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Hans Bethe: Celebrating "An Exemplary Life"

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Hans A. Bethe: Celebrating "An Exemplary Life" portrays the life and works of a towering figure of the twentieth century. Dale R. Corson, President Emeritus of Cornell University characterized the breadth of Bethe's influence:
"Hans Bethe participated actively in many different communities: the world of physics, the university faculty, disarmament and national defense policy, science advice to the President. In every one of these communities his intellectual impact was enormous. In addition he was the moralist and the ethicist. He was the community's conscience."

This DVD presents nearly two hours of video of the September 18, 2005, celebration held in honor of Hans Bethe. Speakers included Hunter R. Rawlings III, President, Cornell University; Silvan S. Schweber, Professor Emeritus, Brandeis University, Physicist, historian and Bethe biographer; Richard L. Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, Physicist, Bethe arms control collaborator; Kurt Gottfried, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, Physicist, Bethe arms control collaborator; Dale R Corson, President Emeritus, Cornell University, Physicist, Bethe colleague; Edwin E. Salpeter, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, Astrophysicist, Bethe scientific collaborator; Freeman J. Dyson, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Physicist and writer, Bethe colleague; Henry Bethe, son; Rose Bethe, spouse; Saul A. Teukolsky, Physics Department Chair, Cornell University.

The articles published in the October 2005 special issue of Physics Today with guest editor Kurt Gottfried are reprinted here and describe his early years, his personal attributes and many of Nobel Laureate Bethe's seminal contributions to physics and astrophysics: Silvan S. Schweber, "The Happy Thirties"; John N. Bachall and Edwin Salpeter, "Stellar Energy Generation and Solar Neutrinos"; Freeman Dyson, "Hans Bethe and Quantum Electrodynamics"; Richard Garwin and Kurt Gottfried, "Hans in War and Peace"; John W. Negele, "Hans Bethe and the Theory of Nuclear Matter"; Gerald E. Brown, "Hans Bethe and Astrophysical Theory".

The 16-page special supplement to the September 15, 2005, The Cornell Chronicle, "Hans Bethe: Celebration of His Life and Times", is also reprinted here. A photo gallery indudes both a formal collection from the Rare and Manuscript Collection of Cornell's Kroch Library and an informal collection of images by physicists John Negele and Michael Nauenberg.