Chapter 4 "The Long Grave Already Dug" Summary

Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria of England's oldest grandson, dedicates the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin in 1912. Otto Hahn, a first rate radio-chemist, starts work there. In 1907 he meets Lise Meitner from Austria, the second woman in history to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Vienna, who has published two papers on alpha and beta radiation. They become friends and collaborators. Max Planck appoints her to an assistantship for financial support. Hahn and Meitner move together to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1912 to research radioactivity.

In 1913, Niels Bohr and his young wife return to England, when Harry Moseley and C. G. Darwin determine how to use X-ray spectroscopy to study the nature of the atom. In September, the Rutherfords and the Bohrs attend the annual meeting of the British...