Bethe, Hans Albrecht 1906-
US physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Strassburg, Germany (now Strasbourg, France), he was educated at the universities of Frankfurt and Munich. He taught in Germany until 1933 when he moved first to England and then to the USA, where he held the chair of physics at Cornell University until his retirement (1935-75, now emeritus). During World War II he was director of theoretical physics for the Manhattan atomic bomb project based at Los Alamos. In 1939 he proposed the first detailed theory for the generation of energy by stars through a series of nuclear reactions. He also contributed with Ralph Alpher and George Gamow to the 'alpha, beta, gamma' theory of the origin of the chemical elements during the early development of the universe. He was awarded the 1967 Nobel Prize for physics.

Bibliography: Jeremy Bernstein, Hans Bethe, Prophet of Energy (1980)