Edward Teller

"What we should have learned is that the world is small, that peace is important and that cooperation in science... could contribute to peace. Nuclear weapons, in a peaceful world, will have a limited importance." Edward Teller in CNN interview [1]

Edward teller is a popular theoretical physicist, practically known as “the father of hydrogen bomb,” was a Hungarian-born American. He was born during January 15, 1908 and died during September 9, 2003. Teller immigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and was an early member of the Manhattan Project charged with developing the first atomic bombs. The Manhattan project was held at the fledgling Los Alamos National Laboratory and Teller eventually became the assistant director for the project.
During this time he made serious push to develop the first fusion-based weapons as well.
From 1949-50, he concentrated on the hydrogen bomb and contributing to the decision to make the thermonuclear reaction major part of the U.S defence system. However, Teller was often ostracized by much of the scientific community. His continuation of looking for support from the U.S government and the military research establishment has earn the support from them, particularly for his advocacy for nuclear energy development, a strong nuclear arsenal and a vigorous nuclear testing program [2]. His advocacy of competition in the national interest to ensure excellence in nuclear developments led to creation of the Livermore site of what was then called the University of California Radiation Laboratory in 1952, now the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [3]. Teller served as Laboratory Director at Livermore for two years during the late 1950s and thereafter as Associated Director for physics until his retirement in 1975. In the same year, he was named as the Director Emeritus of the Lab as was appointed as Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover institution, positions he held until his death at the age of
95 years old [3]. Over the course of his life, Teller was known both for his scientific ability and also his weird interpersonal relations and volatile personality and has always been considered to be one of the famous people with unique characteristics.

During 1908, Edward Teller was born in Budapest, Hungary, a predominantly German language and culture. Edward was only ten when the First World War was brought to an end. He was born to Jewish parents Max and Ilona Teller. The tellers were an upper middle class family due to Edward’s father being a lawyer. Edward also has a sister who was twenty months older than Edward, who named as Emmi. Until Edward was four he showed several signs of being exceptionally intelligent in fact there was a few concern that he may lack even normal intelligence. At the age of four, Edward began to speak in full sentences and show great promise. Besides, he was able to calculate and solve multiplication problems when he was only six years old. He soon also showed great understanding on musical instrument, especially the piano. There were times that people were assuming his future would end up being a promising pianist, something he would enjoy throughout his life time. By the age of seventeen, young Edward had found the young woman whom he would love. The woman was a sixteen year old named Augusta Maria who has a nicknamed called Mici, who was the sister of a close friend Edward Harkanyi. On February 26, 1934, both of them were married in a civil ceremony. Teller’s education has begun at the age of six at the Melling School. He displayed major curiosity and eccentricity very much like Thomas Elva Edison during his primary schooling time and always led to awkwardness in class. However, his early schooling life has always been disrupted by political problems within the new nation. In 1926, Teller moved to Karlsruhe, Germany to continue his tertiary education and he studied chemical engineering [4]. During his studies, he became increasingly interested in the new quantum mechanics theory. He graduated in chemical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and during 1928, Teller transferred to the Munich, where his right foot was severed in a street car accident which requires him to wear a prosthetic foot which leave him limping for his entire life [4]. During the time in Munich, he was studying his PhD in physics under Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig. His thesis was about the quantum mechanical treatments of hydrogen molecular ions which was still very useful for physicist now days. Teller then graduated and his career in nuclear physics has officially begun.

The Manhattan project was one of the most significantly remembered stories of Teller’s that involves making the atomic bomb. In 1942, he was invited to be part of Robert Oppenheimer’s summer planning seminar at the University of California, Berkeley for the origins of the Manhattan project, which is the allied effort to develop the first nuclear weapon. The Manhattan project was held at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Teller eventually became the Lab’s assistant director. However, plenty of problems have occurred as he believes the possibility of creating a nuclear weapon that emphasized on nuclear fusion that eventually will have a greater power compared to the project’s fission weapon. The idea was simply brought up by one of his close friend named Enrico Fermi. Initially, Teller stated the idea of his as unrealistic and thought that the idea would not work out. However, he was really fascinated by the idea of it and started having to think of ‘making’ one. He was quickly bored of the construction of atomic bomb and was trying to divert the media and group attention to the creation of another more powerful bomb. At the Berkeley session, Teller diverted discussion from the fission weapon to the possibility of a fusion weapon—what he called the "Super" (an early version of what was later known as a hydrogen bomb) [5]. It has turned up that everybody thought Teller was insane and will not listen to him as they moved on to focus on their initial plan of developing atomic bomb. Teller was involved and being part of the Theoretical Physics division for Los Alamos Laboratory during world war. He continuously pushed his ideas about fusion weapon and has led to plenty of frustration for the laboratory members as everybody already find the creation of the fission atomic bomb to be very difficult. One of his close friends named Polish mathematician Stanisław Ulam, mentioned that Teller always has the thought of making something almost impossible and get really excited with it. He stated, "Edward is full of enthusiasm about these possibilities; this is perhaps an indication they will not work [6]”. Fermi also once said that Teller was the only monomaniac he knew who had several manias [6]. Because of his growing interest in the making of H-bomb, and the frustration he had in passing on his duty as director of the theoretical division, he refused to engage in calculations of the implosion mechanism of the fission bomb [7]. This has caused high tensions between researchers in the Laboratory. However, he made plenty of valuable contributions to the bomb research even after his negletion to take part in calculations, particularly in the elucidation of the implosion mechanism.

In 1952, the first Hydrogen bomb was created by Edward Teller, and was started off with Teller going to Los Alamos to work on this project. This project was done due to the push by the United States after the Russians succeeded in developing their own atomic bomb [4]. As Stanisław Ulam- a Polish mathematician, along with Cornelius Everett, and Enrico Fermi counted the details on the formation of the hydrogen bomb, Ulam figured something out, and this caused Teller to be able to develop the first hydrogen bomb [8]. Thus, this project was named the Teller-Ulam design. However, conflicts occurred when both Teller and Ulam were not satisfied with each other’s work. Teller told the press "I contributed; Ulam did not. I'm sorry I had to answer it in this abrupt way. Ulam was rightly dissatisfied with an old approach. He came to me with a part of an idea which I already had worked out and difficulty getting people to listen to. He was willing to sign a paper. When it then came to defending that paper and really putting work into it, he refused. He said, 'I don't believe in it.'" Quoted [9] However, Ulam came to a conclusion as well, stating that Teller did not contributed in many of the details used in this project. Coming back to about the hydrogen bomb created, this Teller-Ulam project ensured that the fission and the fusion fuel were kept isolated from each other physically. Later on, Teller came to know that radiation could be used to compress the secondary device by reflecting off the primary device in the bomb, and therefore had it done that way [10]. In the year 1952, Edward Teller left Los Alamos for Livermore to work in the University of California Radiation Laboratory [4]. Later in that year, the hydrogen bomb created was tested on Enewetak, an island of coral reefs that encloses a lagoon in the Pacific Ocean [11]. The name ‘Ivy Mike’ was given to the fusion device used to hold the first complete test on the Teller-Ulam design [11]. This test was later seen as the first successful test of a hydrogen bomb. After this, Edward Teller was awarded “Father of the hydrogen bomb”. Because of the confidentiality of this development, the government did not make most of the details of this hydrogen bomb public [12].

Edward Teller’s contributions to nuclear power research and education have been well documented.
When nuclear fission was discovered in 1939, Teller quickly saw it enormous potential for both military and civilian use [13]. He recognises the use of nuclear power as a clean and inexpensive source compared to other alternatives. This may lead to a better environment protection as well. He also realised that nuclear energy will be really important towards the development for the 21st century, might even go up to 23rd or 24th century. Greater demand of energy for the upcoming society allowed nuclear energy to be one of the key sources for industrial and economical foundation. Major countries now days such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the USA have major use of nuclear energy because of its cheapness. Scientists also found out the large consumption of fossil fuel have largely affected the concentration level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In Memoirs, Teller noted that, “Alternative energy sources, such as wind power and solar energy, are not quantitatively significant.” He thus saw nuclear power as a key option for the long term [13]. While working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Teller contributed to some of the early reactor projects, and in 1947, he became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC’s) Committee on Reactor Safeguards [13]. He always stresses the other scientist to be aware of the danger of hazards and chemicals. Then, he designed an
approach that includes accident probabilities when designing a reactor’s safety features. Teller thinks of nuclear power until the very last day of his life. In 2003, he wrote a paper with Livermore physicist Ralph Moir, putting forward new ideas on building thorium-burning reactors underground. This paper, Teller’s last, appeared in Nuclear Technology in 2005 [13]. Teller stayed wrong on his thoughts about the use of nuclear power can provide goods to humanity. His contribution towards modern education has also been terrific. The method used by Teller to conduct science lectures, particularly physics has been used since now. By summer 1941, the Manhattan Project was secretly under way at Columbia University, and Teller accepted an invitation to teach there even as he helped develop the first nuclear weapon. At Columbia and later at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he mentored students and younger colleagues on applied physics [14]. In 1952, he continued to conduct teaching in seminar and conferences style. One of the most significant things about his teaching was Teller’s Physics class in Wheeler Auditorium at the University of California at Berkeley had almost 1,000 students attending the session [14].

It is very well known now that Edward Teller is a person to be remembered for, after all his inventions and findings that he contributed to the world all these years. Throughout his 95 years of living, Edward Teller’s life can be categorised into 2 stages. The first half of his life was basically spent on doing researches and going around the university [15]. Teller had always been a man who strived to understand what was going on around him. This, in the end, resulted in Teller managing to figure out about his surroundings, thus contributing to the findings about various fields of physics, which includes quantum theory and molecular physics [16]. The second part of his life, which was what that made him legendary, revolved around laboratory work and thus, the creation of hydrogen bomb [15]. With numeral helping hands around him, Teller succeeded in developing the first hydrogen bomb, named the Teller-Ulam design. His will to better the defence system of his country made him get involved in many more nuclear-designed weapons [16]. However, Teller also faced many conflicts. There were many a time in which Teller was reported that he kept taking credit of what he did not contribute much in. Despite all these bumps in between, Edward Teller has been awarded with a fair amount of awards. Among the many awards that he received are the ‘United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award’, and the ‘Presidential Medal of Freedom’ [17]. Edward Teller passed away in the year 2003, at the age of 95.