October 29, 2016 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Hans Bethe Rescues His Mother with His Nobel Prize Winning Paper
(Now lets see who can call mathematical physics useless)
Hans Bethe Rescues His Mother with His Nobel Prize Winning Paper
(Now lets see who can call mathematical physics useless)
If you recall (I really do not expect you to), Hans Bethe after the Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics held on March 17, 1938 had collaborated with Charles Critchfield on 2 papers explaining how the sun shines.
The first paper outlined the proton-proton cycle and the second
one the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle.
Bethe had send both the papers to the journal Physical Review for publication.
The problem with publishing scientific papers is that you don’t
get paid; rather you need to pay to the journal for publishing.
It so happened that one of his student Robert Marshak came upon an
advertisement.
The New York Academy of Sciences was proffering a reward of $500
for the best paper on solar or stellar processes.
Of course, it had to be both original and unpublished.
Bethe rescinded his CNO paper from the journal and instead
submitted it to the New York Academy of Sciences.
It won the best paper award along with the $500 that went along
with it.
Robert Marshak was given $50 as a reward for his information
(America works on reward on punishment) and Bethe used $250 (a substantial
amount) to help his mother settle in the land of free and enterprising.
This second paper which won the $500 prize money later went on to
fetch more fortune and even fame for Hans Bethe.
The two papers earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics of 1967 for
providing us human apes the understanding of how stars and our sun shine (till
then it was attributed to gods as anything not understood is.)
After his 2 monumental papers and getting his mother out of the
violent Europe, Hans Bethe like any ape found a mate and reproduced.
In 1941 he became an American citizen (a fascinating ritual that I
was fortunate to attend thanks to mon ami) and this is what Bethe had to say
about his naturalization and America:
“I am much more at home in America than I ever was in Germany.
“As if I was born in Germany only by mistake, and only came to my
true homeland at 28.”
In this, Hans Bethe was reflecting the sentiments and feelings of
millions who had arrived and millions to arrive in the great nation that was
once a tiny thin strip of 13 colonies who revolted against the Empire in 1776
calling themselves United States of America.
Who would have thought then this tiny strip of a newly declared
nation would 150 years on become the world’s super power in every sense of the
word and home to the most gifted and talented.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an IIT graduate and
a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, may I
suggest this large collection of Kids Songs:
He not only explained why and how the sun shines, but also explained how elements are created (at least till the Oxygen from hydrogen and alpha particles) in the stars.
His two 1938-39 papers not only earned him the $500 award money which he used to save his mother from the Nazis but also went on to earn him the Nobel Prize in 1967.
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