Hans Bethe - Later Work

Later Work

In 1967, Bethe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars". His postulate was that the source of this stellar nucleosynthesis was thermonuclear reactions in which hydrogen is converted into helium.

Bethe was also noted for his theories on atomic properties. In the late 1940s, he provided the first way out of the infinities that plagued the explanation of the so-called Lamb shift. Although his calculation was a non-relativistic one, it provided the impetus for later work done by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger and others which marked the beginning of modern quantum electrodynamics.

Bethe continued to do research on supernovae, neutron stars, black holes, and other problems in theoretical astrophysics into his late nineties. In doing this, he collaborated with Gerald Brown of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In his 80s, he wrote an important article about the solar neutrino problem in which he dealt with the conversion of electron neutrinos into muon neutrinos that was proposed to explain the discrepancy between theory and experiment. Physicist Kurt Gottfried says that he does not know anyone in the history of modern physics who has done work of such calibre in his 80s.

Bethe's hobbies included a passion for history and also stamp-collecting. About the latter, he wryly remarked that it was the only instance where all the countries in the world could coexist by each other's side in peace. He loved the outdoors, and was an enthusiastic mountain climber all his life. Bethe was also known for his sense of humor, and once published a parody in 1931, On the Quantum Theory of the Temperature of Absolute Zero where he calculated the fine structure constant from the absolute zero temperature in Celsius units, causing a scandal in the scientific world. This second parody paper was intended to characterize a certain class of papers in theoretical physics of the day, which were purely speculative and based on spurious numerical arguments such as Sir Arthur Eddington's claim to have calculated the fine structure constant from fundamental quantities in an earlier paper. He has also, wrongly, been credited for allowing his name to be used in the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper in which he did not participate; in fact, George Gamow added Bethe's name without consulting him, and against Ralph Alpher's wishes.

Bethe died in his home in Ithaca, New York on March 6, 2005 of congestive heart failure. At the time of his death, he was the John Wendell Anderson Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. He also was, reaching the age of 98, the third-oldest Nobel laureate ever. Since his death, Cornell has announced that the third of five new residential colleges, each of which will be named after a distinguished former member of the Cornell faculty, will be named the Hans Bethe House.

While lecturing at Duke University in 1937, Hans Bethe met Rose Ewald, who was a daughter of his former professor Paul Peter Ewald. They were married in September 1939. The Bethes, who had two children, Henry and Monica, spent most of their lives in Ithaca.