I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at UC Santa Cruz while I was
attending Davis as an undergrad. I drove from Davis for the evening
lecture, and tried to absorb some the man's brillance through proximity (I'm
sorry to say that didn't work). I barely remember the talk, but being there
was certainly memorable. I also thought he was looking kind of old and
frail at the time; I honestly had no idea he was still alive.
RO
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Muller" <randygmuller@No-Spam>
To: "The Astronomy Connection" <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: [TAC] Hans Bethe dies
> Philip Terzian <pterzian@No-Spam> wrote:
>>
>> Hans Bethe, a theoretical astrophysicist and one of the developers of
>> nuclear weapons during WWII, died yesterday.
>
> One of his books, "The Road from Los Alamos", is great reading. The
> best part is the essay he wrote describing what happens when a Type II
> supernova explodes. It is absolutely riveting.
>
> The best part: The start of the explosion is the collapse of the iron
> core into solid neutrons. Basically, this creates a giant hole that
> the rest of the star falls into, and when it hits the solid neutron
> core, it rebounds, and star explodes into smithereens.
Received on Mon Mar 7 15:02:34 2005