Neutron Transport

When we have carried out the indicator experiments that proved that barium was present, I wrote some personal letters to Lise Meitner, telling her of our results. In my letter of 19 December I wrote: … The thing is there is something so odd about the ‘radium isotopes’ that for the moment we don’t want to to tell anyone but you. The half-lives of three isotopes are pretty accurately determined; they can be separated from all elements except barium; all reactions are correct. Except for one – unless there are some very weird accidental circumstances involved: the fractionation doesn’t work. Our Ra isotopes behave like Ba… Strassmann and I agree that for time being nobody should know but you. Perhaps you can put forward some fantastic explanation… . Otto Hahn (1879–1968)