How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-hans-bethe-stumbled-upon-perfect-quantum-theories-20250212/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-hans-bethe-stumbled-upon-perfect-quantum-theories-20250212/#respond Wed, 12 Feb 2025 14:55:38 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=146538 The post How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> By 1928, quantum physicists seemed poised to unravel matter’s final secrets. The German researcher Walter Gordon had applied the emerging theory of quantum mechanics to the hydrogen atom, the universe’s simplest atom, and worked out exactly how it behaved. A mastery of all atoms seemed sure to follow. It did not. When quantum particles influence each other, their possibilities intertwine in such…

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