final credits - hans bethe
Hans Bethe won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how the Sun and other stars generate energy. He also played a pivotal role in designing the first atomic bomb. Bethe, who had fled Nazi Germany in 1935, wound up as head of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Like so many other scientists who worked on development of the atomic bomb, Bethe spent the rest of his life opposed to nuclear proliferation. Bethe died March 6, 2005 at age 98.
In the infancy of modern atomic theory, Bethe spelled out what was known and unknown in nuclear physics in a classic series of papers dubbed Bethe's Bible, laying out the groundwork for the development of quantum electrodynamics.
In a 1938 paper, Bethe explained how stars like the Sun fuse hydrogen into helium, releasing energy and ultimately light. That work helped establish his reputation as the father of nuclear astrophysics, and nearly 30 years later, in 1967, earned him the Nobel Prize in physics. In all, he published more than 300 scientific and technical papers, many of them originally classified secret.
In 1940, Time magazine called him "one of Nazi Germany's greatest gifts to the United States." He was helping advance radar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when an atomic recruiter came to call. Worried that Nazi Germany wanted atomic weapons, he decided that he did. In 1943, he was named the first director of the Theoretical Physics Division at Los Alamos, the secret laboratory in the mountains of New Mexico where thousands of scientists, technicians and military personnel were gathering to see if a nuclear bomb was indeed possible.
Behind rows of barbed wire, Bethe coaxed some of world's brightest experts to work hard on how to unlock the atom. Bethe's group calculated such things as how much plutonium it would take to build an atom bomb, and whether the detonation would ignite the atmosphere and destroy the earth. The weapon's reality, as it turned out, "Was worse than we expected," Bethe reflected in an interview in November 1996. "After Hiroshima, many of us said: `Let's see that it doesn't happen again.'"
After the war, Bethe became a prominent spokesman against nuclear proliferation —- arguing without success that atomic bombs should be placed under strict international controls. He made countless speeches throughout the United States arguing his case.
In April, 1950 Bethe wrote a provocative article in Scientific American magazine, arguing against development of the hydrogen bomb, an advance then seemed as looming. He had concluded that it had little military use and was primarily a weapon for incinerating civilians in large cities. "We must save humanity from this ultimate disaster," he wrote. "And we must break the habit, which seems to have taken hold of this nation, of considering every weapon as just another piece of machinery and a fair means to win our struggle with the U.S.S.R."
Politically, Bethe was the liberal counterpoint (and proud of it) to Edward Teller, the Hungarian physicist and strong conservative who played a dominant role in developing the hydrogen bomb.
Bethe initially opposed Teller's plans to build the hydrogen bomb, arguing that it was unnecessary. "We had enough A-bombs to kill the world," he said later. "Why add an H-bomb and kill the other half? So I said no to Teller ... I would not join him at Los Alamos [to advance the hydrogen bomb]."
Bethe became the spokesman for 12 physicists who opposed the project, a group that later developed the idea that the United States should publicly declare that it would not be the first to use the H-bomb "since it was not a weapon of war but a means of exterminating entire populations."
Bethe initially thought the point was moot because none of Teller's ideas for producing the bomb seemed likely to work. But in 1951, physicist Stanislaw Ulam conceived a new way to make fission bombs and Teller saw how this could be used to make a fusion bomb — using an A-bomb to trigger the H-bomb.
Bethe recognized that the bomb could be built and could undoubtedly be built by the Russians as well. "If I didn't work on the bomb, somebody else would — and I had the thought that if I were around Los Alamos, I might still be a force for disarmament," he later said.
His role was similar to that in the development of the atomic bomb, providing the theoretical underpinnings for all phases of the project.
"Interestingly, after the H-bomb was made, reporters started to call Teller the father of the H-bomb," he said. "For the sake of history, I think it is more precise to say that Ulam is the father, because he provided the seed, and Teller is the mother, because he remained with the child. As for me, I guess I am the midwife."
While Bethe did not achieve many of his arms reduction goals, he believed that all scientists should take an active role in influencing public policy.
Increasingly, he also sought ways to slow the nuclear arms race, winning new influence for his ideas in Washington. As a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee, starting in 1956, he became a driving force behind the world's first and most successful arms control pact - the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which confined nuclear tests to beneath the earth, and the 1972 ban on atmospheric nuclear tests and anti-ballistic missiles.
In the 1980's, with the arrival of the Reagan administration, Bethe again found himself the elder spokesman of scientists opposed to unfettered development of nuclear arms. And his relations with Teller again began to cool. The Pentagon, he said in an article, "proposes to address all threats - real and imagined - by raising the ante," adding, "It refuses to recognize that our worst nightmares can be laid to rest only by constraints on technology."
With passion, Bethe fought President Reagan's proposed shield against enemy missiles, known popularly as "Star Wars." It again pitted him against Teller in what would be their last battle. In February 1983, Teller tried to win over Bethe by revealing the secret details of what he considered the ultimate technical fix - the X-ray laser, powered by a nuclear bomb. It would emit powerful beams to smash Soviet warheads before consuming itself in a ball of nuclear fire, an H-bomb to destroy H-bombs.
Ultimately, the government sided with Bethe, foregoing antimissile deployments in the 1980's and 1990's, a decision the current Bush administration has now reversed. In his memoirs, Teller accused Bethe of letting his political views colour his technical judgment.
At his zenith, there seemed to be few well-defined conundrums of the cosmos that Bethe couldn't master. He could not program the simplest computer, but had no trouble digesting reams of supercomputer readouts. For help, he reached into his briefcase for a slide rule he had carried around for 70 years.
"For the things I do," he remarked a few years ago, "it's accurate enough."
He also had a habit of taking a 30-minute bath each morning.
"You sleep and things get somewhat unscrambled in your mind," he said in 1996. "Then in the bath, I can become conscious of that."
Bethe was the last of the scientific greats who initiated the nuclear era, outliving not only Teller but Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific head of wartime Los Alamos. He was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, and was among the last survivors of that era.
Notable honors that came Bethe's way include the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1946, the Max Planck Medal in 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission's Enrico Fermi Award in 1961, the National Medal of Science in 1976, the Nobel Prize in 1967, the National Science Foundation's Vannevar Bush Award in 1985, and the Einstein Peace Prize in 1993.