Mr Bethe not only did not mind, but he gamely proceeded to work on elaborations of the theory.

ECONOMIST: Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, died on March 6th, aged 98

Mr Bethe was born in Strasbourg, then part of Germany, in 1906.

ECONOMIST: Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, died on March 6th, aged 98

Hans Bethe believed that without John von Neumann, the development of modern computers would at best have been delayed ten years or more.

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Before his writings on the carbon cycle, Mr Bethe produced several papers that endeavoured to pull together the whole theory of nuclear physics.

ECONOMIST: Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, died on March 6th, aged 98

He did this simply so that the paper might be credited to Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, close enough to the first three letters of the Greek alphabet.

ECONOMIST: Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, died on March 6th, aged 98

The most significant work was done by Eugene Wigner (who came from Hungary), George Gamow (Russia), Felix Bloch (Switzerland), Hans Bethe (Germany), Edward Teller (Hungary), and Victor Weisskopf (Austria).

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In 1948 George Gamow, a fellow pioneer of nuclear physics, added Mr Bethe's name without asking to a paper that explained how chemical elements had been made in the Big Bang.

ECONOMIST: Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, died on March 6th, aged 98

The letter was drafted by Hans Bethe, who headed the group that designed the world's first nuclear bombs and who has served as a senior adviser to previous presidents on nuclear and anti-ballistic missile issues.

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