Nuclear Giant Hans Bethe dies at 98.

[NNadir]

"Hans Bethe, who discovered the violent force behind sunlight, helped devise the atom bomb and eventually cried out against the military excesses of the cold war, died late Sunday. He was 98, among the last of the giants who inaugurated the nuclear age.

His death was announced by Cornell University, where he worked and taught for 70 years. A spokesman said he died quietly at home.

Except for the war years at Los Alamos, N.M., Dr. Bethe lived in Ithaca, N.Y., an unpretentious man of uncommon gifts...

...For nearly eight decades, Dr. Bethe (pronounced BAY-tah) pioneered some of the most esoteric realms of physics and astrophysics, politics and armaments, long advising the federal government and in time emerging as the science community's liberal conscience...

...Politically, Dr. Bethe was the liberal counterpoint (and proud of it) to Edward Teller, the physicist and conservative who played a dominant role in developing the hydrogen bomb. That weapon brought to earth a more furious kind of solar fusion, and Dr. Bethe opposed its development as immoral.

For more than half a century, he championed many forms of arms control and nuclear disarmament, becoming a hero of the liberal intelligentsia. His wife called him a dove, Dr. Bethe once told an interviewer, adding his own qualifier: "A tough dove." His gentle manner hid an iron will and mind that had few hesitations about identifying what he saw as error, hypocrisy or danger...

...Throughout life, he remained a staunch advocate of nuclear power, defending it as an answer to inevitable fossil-fuel shortages..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/science/08cnd-bethe.html?hp

You cannot be too sad when a human being of this caliber lives to be 98, but the passing of Dr. Bethe - the discoverer of the solar nuclear cycle - deserves a moment of reflection and respect.

[hatrack]

1. One of the top four or five physicists of the 20th Century, I'd say

Rutherford, Einstein, Bohr and Feynmann also come quickly to mind when I think of Bethe, but not too many others do. It doesn't get much more fundamental than figuring out the lives and deaths of stars, and the source of their power.

So long, professor!

[NNadir]

2. I think you may be right.

He's one of those rare scientists whose life seems irreplacable. (I would have to had the curious case of Werner Heisenberg to your list by the way.)

I was very pleased to read in Bethe's obituary that many of his views parallel my own:

"...In the 1970's, after the Arab oil embargo started a global economic crisis, Dr. Bethe threw himself into championing new ways to produce energy. In articles, speeches and Congressional hearings, he argued that the dangers of nuclear reactors were small compared with many other risks judged to be socially acceptable..."

From the NY Times Obituary referenced above.