When Hans Bethe, at the age of 97, asked his long-term collaborator, Gerry Brown, to explain his scientific work to the world, the latter knew that this was a steep task. As the late John Bahcall famously remarked: ?If you know his (Bethe's) work, you might be inclined to think he is really several people, all of whom are engaged in a conspiracy to sign their work with the same name?. Almost eight decades of original research, hundreds of scientific papers, numerous books, countless reports spanning the key areas of 20th century physics are the impressive record of Hans Bethe's academic work.In answering Bethe's request, the editors enlisted the help of experts in the different research fields, collaborators and friends of this ?last giant? of 20th century physics. Hans Bethe and His Physics is the result. It contains discussions of Hans Bethe's work in solid state physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics; it explains his contributions as a science advisor and his stance on energy and nuclear weapons; and it demonstrates his impact as a teacher and mentor to generations of young scientists. While the book's primary aim is to explain the science behind the man, the different articles also allow the reader to take a glimpse at the man behind the science.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima, Nobel-winning physicist Hans Bethe called on his fellow scientists to stop working on weapons of mass destruction. What drove Bethe, the head of Theoretical Physics at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, to renounce the weaponry he had once worked so tirelessly to create? That is one of the questions answered by Nuclear Forces, a riveting biography of Bethe’s early life and development as both a scientist and a man of principle. As Silvan Schweber follows Bethe from his childhood in Germany, to laboratories in Italy and England, and on to Cornell University, he shows how these differing environments were reflected in the kind of physics Bethe produced. Many of the young quantum physicists in the 1930s, including Bethe, had Jewish roots, and Schweber considers how Liberal Judaism in Germany helps explain their remarkable contributions. A portrait emerges of a man whose strategy for staying on top of a deeply hierarchical field was to tackle only those problems he knew he could solve. Bethe’s emotional maturation was shaped by his father and by two women of Jewish background: his overly possessive mother and his wife, who would later serve as an ethical touchstone during the turbulent years he spent designing nuclear bombs. Situating Bethe in the context of the various communities where he worked, Schweber provides a full picture of prewar developments in physics that changed the modern world, and of a scientist shaped by the unprecedented moral dilemmas those developments in turn created.

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When Hans Bethe, at the age of 97, asked his long-term collaborator, Gerry Brown, to explain his scientific work to the world, the latter knew that this was a steep task. As the late John Bahcall famously remarked: OC If you know his (Bethe''s) work, you might be inclined to think he is really several people, all of whom are engaged in a conspiracy to sign their work with the same nameOCO. Almost eight decades of original research, hundreds of scientific papers, numerous books, countless reports spanning the key areas of 20th century physics are the impressive record of Hans Bethe''s academic work. In answering Bethe''s request, the editors enlisted the help of experts in the different research fields, collaborators and friends of this OC last giantOCO of 20th century physics. Hans Bethe and His Physics is the result. It contains discussions of Hans Bethe''s work in solid state physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics; it explains his contributions as a science advisor and his stance on energy and nuclear weapons; and it demonstrates his impact as a teacher and mentor to generations of young scientists. While the book''s primary aim is to explain the science behind the man, the different articles also allow the reader to take a glimpse at the man behind the science. Sample Chapter(s). Three Weeks with Hans Bethe (525 KB). Contents: Hans Bethe and His Physics (G E Brown); My Life in Astrophysics (H A Bethe); Three Weeks with Hans Bethe (C Adami); Hans Bethe at The New Yorker (J Bernstein); My Sixty Years with Hans Bethe (E E Salpeter); Hans Bethe (K Gottfried); OC The Happy ThirtiesOCO (S S Schweber); Steller Energy Generation and Solar Neutrinos (J N Bahcall & E E Salpeter); Hans Bethe and Quantum Electrodynamics (F Dyson); Hans Bethe and the Theory of Nuclear Matter (J W Negele); Hans Bethe and Astrophysical Theory (G E Brown); Bethe''s Hypothesis (C N Yang & M-L Ge); Hans Bethe''s Contributions to Solid-State Physics (N D Mermin & N W Ashcroft); Hans Bethe and the Nuclear Many-Body Problem (J Holt & G E Brown); And Don''t Forget the Black Holes (with Commentary) (H A Bethe et al.); Shaping Public Policy (S Drell); Hans Bethe and the Global Energy Problems (B Ioffe); In Memoriam: Hans Bethe (R L Garwin & F von Hippel); Obituary: Hans A Bethe (K Gottfried); List of Publications of Hans A Bethe. Readership: Students, physicists and historians of science."

Nearly all of this book is taken from an article prepared for a volume of the Encyclopedia of Physics. This article, in turn, is partly based on Dr. Norbert Rosenzweig's translation of an older article on the same subject, written by one of us (H.A.B.) about 25 years ago for the Geiger-Scheel Handbuch der Physik. To the article written last year we have added some Addenda and Errata. These Addenda and Errata refer back to some of the 79 sections of the main text and contain some misprint corrections, additional references and some notes. The aim of this book is two-fold. First, to act as a reference work on calcu lations pertaining to hydrogen-like and helium-like atoms and their comparison with experiments. However, these calculations involve a vast array of approximation methods, mathematical tricks and physical pictures, which are also useful in the application of quantum mechanics to other fields. In many sections we have given more general discussions of the methods and physical ideas than is necessary for the study of the H- and He-atom alone. We hope that this book will thus at least partly fulfill its second aim, namely to be of some use to graduate students who wish to learn "applied quantum mechanics". A basic knowledge of the principles of quantum mechanics, such as given in the early chapters of Schiff's or Bohm's book, is presupposed.

Hans Bethe received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1967 for his work on the production of energy in stars. He helped to shape classical physics into quantum physics and increase the understanding of the atomic processes responsible for the properties of matter and of the forces governing the structures of atomic nuclei. This collection of papers by Hans Bethe dates from 1928, when he received his PhD, to the present.

How two charismatic, exceptionally talented physicists came to terms with the nuclear weapons they helped to create In 1945, the United States dropped the bomb, and physicists were forced to contemplate disquieting questions about their roles and responsibilities. When the Cold War followed, they were confronted with political demands for their loyalty and McCarthyism's threats to academic freedom. By examining how J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hans A. Bethe—two men with similar backgrounds but divergent aspirations and characters—struggled with these moral dilemmas, one of our foremost historians of physics tells the story of modern physics, the development of atomic weapons, and the Cold War. Oppenheimer and Bethe led parallel lives. Both received liberal educations that emphasized moral as well as intellectual growth. Both were outstanding theoreticians who worked on the atom bomb at Los Alamos. Both advised the government on nuclear issues, and both resisted the development of the hydrogen bomb. Both were, in their youth, sympathetic to liberal causes, and both were later called to defend the United States against Soviet communism and colleagues against anti-Communist crusaders. Finally, both prized scientific community as a salve to the apparent failure of Enlightenment values. Yet their responses to the use of the atom bomb, the testing of the hydrogen bomb, and the treachery of domestic politics differed markedly. Bethe, who drew confidence from scientific achievement and integration into the physics community, preserved a deep integrity. By accepting a modest role, he continued to influence policy and contributed to the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963. In contrast, Oppenheimer first embodied a new scientific persona—the scientist who creates knowledge and technology affecting all humanity and boldly addresses their impact—and then could not carry its burden. His desire to retain insider status, combined with his isolation from creative work and collegial scientific community, led him to compromise principles and, ironically, to lose prestige and fall victim to other insiders. S. S. Schweber draws on his vast knowledge of science and its history—in addition to his unique access to the personalities involved—to tell a tale of two men that will enthrall readers interested in science, history, and the lives and minds of great thinkers.

As the head of the theory group at Los Alamos, Hans A. Bethe played a