ELEMENTARY NUCLEAR THEORY: A Short Course on Selected Topics

New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1947. First edition. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. Scarce inscribed first printing of Bethe's course on the fundamental theory of nuclear forces, from lectures originally presented to the engineers and scientists of the General Electric Company. In 1946 GE, leading manufacturer of the betatron particle accelerator, began its efforts to recruit outside physicists as consultants for its Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. Bethe and Richard Feynman, both having just returned to Cornell from Los Alamos, were among those successfully attracted. "One of the results of that was my book on elementary nuclear theory. They wanted very much to learn nuclear theory. [...] So they asked a large number of their research staff to listen to these lectures. Then three of the young men who were summer consultants" - Melvin Lax, Conrad Longmire, and Arthur S. Wightman - "were asked to write up the notes and that finally made the book" (Bethe, 1972). A considerable amount of the later 20th century's advancement in nuclear physics, which Bethe references in his inscription here, was due to Bethe himself: he famously calculated the Lamb shift during his 1947 train trip from the Shelter Island conference back to Schenectady, and in 1967 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on stellar nucleosynthesis. Very scarce inscribed. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original silver-stamped blue cloth. In original unclipped ($2.50) dust jacket. 147, [1] pages. Inscribed by Bethe on title page: "Nuclear Theory has grown a lot since 1947 / Hans A. Bethe 12/12/96." Minor scuffing to lower edge of front board. Light chipping to jacket with a few small closed tears, a bit of rubbing. Sharp and clean.