Otto Hahn quotes

Otto Hahn was a German chemist renowned for his pioneering research in radioactivity and radiochemistry. His discovery of nuclear fission paved the way for the development of nuclear energy and atomic weapons. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is celebrated as one of the founders of nuclear chemistry. Here are 7 of his quotes:

At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did.

Otto Hahn

Usually, a discovery is not made in the easiest but on a complicated way; the simple cases show up only later.

Otto Hahn

I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.

Otto Hahn

I felt profoundly ashamed, I was very much upset.

Otto Hahn

Never has a Nobelprize-winner been in the outward sense so absent at a Nobel festival as Professor Hahn. And I suppose, too, that no Nobelprize-winner has ever, through the consequences of his discoveries, been so intensely present to our consciousness. Alfred Nobel hoped that in dynamite he had discovered such a powerful explosive that future wars would be impossible. The hope was not fulfilled; but dynamite is used today mostly for peaceful purposes. May we venture to hope the same of atomic energy? Hahn's discovery of the cleavage of atoms is the crowning feat, so far, in a series of discoveries for which Nobelprizes have been awarded. We acclaim today this celebrated researcher's scientific achievements.

Otto Hahn

Hahn and Strassmann were able to discover nuclear fission by exceptionally good chemistry, fantastically good chemistry, which was way ahead of what anyone else was capable of at that time. The Americans learned it to do later. But at that time, in 1938, Hahn and Strassmann were really the only ones who could do it, because they were such good chemists.

Otto Hahn