Hans Bethe - Heisenberg's theory on the composition of a nucleus (41/158)
3,864 views · Published 27 June 2017 · 1:15 · Indexed 10 November 2026
Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology
To hear more of Hans Bethe’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvgLyzTEmJk&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyUDSroBQVEcbnNud7I9xom 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: Now, Heisenberg, as soon as the neutron had been discovered, wrote two very useful papers saying 'Well now we know how the nucleus is made up. It's made of neutrons and protons. They are substantial particles, they can very easily fit into the nucleus by wave mechanics. We can get their wave functions inside the nucleus. We can get their interaction.' And then after Heisenberg, Majorana improved that interaction, Wigner got into the act and suggested a third type of interaction. Heisenberg actually was wrong about the interaction he proposed. Majorana was the one most closely right, and so Peierls and I both began working on nuclear physics.
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