Stan’s Obligatory Blog

3/7/2005

Hans Bethe

Filed under: — stan @ 1:47 pm

I just read that Hans Bethe has died:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14079-2005Mar7.html

He was one of the giants of 20th-century physics. When I was in college, his name came up often in the quantum mechanics and nuclear physics textbooks.

One day not long before I graduated from college in 1982, I stopped by the Bonner Nuclear Lab at Rice to talk to my professor, Dr. Phillips. While we were chatting, his secretary buzzed him:

“Dr. Phillips, I have Hans Bethe on the phone for you.”

So he excused himself and picked up the phone:

“Hello Hans! How are you?”

I thought it was really amazing that I knew someone who was actually on a first-name basis with one of the legends of physics.

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