Throughout his career, Bethe continued to calculate. After some brief stops, he moved to Cornell in 1935, and he helped build this into a world-class department over the next few decades.īethe also played an early role in the development of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos and later became known as the conscience of nuclear physics for his decisive role in advocating for peaceful applications of nuclear energy and advocating for limits on nuclear weapons testing and development. In 1932, he was forced out of his job in Germany for his Jewish heritage. And for this work, he won the Nobel Prize in 1967. That's the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. And the biologists had this right, but the physics explanation didn't come until 1938, when Hans Bethe discovered the nuclear reactions that power the sun. They objected that this couldn't possibly be right, because it doesn't allow enough time for the evolution of species. But the biologists of the late 1800s were not at all happy with this. So this actually satisfied the physicists for a while. And it's only enough for the sun to burn for about 30 million years. So I want to say a few words about his life in science before we start.īethe became famous for answering the question, how does the sun shine? Where does it get its energy? Well, the first guess and a guess that physicists made in 1800s is that the sun heated up when it formed from interstellar gas and dust and that this heat is just gradually radiating away, which you can- so you can do the calculation of how much heat is generated this way. So it's now become a tradition here to begin the public lecture with this slideshow of photos from Bethe's life on the screen behind me.
EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE TEAM ANDREW SERIES
This lecture series is named after Hans Bethe, who was a physicist and professor here at Cornell for nearly 70 years from 1935 to 2005.
THOMAS HARTMAN: Welcome So it's a pleasure to introduce tonight's Bethe Lecture.
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