Hans Bethe was born on July 2, 1906 in the Alsass region of Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1928, but fled the European Continent as the Nazis began their rise to power in the 1930s. He eventually settled in the United States, and began a post as professor of physics at Cornell University in 1935.
It was at Cornell that Bethe first became interested in investigating the source of solar energy, and came upon the process of fusion. His work in this area eventually
