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Yes, we all know
about the genius of
Albert Einstein. And
I fully agree with
the accolades and
praise that have
been heaped
copiously on his
high IQ head. What a
remarkable intellect
and insight the man
had! But you know,
in my books there is
a guy I admire even
more than Einstein –
a gentleman I met
personally on quite
a few occasions and
even had the
opportunity to speak
briefly and
superficially while
I studied at Cornell
University in
Ithaca, New York
state. My promoter
at Cornell
University was
Professor F C
Steward, a
brilliant,
diminutive
Englishman, who
seems to have had
regular running
battles with the
University
Administrators. As a
result he ended up
with his laboratory
outside the
Biological Sciences
block, viz. in the
Mann Building of
Physics. And it was
here that I
sometimes saw
Professor Hans
Bethe in the
passageway (on my -
and his - way to and
from the men’s
toilet!). I even
once attended one of
his lectures, but he
used so many
formulas and
equations that he
lost me halfway
through the lecture!
Nevertheless, the
little I did
understand made me
realize that I was
in the presence of
intellectual titan.
Hans Bethe was the
physicist who
literally sat down
with pencil and
paper in the years
before
super-computers and
worked out how stars
could produce
radiant energy for
millions of years
without burning out
(the so-called
carbon-oxygen-nitrogen
cycle)! Amazing! For
this work – and
numerous other
scientific
contributions – he
was awarded the
Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1967. He
was also to a large
extent the head
(read ‘brains’)
behind the Manhattan
Project in which
America developed
the atomic bomb
during World War II
(as Head of the
Theoretical
Division). Hans
Bethe was born in
Germany in 1906,
fled Nazi Germany,
and became a
naturalised American
in 1941. He died at
Ithaca on 6 March
2006.
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