October 1, 2016 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Why these United States attracted so many great minds
In 1933 Hans Bethe knew his days are numbered in Germany.
Wisely, he left for England with Sommerfeld using his good connections with William Lawrence Bragg (the son Bragg) at the University of Manchester.
In Manchester, Hans moved in with his compatriot and a fellow Jew refugee and physicist Rudolf Peierls.
Together they solved the problem of photodisintegration of deuterium.
It is a major reaction in supernovae in which deuterium upon taking energy from gamma rays first gets excited then decays into a proton and a neutron.
This association with Peierls kindled in Hans an interest for nuclear physics.
Luckily for Hans, Cornell was in need of a mathematical physicist where Lloyd Smith his old acquaintance of Munich strongly recommended his name.
Incidentally Bragg happened to be visiting Cornell at that very same time and he too gave his recommendation.
This dual recommendation did it!
Finally in February of 1935 Hans Bethe made it to the United States leaving England’s University of Bristol where he was doing his fellowship.
As you can see, sometime after 1910 or maybe 1920, Europe ceased to be dominant powerhouse of science.
America was investing and nurturing in its universities like no other country.
The best example of this to my mind is the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton, New Jersey that was established in 1930.
IAS is predominantly known for giving shelter and being the academic home to the three greatest refugees fleeing the Nazi Europe in 1930s.
They were Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and John von Neumann
It’s chief architect and principal conceptualizer was a very little known man by the name of Abraham Flexner who since his childhood was extremely passionately interested in quality education.
Abraham Flexner born in 1866 in Kentucky, United States was the sixth of nine children born to German Jew immigrants.
Just to remind you, it was not a very pleasant time to be in the United States as first of all, it was just half of its present size, missing was nearly the entire western part of it.
Secondly, the country had erupted into a civil war where nearly the entire inferior half of the country wanted to go its own way.
For sake of comparison, imagine half of India below the horizontal line cutting across the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal wanting to go its own way.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
These United States were bitterly divided both figuratively and literally in 1860, the time when Abraham Flexner was born (1866)
All the 3 were principally mathematicians and dreamers
It was this endowment of brother and sister duo of Louis Bamberger and Caroline (Bamberger) Fuld that gave shelter and warmth to the greatest minds of Europe
Bedtime Story
Why these United States attracted so many great minds
In 1933 Hans Bethe knew his days are numbered in Germany.
Wisely, he left for England with Sommerfeld using his good connections with William Lawrence Bragg (the son Bragg) at the University of Manchester.
In Manchester, Hans moved in with his compatriot and a fellow Jew refugee and physicist Rudolf Peierls.
Together they solved the problem of photodisintegration of deuterium.
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It is a major reaction in supernovae in which deuterium upon taking energy from gamma rays first gets excited then decays into a proton and a neutron.
This association with Peierls kindled in Hans an interest for nuclear physics.
Luckily for Hans, Cornell was in need of a mathematical physicist where Lloyd Smith his old acquaintance of Munich strongly recommended his name.
Incidentally Bragg happened to be visiting Cornell at that very same time and he too gave his recommendation.
This dual recommendation did it!
Finally in February of 1935 Hans Bethe made it to the United States leaving England’s University of Bristol where he was doing his fellowship.
As you can see, sometime after 1910 or maybe 1920, Europe ceased to be dominant powerhouse of science.
America was investing and nurturing in its universities like no other country.
The best example of this to my mind is the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton, New Jersey that was established in 1930.
IAS is predominantly known for giving shelter and being the academic home to the three greatest refugees fleeing the Nazi Europe in 1930s.
They were Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and John von Neumann
It’s chief architect and principal conceptualizer was a very little known man by the name of Abraham Flexner who since his childhood was extremely passionately interested in quality education.
Abraham Flexner born in 1866 in Kentucky, United States was the sixth of nine children born to German Jew immigrants.
Just to remind you, it was not a very pleasant time to be in the United States as first of all, it was just half of its present size, missing was nearly the entire western part of it.
Secondly, the country had erupted into a civil war where nearly the entire inferior half of the country wanted to go its own way.
For sake of comparison, imagine half of India below the horizontal line cutting across the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal wanting to go its own way.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
These United States were bitterly divided both figuratively and literally in 1860, the time when Abraham Flexner was born (1866)
Einstein with Abraham Flexner in the 1930s
Institute for Advanced Study in 1930s at Princeton, New Jersey that became the academic home to arguably the 3 greatest European minds fleeing the Nazi Europe: Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and John von Neumann
All the 3 were principally mathematicians and dreamers
It was this endowment of brother and sister duo of Louis Bamberger and Caroline (Bamberger) Fuld that gave shelter and warmth to the greatest minds of Europe
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