Edward Teller

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Edward Teller bigraphy, stories - Nuclear physicist and father of the hydrogen bomb

Edward Teller : biography

January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003

Edward Teller ( January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-born American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", even though he claimed he did not care for the title."I have always considered that description in poor taste." Teller, Memoirs, p. 546. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (the Jahn–Teller and Renner–Teller effects), and surface physics. His extension of Fermi’s theory of beta decay (in the form of the so-called Gamow–Teller transitions) provided an important stepping stone in the applications of this theory. The Jahn–Teller effect and the BET theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry.Goodchild 2005, p. 36 Teller also made contributions to Thomas–Fermi theory, the precursor of density functional theory, a standard modern tool in the quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules. In 1953, along with Nicholas Metropolis and Marshall Rosenbluth, Teller co-authored a paper

which is a standard starting point for the applications of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics. 

Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and was an early member of the Manhattan Project charged with developing the first atomic bombs. During this time he made a serious push to develop the first fusion-based weapons as well, but these were deferred until after World War II. After his controversial testimony in the security clearance hearing of his former Los Alamos colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer, Teller was ostracized by much of the scientific community. He continued to find support from the U.S. government and military research establishment, particularly for his advocacy for nuclear energy development, a strong nuclear arsenal, and a vigorous nuclear testing program. He was a co-founder of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and was both its director and associate director for many years.

In his later years he became especially known for his advocacy of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems, including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using thermonuclear explosive in what was called Project Chariot. He was a vigorous advocate of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Throughout his life, Teller was known both for his scientific ability and his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality, and is considered one of the inspirations for the character Dr. Strangelove in the 1964 movie of the same name.

Hydrogen bomb

The [[Teller-Ulam design kept the fission and fusion fuel physically separated from one another, and used radiation from the primary device "reflected" off the surrounding casing to compress the secondary.]]

Following the Soviet Union’s first test detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949, President Truman announced a crash development program for a hydrogen bomb. Teller returned to Los Alamos in 1950 to work on the project. He insisted on involving more theorists, such as Klaus Fuchs; it was Fuchs who later claimed to invent compression by means of radiation implosion back in 1946.Goncharov 2005. However many of Teller’s prominent colleagues, like Bethe and Oppenheimer, were sure that the project of the H-bomb was technically infeasible and politically undesirable. None of the available designs were yet workable. However Soviet scientists who had worked on their own hydrogen bomb have claimed that they developed it independently.Goncharov 2005

In 1950, calculations by the Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and his collaborator Cornelius Everett, along with confirmations by Fermi, had shown that not only was Teller’s earlier estimate of the quantity of tritium needed for the H-bomb a low one, but that even with higher amounts of tritium, the energy loss in the fusion process would be too great to enable the fusion reaction to propagate. However, in 1951, in the joint report by Ulam and Teller of March 1951, "Hydrodynamic Lenses and Radiation Mirrors", an innovative idea emerged, and it was developed into the first workable design for a megaton-range H-bomb. The exact contribution provided respectively from Ulam and Teller to what became known as the Teller–Ulam design is not definitively known in the public domain, and the exact contributions of each and how the final idea was arrived upon has been a point of dispute in both public and classified discussions since the early 1950s.Rhodes 1995, pp. 461–472.Gorelik 2009.