Our sun has been shining bright, radiating perennially, keeping us from nocturnal darkness for a good many hours every day.
It has been doing this since the pristine ages of terrestrial history. As early as in William Draper Harkins suggested that perhaps there was nuclear fusion going on in the core of stars, including the sun. In less than a decade Arthur Eddington explored this idea further.
Many physicists were studying various types of fusion reactions. Among them was Hans Bethe who studied at length the carbon-nitrogen cycle as well proton-proton reactions
The most important nuclear reaction in the brilliant stars is the carbon-nitrogen cycle, which is known to occur at the core of many stars. On the other hand, in the sun and other fainter stars, the primary fusion occurs in the proton-proton reaction. Bethe had studied under such prestigious physicists as Arnold Sommerfeld and Ernest Rutherford.
One of Adolph Hitler’s many destructive contributions to Germany was that he prompted or force many scientists of great competence to Western countries which were fortunate to be under more civilized political leadership. Like many other brilliant physicists of the Hitler era in Germany, many others, Hans Bethe went to the U.S. where he joined the faculty of Cornell University.
Spurts of Thought 