Rhodes awards Franklin medal to Bethe on 'a bittersweet day'

Frank H.T. Rhodes, former president of Cornell and now the president of the American Philosophical Society, presents the Benjamin Franklin Medal to Rose Bethe, widow of physicist Hans Bethe, March 10. Robert Barker/University Photography

By David Brand

It was, in the words of Cornell President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes, "a bittersweet day."

Three days after his death at the age of 98, Hans Bethe, one of the most honored scientists ever to grace Cornell, received a final tribute -- the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society (APS). "It is a day of sadness, but it is also a day of pride," said Rhodes, the APS president, in making the award.

Accepting the gold-plated medal at Kendal at Ithaca, where Bethe died quietly on March 6, his widow, Rose, spoke of how her husband had been looking forward to the ceremony. "Hans was very touched when he heard about it because he thought that at his age to be honored once more was really beyond anything he had hoped for," she said.

"He was particularly struck that the philosophical society was founded for the promotion of useful knowledge, because that's what he believed in."

The APS is the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Ben Franklin in 1743. The medal was created in 1906 by the U.S. Congress to mark the 200th anniversary of Franklin's birth.

It was not the first time the medal had been awarded posthumously: in 1993 it was awarded to Nobel laureate and former Cornell researcher Barbara McClintock, who had died the previous year.

Also a Nobel laureate, Hans Bethe was professor emeritus of physics and an architect of the age of modern atomic theory. He spent 70 years at Cornell, during which time he "literally changed not only Cornell but changed world of learning and the kind of model that was set," said Rhodes, who had flown in from New York City for the ceremony.

Said Rhodes: "He was also a wonderful statesman of science; somebody who advised three presidents; somebody who was a public advocate for the social conscience of science, for defense, for energy and especially for nuclear power and for human welfare in the broadest sense. And it was to him that so many of the rest of the scientific community looked, and still look, for leadership and inspiration."

Rhodes also paid tribute to Rose Bethe and her family: "The source of so much of Hans' strength, inner strength and resilience was the love of you and other members of the family ... that wonderful marriage, with so much to celebrate. We thank you and salute you in honoring Hans, because this was a partnership in which you were inseparable and which meant so much."

The award citation for Hans Bethe reads:

In recognition of his role as
A preeminent physicist of the twentieth century, whose productive research career has spanned eight decades.
A pioneer in atomic physics, whose seminal work on stellar energy production earned him the 1967 Nobel Prize.
A leader of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos.
A senior statesman of science and advisor to U.S. Presidents on atomic energy.
A courageous critic of defense policy and passionate advocate of arms control.
A beloved mentor to generations of Cornell physicists, whose efforts helped to transform the Cornell University Physics Department into one of the world's great centers of physics.