Ten fun facts about Hans Bethe

Fact 1
Hans Bethe was born on 2nd July, 1906 in Strassburg, Alsace.

Fact 2
In 1926 he joined Sommerfeld’s seminar to study with Arnold Sommerfeld, an outstanding university physics teacher in Germany.

Fact 3
In 1930 Hans Bethe spent a semester in Cambridge under the aegis of Ralph Fowler and spent a semester in Rome working with Enrico Fermi.

Fact 4
In 1932 Bethe obtained an appointment in Tubingen as an acting assistant professor or theoretical physics.

Fact 5
He went to Bristol during the fall semester of the academic year 1934 – 1935 and arrived in Ithaca, New York in February 1935.

Fact 6
In 1938, he formulated the nuclear physics responsible for energy producing in stars. He played a major role in the development of radar and atomic weapons during World War II.

Fact 7
In the early 1950’s he also was involved in developing the larger hydrogen bomb.

Fact 8
As a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, Bethe was able to persuade President Eisenhower to commit the United States to a ban on atmospheric nuclear tests and this treaty was ratified in 1963.

Fact 9
Hans Bethe died of congestive heart failure on 6th March 2005 in his retirement community home in Cayuga Heights, New York.

Fact 10
Bethe was the greatest of the theoretical physicists of the twentieth century.

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