Otto Hahn (8.03.1879-28.07.1968) was a German radiochemist and physicist and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1924). He was born in Frankfurt am Main. He studied at the University of Marburg, in 1901 he defended his doctoral dissertation in organic chemistry, in 1904 — 05 he continued his studies in England with W. Ramsay and E. Rutherford, and in 1905—06 at McGill and Yale universities. In 1907 — 33 he worked at the University of Berlin (professor from 1910), and in 1912 —45 also at the Institute of Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem, where he was director from 1928. From 1946 he lived in Göttingen, where he was president of the Max Planck Society (honorary president from 1960).
His work was in the fields of radioactivity, nuclear chemistry and nuclear physics. He discovered a whole series of radioactive elements (many of them with L. Meitner), in particular radiothorium and protactinium, and the phenomenon of nuclear isomerism in the natural radioactive elements (1921); in 1938, together with F. Strassmann, he discovered the fission of uranium nuclei by neutrons (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1944). He came close to discovering the isotopy of the chemical elements.
An honorary member of many academies of sciences and scientific societies.