It is with great sadness that we report the death of Hans Bethe, physicist, at the age of 98.
Born in 1906 in Strasbourg, Germany, Bethe became one of the most important and well respected scientists of our age. After working with both Arnold Sommerfeld and Enrico Fermi Bethe left Germany in 1933 after losing his job as a result of the new Nazi regime. In 1935 he was appointed Assistant Professor at Cornell University, where he remained for the rest of his career.
During the 2nd World War Bethe was the Director of the Theoretical Physics division at Los Alamos, where he worked on the theory, design and testing of the first atomic bomb. After Hiroshima Bethe was moved to form, with others, the Federation of American Scientists in order to try and convince the American government and people that the nucleus should not be used as a weapon of destruction. Bethe continued to study the theory of atomic nuclei, and his work on nuclear reactions led to the reactions which are the origin of solar and stellar energy, work for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967.
Hans Bethe was filmed for Peoples Archive in December 1996, when he spoke in great detail on his life and work for approximately seven hours, material which is presented on our site in the form of 158 stories. To view these stories,
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To view the Hans Bethe stories in the Trailers section,
click here.
