Freeman Dyson, physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and former student of Hans Bethe, recalled Princeton's attempt to get Bethe to organize the theoretical physics activities there.
"In 1952, when I was here at Cornell . . . (J. Robert) Oppenheimer wanted very badly to bring Hans to Princeton," he said. "And Hans was seriously tempted . . . Hans took awhile to make up his mind, but in the end he said no. His loyalty and love for Cornell was so strong that he accepted cheerfully the burdens of teaching and the annoyances of administration. He knew that he belonged at Cornell as a leading teacher and dedicated member of the community in a way he never could at Princeton.
"Today, after 42 years, we are celebrating the rightness of Hans' decision to stay at Cornell. Incidentally, after Hans said no to Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer tempted me with the same offer. Since I lacked Hans' strength of character, I said yes. But that's another story."
Dyson was among the many friends and colleagues to pay homage to Bethe last week at the Physics Department symposium "Celebrating 60 Years at Cornell with Hans Bethe." Scientific sessions Friday and Saturday morning were followed by a public convocation, including a video of Bethe's life, developed by the Physics Department and Cornell's Office of Communication Strategies.
Dyson delivered a talk, "Tolstoy and Napoleon," in which he extolled the virtues of "Napoleonic rigidity" for America's schools. "A small dose of Napoleonic rigidity would be helpful to our schools," he said. "We still have something to learn from Napoleon . . . Our systems of public education can use all the help they can get. We have a long way to go."
On the other hand, he said, the way science is done in this country could benefit from Tolstoy's less rigid, more chaotic methods.
"In all areas of science, the future will bring new opportunities to build new tools and make new discoveries, some requiring Napoleonic order and discipline, others requiring Tolstoyian chaos and freedom. Funding for science is likely to be unstable . . . In such an environment, Napoleonic enterprises will be ill-adapted. Tolstoyian enterprises will be better adapted to survive. We should be prepared to shift science as much as we can to a Tolstoyian style of operation."
That shift will be most difficult, Dyson said, in particle physics and space science.
Also speaking at the public convocation on Saturday was McGeorge Bundy, former adviser to presidents Kennedy and Johnson now with the Carnegie Corp. in New York. A former Harvard University dean, he said there was never a meeting with the Harvard physics department "where I did not ask why Bethe was not among us."
His talk, "Science and Politics and Truth: Notes on an Imperfect Interconnection," described nuclear weapons treaties and the use of the bomb during the war.
Bundy said the decision to use the atomic bomb during World War II was not as much an issue as how to use them. "That it should be used was on everyone's mind," he said, recounting the defense of the administration after the fact.
But focus now is on a conference in New York later this month on whether to extend the non-proliferation treaty. That will generate debate, he said, especially by countries without nuclear weapons capabilities.
The last public session of the symposium was a panel discussion on the future of basic research, moderated by Cornell President Frank H.T. Rhodes.
Kenneth G. Wilson, the Ohio State University Nobel laureate physicist who spent 20 years at Cornell and who in recent years has turned his attention to education, said the future of science has to do with problems "not yet solved."
Then he described two unsolved problems "which underlie our present mess. The first dates back to 1630, and that is how you take a school system already in place and reform it."
He said, "The other unsolved problem is, what happened to our economy in the 1970s that took us off the track from being the most feared economy? Social scientists recognize it as an unsolved problem, but they don't treat it as scientists do, and attract the best people to solve it. Science cannot survive when it has unsolved problems."
Henry Kendall of M.I.T. agreed. "The public cannot distinguish science from technology, or science from magic," he said. "Everything science produces becomes a miracle. We have a deep, deep need for education."
Rhodes, a geologist by training, Cornell president the past 17 years and now chairman of the National Science Board, outlined what is needed for a future science policy in this country.
"We don't have a federal policy," Rhodes said. "What is the precise role of the federal scientific agencies? How much science should we be funding? What kind of science? How do we link it to education? How much sponsored research should the federal government do? The public at large is supportive of science. I believe we now have to devote the same degree of attention and imagination and creativity to defending the future of basic research that we do to our own professional studies." .