# Hans Bethe

| Hans Bethe |
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| Born | Hans Albrecht Bethe (1906-07-02)July 2, 1906 Strasbourg, Germany |
| Died | March 6, 2005(2005-03-06) (aged 98) Ithaca, New York, United States |
| Nationality | German American |
| Alma mater | University of Frankfurt University of Munich |
| Known for | * Nuclear physics
* Stellar nucleosynthesis
* Quantum electrodynamics
* Cavity perturbation theory
* Crystal field theory
* Bethe–Salpeter equation
* Bethe-Slater curve
* Bethe formula
* Bethe-Heitler formula
* Bethe–Feynman formula
* Mott-Bethe formula
* Bethe lattice
* Bethe ansatz
* Bethe–Weizsäcker formula
* Bethe–Weizsäcker process
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| Spouse | Rose Ewald (married in 1939; two children) |
| Awards | * 1939 A. Cressy Morrison Prize
* 1947 Henry Draper Medal
* 1957 ForMemRS
* 1959 Franklin Medal
* 1961 Eddington Medal
* 1961 Enrico Fermi Award
* 1963 Rumford Prize
* 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics
* 1975 Nat'l Medal of Science
* 1989 Lomonosov Gold Medal
* 1993 Oersted Medal
* 2001 Bruce Medal
* 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal
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| **Scientific career** |
| Fields | Nuclear physics |
| Institutions | * University of Tübingen
* Cornell University
* University of Bristol
* University of Manchester
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| Doctoral advisor | Arnold Sommerfeld |
| Doctoral students | * Michel Baranger
* David B. Beard
* Peter A. Carruthers
* Ajoy Ghatak
* Asoke Nath Mitra
* Jeffrey Goldstone
* Roman Jackiw
* Robert Eugene Marshak
* Walter McAfee
* Michael Nauenberg
* John W. Negele
* Mark Nelkin
* Ramamurti Rajaraman
* J. J. Sakurai
* Gordon Shaw
* David J. Thouless
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| Other notable students | Freeman Dyson |
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**Hans Albrecht Bethe** (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈbeːtə] (listen); July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American nuclear physicist.

Bethe made important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics. He who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis.

For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University. The notes of his classes are on nuclear physics and applications of quantum mechanics.

During World War II, he was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory that developed the first atomic bombs. There he played a key role in calculating the critical mass of the weapons. He and others developed the theory behind the implosion method used in the Trinity test and the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.

After the war, Bethe also played an important role in the development of the hydrogen bomb, although he had originally joined the project with the hope of proving it could not be made. Bethe later campaigned with Albert Einstein and others against nuclear testing and the nuclear arms race. He helped persuade the Kennedy and Nixon administrations to sign treaties limiting nuclear tests.

His scientific research never stopped. He published papers well into his nineties. He published at least one major paper in his field during every decade of his career, which in Bethe's case spanned nearly seventy years. Freeman Dyson, once his doctoral student, called him the "supreme problem-solver of the 20th century".