Meaning & use
Bethe
Last updated
Meaning
proper nounproper
The surname of Hans Bethe, a German-born American physicist who explained how the sun and other stars produce energy by nuclear fusion.
Grammar: Always capitalized and used as a name: Bethe's theory.
Patterns
- Bethe's work on something
Bethe received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on energy production in stars.
Students of astrophysics learn about the Bethe cycle of nuclear reactions.
Bethe later argued for controls on nuclear weapons.
Common combinations
- Hans Bethe
- Hans Bethe taught for decades at Cornell University.
- Bethe's calculation
- Bethe's calculation showed how hydrogen turns into helium in stars.
- the Bethe cycle
- The Bethe cycle describes one route of stellar fusion.
- Bethe formula
- The Bethe formula is used to model particle energy loss in matter.
- Bethe's Nobel Prize
- Bethe's Nobel Prize came decades after his first fusion paper.
Word family
- Bethe-Weizsacker cycle noun
- another name for the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen fusion cycle in stars
- Bethe lattice noun
- a mathematical tree-like network named after him and used in statistical physics
Commonly confused: Bethe or Bethe vs. Beth?
Bethe vs Bethe vs. Beth
Beth is a common first name pronounced with a short e, while Bethe is a German surname pronounced BAY-tuh.
Practice
For which achievement is Hans Bethe best known?
Choose one answer.
Bethe worked out the fusion reactions that power stars, earning the 1967 Nobel Prize. The others are famous achievements by different people.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Bethe”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.