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Hans Bethe, Prober of Sunlight and Atomic Energy, Dies at 98 [1]
['William J. Broad']
Date: 2005-03-08
Despite the political activism that marked his later life, Dr. Bethe never abandoned his first love -- science. With what might be seen as poetic finesse, he turned his attention to the question of why old stars can suddenly explode with the brilliance of an entire galaxy. An average star like the sun dies quietly. But larger ones can die violently, though no one is quite sure why. "They go on a rampage," Dr. Bethe said with a smile, the blackboard behind him filled with equations. "In a year they emit as much energy as the sun does in 10 billion years of history. Why does this happen?"
At the start, he said, the central part of a star exhausts its fuel supply, collapsing so fast that the outside of the star stays uninvolved. The small core then bounces back. "The question we are studying," he said, "is whether that shock wave is strong enough to go all the way through the star and to expel essentially all its outside, because that is what is observed in supernovas."
In addition to his wife, Dr. Bethe is survived by two children, Henry, of Ithaca, and Monica, who lives near Kyoto, Japan, and three grandchildren.
In 1995, many of Dr. Bethe's colleagues gathered to mark his 60th year at Cornell with a two-day tribute. "If you know his work," commented John Bahcall, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study, "you might be inclined to think he is really several people, all of whom are engaged in a conspiracy to sign their work with the same name."
Alan Lightman, a physicist and author at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled attending a meeting with Dr. Bethe in October 1997, after the celebrated physicist had turned 91. He expected reminiscences. But Dr. Bethe, after tottering up to the podium, surprised him. "It was a paper on astrophysics that he had just published," Dr. Lightman recalled. "And it was good."
Dr. Schweber of Brandeis University, a physicist and historian, said Dr. Bethe achieved a life of professional and personal fulfillment because he learned the redemptive power of love, of serving family and friends, students and society. Dr. Bethe's élan seemed to confirm that judgment. "I am a very happy person," he said with a relaxed smile a few years ago. "I wouldn't want to change what I did."
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/science/hans-bethe-prober-of-sunlight-and-atomic-energy-dies-at-98.html
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