Hans Bethe

Hans Albrecht Bethe (pronounced Bay-tuh; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005), was a German-American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1967 for his discovery of stellar nucleosynthesis. During World War II, he was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory developing the first atomic bombs. His team worked out the critical mass of uranium-235 necessary to sustain the fission reaction that would enable the bomb to explode.

Honors

Awards

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• Henry Draper Medal (1947)
• Max Planck medal (1955)
• Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1961)
• Rumford Prize (1963)
• Nobel prize in physics (1967)
• Bruce Medal (2001)

Named after him

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• Asteroid 30828 Bethe
• Hans Bethe Prize of the American Physical Society