Physics World: Hans Bethe’s early life
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Hans Bethe
Hans Albrecht Eduard Bethe was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.
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science · German-American physicist (1906–2005) · physicist · university teacher · nuclear physicist · scientist · also Hans Bethe, Hans Albrecht Bethe, Hans A. Bethe, Bethe
Born 2 July 1906 · Died 6 March 2005 · Q155794
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2012· 1 entry
2005· 8 entries
SpaceNews: In ‘bittersweet’ ceremony, Hans Bethe is posthumously awarded American Philosophical Society’s Benjamin Franklin Medal
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BBC Science/Nature: A-bomb architect Hans Bethe dies
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SFGate: Hans Bethe -- worked on A-bomb, feared space weaponry
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NPR: Pioneering Physicist Hans Bethe Dies at 98
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The Washington Post: Hans Bethe Dies
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Died 2005-03-06.
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“You should look at all the experimental information at hand, not only the most relevant, and be prepared to make conjectures if that helps.”
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“In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered.”
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2004· 2 entries
Awarded honorary member of the Physics Association (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (2004).
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Joined 47 other Nobel laureates in signing a letter endorsing John Kerry for President of the United States as someone who would "restore science to its appropriate place in government"
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2002· 1 entry
At age 96, Bethe sent a handwritten note to John N
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2001· 1 entry
Won Bruce Medal (2001).
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1996· 1 entry
Kip Thorne approached Bethe and Brown about LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory designed to detect the gravitational waves from merging neutron stars and black holes
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1995· 1 entry
At the age of 88, Bethe wrote an open letter calling on all scientists to "cease and desist" from working on any aspect of nuclear weapons development and manufacture
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1993· 2 entries
Won Royal Society Bakerian Medal (1993).
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Won Oersted Medal (1993).
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1992· 1 entry
Awarded Albert Einstein Peace Prize (1992).
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1990· 1 entry
Won Oskar Klein Medal (1990).
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1989· 1 entry
Won Lomonosov Gold Medal (1989).
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Leo Szilard Lectureship Award (1981).
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1978· 2 entries
Brown proposed that they collaborate on supernovae
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Was elected a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
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1976· 1 entry
Won Niels Bohr International Gold Medal (1976).
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1975· 2 entries
Won National Medal of Science (1975).
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The Oersted Medal in 1993, the Bruce Medal in 2001, and posthumously in 2005, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences by the American Philosophical Society
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1968· 2 entries
On the apparent contradiction in his stance, having first opposed the development of the weapon and later helping to create it:
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Bethe, along with IBM physicist Richard Garwin, published an article criticising in detail the anti-ICBM defense system proposed by the Department of Defense
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1967· 3 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics — for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics (1967).
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For his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis
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1963· 1 entry
Awarded Rumford Prize (1963).
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1962· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962).
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1961· 2 entries
Awarded Enrico Fermi Award (1961).
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Won Eddington Medal (1961).
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1959· 1 entry
Won Franklin Medal (1959).
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1957· 2 entries
Awarded Foreign Member of the Royal Society (1957).
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And he gave the 1993 Bakerian Lecture at the Royal Society on the Mechanism of Supernovae
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1955· 3 entries
Won Max Planck Medal (1955).
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The Franklin Medal in 1959, the Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal and the United States Atomic Energy Commission Enrico Fermi Award in 1961, the Rumford Prize in 1963, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967, the Nat
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Career landmark: chairperson (1955–1955).
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1954· 1 entry
Bethe testified on behalf of J
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1948· 1 entry
Won Henry Draper Medal (1948).
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1947· 3 entries
And that year, he also received the National Academy of Sciences's Henry Draper Medal and was elected to the American Philosophical Society
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Wrote an important paper which provided the calculation of the Lamb shift, which is credited with revolutionizing quantum electrodynamics and further "opened the way to the modern era of particle physics"
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Bethe confided that "I am much more at home in America than I ever was in Germany
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1945· 2 entries
Bethe's immediate concern was for its efficient operation, and not its moral implications
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Worked on the neutron initiator, and later, on radiation propagation from an exploding atomic bomb
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1939· 1 entry
Bethe published a paper which established the CNO cycle as the primary energy source for heavier stars in the main sequence classification of stars, which earned him a Nobel Prize in 1967
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1938· 1 entry
Bethe attended the Carnegie Institute and George Washington University's fourth annual Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics
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1936· 1 entry
With an assurance that promotion to professor would soon follow
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1935· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Physical Society (1935).
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1933· 3 entries
Career landmark: Emigration from Nazi Germany 1933-1945.
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The physics department at Cornell University, New York, was looking for a new theoretical physicist, and Lloyd Smith strongly recommended Bethe
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Moving to England after receiving an offer for a position as lecturer at the University of Manchester for a year through Sommerfeld's connection to William Lawrence Bragg
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1932· 1 entry
Bethe accepted an appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Tübingen, where Hans Geiger was the professor of experimental physics
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1931· 2 entries
Studied at Sapienza University of Rome (1930–1931).
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Bethe developed the Bethe ansatz, which is a method for finding the exact solutions for the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of certain one-dimensional quantum many-body models
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1930· 2 entries
Studied at University of Cambridge (1929–1930).
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Bethe chose to do postdoctoral work at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in England, where he worked under the supervision of Ralph Fowler
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1929· 1 entry
Accepted an offer from Ewald at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart
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1928· 1 entry
Studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (1926–1928).
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1926· 1 entry
Studied at Goethe University Frankfurt (1924–1926).
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1925· 1 entry
And was replaced by Karl Meissner, who advised Bethe that he should go to a university with a better school of theoretical physics, specifically the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, where he could study under Arno
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1916· 1 entry
When he contracted tuberculosis, and he was sent to Bad Kreuznach to recuperate
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1915· 1 entry
When his father became the head of the new Institute of Physiology at the University of Frankfurt am Main
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1912· 1 entry
And the family moved into the director's apartment at the institute
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1906· 2 entries
The only child of Anna (née Kuhn) and Albrecht Bethe, a Privatdozent of physiology at the University of Strasbourg
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Born 1906-07-02.
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