Edward Teller

Edward Teller

Edward Teller

Edward Teller

Family

Born on January 15, 1908 to Max and Ilona Teller in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. Edwards family was considered to be upper middle class. Was born Jewish but due to the time in history they converted to Christianity just to fit in and not be discriminated against. His father was a lawyer and his mother was the daughter of a cotton mill owner and banker.

Edwards grandfather originally thought that Edward was retarted due to the fact that at the age of 4 he still had not spoken. Shortly after the age of 4 according to his sister the words began to flow out as though a dam had broken and it just all flowed out. Edward recounted that his favorite pass time before going to bed was not counting sheep but loved to lay in his bed and go over his math skills such as addition, subtraction and sometimes multiplication.

School

Went to primary school and once done with that went into a 8 year program at Minta where he was leaps and bounds ahead of any of his classmates in math and science. Teller recalls that “One day in class the teacher was doing a math problem on the blackboard and Teller advised his teacher that there was a shorter/faster way of doing the problem. The teacher was not thrilled and said ‘”Oh so youre a genius are you? I hate geniuses!’”

Enrolled at the University of Budapest-at moms request

Not happy at the University of Budapest he withdrew and continued his studies but this time in physics at the Institute of Technology to study Chemical Engineering. Left for school in Karlsruhe,Germany on New Years Day 1926

Before he started school here Teller had an unfortunate event with a streetcar happened and he lost his right foot…Once healed in 1928 Teller enrolled at the University of Munich where he became in more inspired by physics

1930 Teller received a Doctorate degree in Physics from the University of Leipzig in Germany

Life

At school is where Teller met his future colleagues such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Bohr, Hans Bethe, I. I. Rabi, Eugene Wigner, Leo Szilard, John A Wheeler

Teller had a very close circle of friends and would walk the town streets discussing science, philosophy, the universe and its meaning.

Main person in the bunch that Teller kept his eye on was a very pretty girl or a “looker” as he referenced her as and her name is Augusta Maria who had a nickname of Mici.

Teller was deemed one of the worlds foremost physicist and an expert on nuclear defense

Taught at the University of California from 1953-1975

Work

Tellers first published work was a paper he wrote about the “Hydrogen Molecular Ion”

Teller emigrated to Denmark in 1934 to escape the reign of Hitler that was taking place and began working at the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Here is where he worked with Bohrs.

Worked at the University of London

Received an invitation to join Gamow in Washington in 1935, Became a citizen in 1941

Then terror struck again and the Germans had figured out nuclear fission and that the atom could be split which could cause an extremely destructive force that if that fell into Hitlers hands it could have been disastrous. Time for Teller to get to work.

Roosevelt developed the Manhattan Project-top secret and the mission was to develop the atom bomb before Germany did

Moved to the isolated lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was built under Oppenheimers leadership

Teller wanted bigger and more destructive though…instead of nuclear fission he wanted to go the extra mile to nuclear fusion

Teller was the buzz in everyones ear about the need for a thermonuclear weapon

When the Russians detonated their atomic bomb Harry Truman ordered for the build of a fusion weapon.

1952- The first Hydrogen bomb was detonated!

The hydrogen bomb was harder to design that originally anticipated

He was named the father of the Hydrogen Bomb and he hated being known for it

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