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Hans Bethe - Chain reactions and atomic bombs (80/158)

2,161 views · Published 27 June 2017 · 1:56 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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German-born theoretical physicist Hans Bethe (1906-2005) was one of the first scientists to join the Manhattan Project, later strongly advocating nuclear disarmament. In 1967, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. [Listener: Sam Schweber; date recorded: 1996]

TRANSCRIPT: The discovery of fission, as many physicists realized, brought with it the possibility of having a nuclear chain reaction, namely a neutron makes a fission in uranium and that emits several neutrons which then could fission another uranium and that could give you a chain reaction so that essentially all the uranium would disintegrate. And in this disintegration an enormous amount of energy would be set free, so it was clear to most physicists that this could lead to a new source of power and to a new weapon. Tuve wanted to keep that secret from the press. There was a lot of discussion at this Washington meeting in 1939 not connected with far away stars, but connected with tremendous energies on this earth. Enrico Fermi had come over to the United States, just at the same time. He was settled at Columbia University and he made it his business to explore the process of fission in detail and possibly make the chain reaction a reality.

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