Look Who it Was Random video

Hans Bethe - My postdoc students at Cornell (69/158)

2,598 views · Published 27 June 2017 · 1:54 · Indexed 17 October 2026

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

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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: It's a very stimulating atmosphere, certainly not the desert that I thought surrounded Ithaca when I first came here.

[SS] And just to complete that picture, before we come to another facet of the late '30s, you now have how many students doing PhDs for you by the '37, '38?

I think three. At least three I remember. Meiers, Baroodi and van der Lage.

[SS] And then the two postdocs.

And the two postdocs.

[SS] And you teach of the order of three to four courses a year.

Yes.

[SS] And summers are... You should say one thing about summers.

Well in the summer of '36 and '38 I went to the summer school at Ann Arbor, which was a great institution. It brought together many guest lecturers. Fermi was there at one time, not simultaneous with me. I think Breit was there at the same time as I. Ewald was there together with me in '38, and there was a stimulating group of theorists at Michigan: Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit and...

[SS] Laporte...

Laporte and Colby.

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