- Person
- Hans Bethe
- Lived
- 1906–2005
- Field
- Theoretical physics
- From
- German-born American
The story
Few people understood the energy locked inside the atomic nucleus as thoroughly as Hans Bethe. In 1938 and 1939 he worked out the fusion reactions that make the Sun and the stars shine, the discovery that later brought him the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics. During the Second World War he led the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos, where the first atomic bombs were designed.
After the war Bethe became one of the most respected scientific critics of the nuclear arms race. He campaigned with Albert Einstein and the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists against nuclear testing, and he was among the leading scientific voices behind the 1963 treaty that ended American, British and Soviet tests in the atmosphere. Yet he drew a firm line between weapons and power stations. In 1977 he described electricity from nuclear energy as “a necessity, not merely an option”, and through the 1980s and 1990s he campaigned for its peaceful use.
That position was tested by the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. Bethe served on a committee of experts that analysed the accident. They concluded that the reactor had a fundamentally faulty design and that human error had contributed significantly to what happened. Summing up their findings, he said that he and his colleagues had established that Chernobyl revealed the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than problems with nuclear power itself.
His support for nuclear electricity went hand in hand with his work to restrain nuclear weapons. In the 1980s he joined other physicists in opposing President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1995, at the age of 88, he wrote an open letter calling on all scientists to “cease and desist” from any work on the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons. He was also a longtime board member of the Council for a Livable World, whose Washington home is now named the Hans Bethe Center.
The historian Gregg Herken observed that after Robert Oppenheimer's death, Bethe took on the role of America's scientist of conscience. For a man who had helped to build the first atomic bombs, that conscience meant steering nuclear science toward uses that served people, such as generating electricity, while working to keep its destructive power in check. He remained an advocate for both causes until his death in Ithaca, New York, in 2005.
Why it matters
Bethe's voice lent scientific authority to the case for low-carbon nuclear electricity at a time of growing public fear.
About Hans Bethe
Refugee physicist who explained how the stars shine, led theory at Los Alamos, cracked the Lamb shift and spent half a century campaigning against the nuclear arms race; Nobel Prize 1967.
More about Hans Bethe
- Hans Bethe's 1931 method still solves quantum puzzlesWhile working with Enrico Fermi in Rome in 1931, Hans Bethe devised the Bethe ansatz, a method for exactly solving certain quantum many-body problems.
- 'Bethe's Bible' taught a generation nuclear physicsIn 1936–37 Hans Bethe, with Robert Bacher and Stanley Livingston, wrote three review articles so complete they became known as 'Bethe's Bible'.
- Hans Bethe explained how the stars shineIn 1938–39 Hans Bethe worked out the nuclear reactions that power the Sun and stars, work that won him the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- The Bethe formula tracks radiation through matterIn 1930 Hans Bethe derived a formula for how fast charged particles lose energy passing through matter, still used across physics today.
- Bethe showed missile defence could be fooled by decoysIn 1968 Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin argued that missile defences could be defeated by simple decoys, an argument that helped lead to the 1972 ABM Treaty.
- Hans Bethe helped secure the 1963 Test Ban TreatyHans Bethe served on the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1956 to 1964 and helped bring about the 1963 treaty banning atmospheric nuclear tests.
- Hans Bethe cracked the Lamb shift on a trainIn 1947, on a train to Schenectady, Hans Bethe calculated the Lamb shift, showing quantum electrodynamics could work and opening modern particle physics.
- At 85, Hans Bethe helped solve the solar neutrino puzzleAt the age of 85, Hans Bethe wrote an important paper on the solar neutrino problem, helping establish that neutrinos change type on their way from the Sun.
Sources
- Hans Bethe Wikipedia
- Hans Bethe Atomic Heritage Foundation
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.