Strassmann, Fritz

Strassmann, Fritz

(born Feb. 22, 1902, Boppard, Ger.—died April 22, 1980, Mainz, W.Ger.) German physical chemist. He helped develop the method of rubidium-strontium dating widely used in geochronology. Beginning in 1934, he joined Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in their investigations of the radioactive products formed when uranium is bombarded by neutrons. In 1938 they discovered lighter elements produced from the neutron bombardment, which were the result of the splitting of the uranium atom into two lighter atoms (nuclear fission). In 1946 he joined the faculty at the University of Mainz, where he established the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (later the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry), and he directed the chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (1945–53).