Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn, OBE, ForMemRS (8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist and pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery and the radiochemical proof of nuclear fission. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry.

Hahn was an opponent of Jewish persecution by the Nazi Party and, after World War II, he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon. He served as the last President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) in 1946 and as the founding President of the Max Planck Society (MPG) from 1948 to 1960. Considered by many to be a model for scholarly excellence and personal integrity, he became one of the most influential and respected citizens of the new Federal Republic of Germany.

Early life

Hahn was the youngest son of Heinrich Hahn (1845–1922), a prosperous glazier and entrepreneur ("Glasbau Hahn"), and Charlotte Hahn, née Giese (1845–1905). Together with his brothers Karl, Heiner and Julius, Otto was raised in a sheltered environment. At the age of 15, he began to take a special interest in chemistry, and carried out simple experiments in the laundry room of the family home. His father wanted Otto to study architecture, as he had built or acquired several residential and business properties, but Otto persuaded him that his ambition was to become an industrial chemist.

Otto Hahn (ship)

Otto Hahn was one of only four nuclear-powered cargo vessels built to date. Planning of a German-built trade and research vessel to test the feasibility of nuclear power in civil service began in 1960 under the supervision of the German physicist Erich Bagge. Her nuclear reactor was deactivated in 1979 and replaced by a conventional diesel engine room. The ship was scrapped in 2009.

History

Otto Hahn's keel was laid down in 1963 by Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG of Kiel. She was launched in 1964 and named in honour of Professor Otto Hahn, the German chemist and Nobel prize winner, who discovered the nuclear fission of uranium in 1938. The first captain of the Otto Hahn was Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, a German U-boat ace of World War II.

In 1968, the ship's 38-megawatt nuclear reactor was taken critical and sea trials began. In October of that year, NS Otto Hahn was certified for commercial freight transport and research.

Configured to carry passengers and ore, Otto Hahn made her first port call in Safi, Morocco, loading a cargo of phosphate ores, in 1970. In 1972, after four years of operation, her reactor was refuelled. She had covered 250,000 nautical miles (463,000 km) on 22 kilograms of uranium.