Prior to World War II, nuclear physics was a phenomenological science, and Hans Bethe was unrivaled in his comprehensive mastery of nuclear phenomena, experimental data, and descriptive models. As described in other articles in this special issue of Physics Today, by applying the emerging phenomenology Bethe achieved remarkable successes that ranged from understanding the energy production in stars to guiding the harnessing of nuclear fission as part of the Manhattan Project.

The post-war era offered Hans the opportunity to return to nuclear physics and approach the subject from a deeper theoretical perspective: understanding the many-body structure and properties of nuclei directly in terms of the underlying nuclear interaction. He was freed from the applied-physics demands of the war effort and could again pursue theoretical physics for its own sake. His goals were to understand why, the shell model worked in the presence of nuclear forces containing strongly repulsive short-range...

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