under surveillance by the Allied [[Alsos]] program who suspected him of working on the [[German nuclear energy project]] to develop an [[atomic bomb]] (his only connection was the discovery of fission, he did not work on the program). In [[1945]] Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry ("for the discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei"), but at the awards ceremony the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry announced, "Professor Hahn has informed us that he is regrettably unable to attend this ceremony." He was being held prisoner by the British at Farmhall near Cambridge as part of [[Operation Epsilon]], who were seeking information from him about the failed German effort to develop an atomic bomb.
In the post-war era Hahn founded the Max-Planck-Society for the Advancement of the Sciences, of which he was President from 1948 to 1960, and became an outspoken advocate against the use of [[nuclear weapon]]s, drafting several declarations, so, for instance, in 1955 the [[Mainau Declaration]] and in 1957 the "Declaration of the 18 Nuclear Scientists" against the establishing of the German Bundeswehr with atomic weapons.
Hahn was awarded many honours from all over the world, was elected member or honorary member in 45 academies and scientific societies and received 37 highly regarded national and international orders and medals. In 1959 president Charles de Gaulle named him an Officer of the French Legion of Honour, he was made a knight of the Order Pour-le-Mérite and received the Grand Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1961 Pope John XXIII awarded Otto Hahn the Gold medal of the Papal Academy.
In 1966 US-President Lyndon B. Johnson and the US Atomic Energy Commission in Washington D.C. awarded Otto Hahn the Enrico- Fermi-Prize (together with his colleagues Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann).
Otto Hahn, honorary citizen of the cities of Frankfurt am Main and Göttingen and the state and city of Berlin, died at July, 28th, 1968.
Proposals were made at different times that each of [[Chemical element|elements]] [[Dubnium|105]] and [[Hassium|108]] should be named ''Hahnium'' in Hahn's honour, but neither proposal found approval (see [[Element naming controversy]]). However, one of the world's few nuclear-powered merchant ships, ''[[Otto Hahn (ship)|Otto Hahn]]'', was named in his honour. Many schools, high-schools, buildings, streets, squares and bridges in Europe bear his name, as well as two trains of the German Railway. In 1959 there were the opening ceremonies of the "Otto-Hahn-Institute" in Mainz and the "Hahn-Meitner-Institute (HMI)" in Berlin. There are craters on mars and moon, and the asteroid No. 19126 "Ottohahn", named in his honour, as well as the "Otto-Hahn-Prize" of the German Chemical Society, the "Otto-Hahn-Medal" of the Max-Planck-Society and the "Otto-Hahn-Peace-Medal in Gold" of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin.
==Opinions==
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