BETHE, H. A.

Range-Energy Relation for Slow Alpha-Particles and Protons in Air.

Lancaster, American Physical Society, 1950. Lex8vo. Entire volume in the original printed orange wrappers. Minor miscolouring to front wrapper, otherwise a fine and clean copy. [Bethe:] Pp. 212-19. [Entire issue: 119-219 pp].

First printing of Bethe's much used paper which sums the research within Slow Alpha-Particles.

In an interview Bethe was asked:
"INTERVIEWER: It[The present paper] is certainly bringing every- thing up to date and making some corrections, and also it apparently is the first Reviews of Modern Physics paper since the three articles in the thirties. So it is significant in that double sense. I would like to ask if I am right in my interpretation of this kind of mediating service role, and whether you were conscious about playing that role, and what led up to this 1950 version of it?
BETHE: I was very conscious of it and I think I had become even more conscious at Los Alamos where this was a very essential function to perform, to give something to the experimenters that was really useful and derived from the theory. I have felt that all the time. I felt also the obligation of keeping things somewhat organized in the scientific sense, that when people go off on tangents and do something that obviously is not very closely related to the subject, to reemphasize what is the important point in the subject. I think up to the middle of the fifties I was conscious of that role and to some extent was able to do so. Since then, I know I haven't, certainly not in particle physics." (Interview with Hans A. Bethe by Charles Weiner at Cornell University, May 8, 1972).

"Bethe was one of the great physicists of the twentieth century. After the advent of quantum mechanics, in two classic articles published in 1933 in the Handbuch der Physik he detailed the applications of the new quantum theory to atomic and solid state physics. After the discovery of the neutron in 1932 in a series of articles in the Reviews of Modern Physics, he did the same for nuclear physics. In 1938 he formulated the nuclear physics responsible for energy production in stars. During World War II he contributed importantly to the development of radar and of atomic weapons. Because of his involvement in making A- and H-bombs possible, he subsequently devoted considerable efforts in limiting further developments of atomic weaponry and bringing about international agreements for the reduction of extant nuclear weapons and the curtailment of their production and design. He made Cornell University, his base of operation from 1935 until his death, an outstanding center of theoretical physics and a model research community in all branches of physics." (DSB).

Order-nr.: 44887