In 2023, the film Oppenheimer reignited fascination with the history of the atomic bomb. But beyond the visual spectacle and political drama, one striking absence stands out: Lise Meitner, the Austrian-Swedish physicist and pioneer of nuclear fission3, yet once again overlooked by history.
In 1938, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch explained the phenomenon of nuclear fission3. Yet, when the first Nobel Prize for this was awarded, it went to Otto Hahn, her former colleague.
"Lise Meitner refused to work on the bomb. She refused to become destructive."
—Otto Frisch, 1967
The Silence of Cinema
In Oppenheimer, Nolan pays tribute to a generation of scientists, but the silence around women in science is noticeable. Not a single image, not a word about Meitner, even though her discovery made everything in the film possible.
This absence raises a question: does cinema repeat the omissions of history?
Rewriting history
Even today, Lise Meitner's name in Oppenheimer highlights the persistence of narrative bias: dominant stories forget those who had no voice at the table.
But it is up to our generation to correct this tendency and to push women out of the background.
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