HANS ALBRECHT BETHE


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Hans Albrecht Bethe

Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills., Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons..
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Bethe was the head of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos and was one of the Senior Scientists who developed the Atomic Bomb. At the time, he was very enthusiastic about scientists helping to stop the Germans and Japanese from winning WWII. He had been a refugee from Nazi Germany and became a great American Patriot. However, when there were tens of thousands of nuclear weapons—enough to destroy the entire population centers of the earth several times over, he urged a reduction and finally made this plea the year before he died. See {628438} for a recent expression of the principle of individual scientist’s responsibility.

Hans Albrecht Bethe

We need science education to produce scientists, but we need it equally to create literacy in the public. Man has a fundamental urge to comprehend the world about him …
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Bethe was the head of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos and was one of the Senior Scientists who developed the Atomic Bomb.

Hans Albrecht Bethe

In Los Alamos we were motivated by the desire to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans could do it. That was our main motivation …. The Germans surrendered before the bomb was ready and so it was obvious to use it against our remaining enemy [Japan].
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Bethe and other European refugees joined American and British scientists at Los Alamos, NM, for the development of the atomic bomb.

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Hans Albrecht Bethe
© Los Alamos National Laboratory
Hans Albrecht Bethe
  • Born: July 2, 1906
  • Died: March 6, 2005
  • Nationality: German, American
  • Profession:
Biography

Hans Albrecht Bethe was a German-American nuclear physicist who made important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.