Hans Bethe - The courses I took at Munich (8/158)

To hear more of Hans Bethe’s stories, go to the playlist: German-born theoretical physicist Hans Bethe (1906-2005) was one of the first scientists to join the Manhattan Project, later strongly advocating nuclear disarmament. In 1967, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. [Listener: Sam Schweber; date recorded: 1996] TRANSCRIPT: I took the normal courses in advanced experimental physics with Kirchner, and especially theoretical physics with Sommerfeld. Sommerfeld had a six term course covering all parts of theoretical physics. I think I took Mechanics from him, and Fluid Mechanics and Electromagnetism and Optics and Differential Equations of Physics. The last was his favourite subject and that of course tied in exactly with Schrödinger’s wave mechanics. It prepared me for using wave mechanics with facility. So... and Sommerfeld was a very good mathematici