Fission products: a commemorative experiment

On December 22, 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann submitted for publication their finding that they had found barium (and other strange radioactive products) in uranium irradiated with neutrons. The definitive explanation arrived only a few weeks later, when Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch introduced the theory of fission. The flash of inspiration reportedly came whilst they were skiing. It had been a most productive Christmas break, even though Meitner and Frisch were working in exile due to the Nazi regime. This video features a short commemorative experiment using the five-watt nuclear reactor at UNM as a neutron source to irradiate a piece of natural uranium, followed by HPGe gamma ray spectroscopy to identify major fission-product radioactivities at various times afterward. Although hundreds of such products are formed, I discuss just a few of the "heavy hitters".