Ruth Lewin Sime is an American author, educator and scientific researcher, best known for publishing works on history of science. She co-wrote and narrated a BBC-TV program on Lise Meitner, A Gift From Heaven, which was named one of the best science programs of the year by The Royal Society in 1992.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1. Girlhood in Vienna
2. Beginnings in Berlin
3· The First World War
4· Professor in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-lnstitut
5. Experimental Nuclear Physics
6. Under the Third Reich
7· Toward the Discovery of Nuclear Fission
8. Escape
9· Exile in Stockholm
10. The Discovery of Nuclear Fission
11. Priorities
12. Again, World War
13. War Against Memory
14. Suppressing the Past
15. No Return
16. Final Journeys
APPENDIX
ABBREVIATIONS
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was a pioneer of nuclear physics and co-discoverer, with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, of nuclear fission. Braving the sexism of the scientific world, she joined the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and became a prominent member of the international physics community. Of Jewish origin, Meitner fled Nazi Germany for Stockholm in 1938 and later moved to Cambridge, England. Her career was shattered when she fled Germany, and her scientific reputation was damaged when Hahn took full credit-and the 1944 Nobel Prize-for the work they had done together on nuclear fission. Ruth Sime's absorbing book is the definitive biography of Lise Meitner, the story of a brilliant woman whose extraordinary life illustrates not only the dramatic scientific progress but also the injustice and destruction that have marked the twentieth century.