Hans Bethe
I just read that Hans Bethe has died:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14079-2005Mar7.html
He was one of the giants of 20th-century physics. When I was in college, his name came up often in the quantum mechanics and nuclear physics textbooks.
One day not long before I graduated from college in 1982, I stopped by the Bonner Nuclear Lab at Rice to talk to my professor, Dr. Phillips. While we were chatting, his secretary buzzed him:
“Dr. Phillips, I have Hans Bethe on the phone for you.”
So he excused himself and picked up the phone:
“Hello Hans! How are you?”
I thought it was really amazing that I knew someone who was actually on a first-name basis with one of the legends of physics.
