Edward Teller

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Lore & Background

Edward Teller was born Ede Teller on 15 January 1908 in Budapest, then part of Austria-Hungary, into a Jewish family. His parents were Ilona, a pianist, and Miksa Teller, an attorney. He attended the Minta Gymnasium in Budapest. Teller was an agnostic; he later wrote, 'Religion was not an issue in my family... indeed, it was never discussed.' He was a late talker but became very interested in numbers and, for fun, calculated large numbers in his head. He left Hungary for Germany in 1926, partly due to the discriminatory numerus clausus rule under Miklós Horthy's regime. From 1926 to 1928, he studied mathematics and chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering. He once stated that the person responsible for his becoming a physicist was Herman Mark, after hearing lectures on molecular spectroscopy where Mark made it clear that new ideas in physics were radically changing the frontier of chemistry. After informing his father of his intent to switch to physics, his father was so concerned that he traveled to visit him and speak with his professors; the result was that he got his father's permission to become a physicist. Teller then attended the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, studying physics under Arnold Sommerfeld. In 1928, while still a student there, he fell under a streetcar and his right foot was nearly severed; for the rest of his life he walked with a limp, and on occasion wore a prosthetic foot. He decided to stop taking painkillers because they interfered with his thinking, instead using his willpower to deal with the pain, including use of the placebo effect. Werner Heisenberg said it was the hardiness of Teller's spirit that allowed him to cope so well. In 1929, Teller transferred to Leipzig University, where in 1930 he received his PhD in physics under Heisenberg. His dissertation dealt with one of the first accurate quantum mechanical treatments of the hydrogen molecular ion. That year, he befriended Russian physicists George Gamow and Lev Landau. His lifelong friendship with Czech physicist George Placzek was also very important; it was Placzek who arranged a summer stay in Rome with Enrico Fermi in 1932, orienting Teller's scientific career in nuclear physics. Also in 1930, Teller moved to the University of Göttingen, but after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, Germany became unsafe for Jewish people, and he left through the aid of the International Rescue Committee. He went briefly to England, and moved for a year to Copenhagen, working under Niels Bohr. In February 1934, he married his long-time girlfriend Augusta Maria 'Mici' Harkanyi; since Mici was a Calvinist Christian, they were married in a Calvinist church. He returned to England in September 1934. In 1935, thanks to George Gamow, Teller was invited to the United States to become a professor of physics at George Washington University, where he worked with Gamow until 1941. At George Washington University in 1937, Teller predicted the Jahn–Teller effect, which distorts molecules in certain situations. In collaboration with Stephen Brunauer and Paul Hugh Emmett, Teller also made an important contribution to surface physics and chemistry: the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) isotherm. Teller and Mici became naturalized citizens of the United States on March 6, 1941. At GWU, Teller organized annually with Gamow the Washington Conferences on Theoretical Physics (1935–1947). When World War II began, on the advice of Theodore von Kármán, Teller collaborated with Hans Bethe in developing a theory of shock-wave propagation. In 1942, Teller was invited to be part of Robert Oppenheimer's summer planning seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, on the origins of the Manhattan Project. A few weeks earlier, he had been meeting with Enrico Fermi about atomic warfare, and Fermi had suggested that a weapon based on nuclear fission could be used to set off an even larger nuclear fusion reaction. At the Berkeley session, Teller diverted the discussion from the fission weapon to the possibility of a fusion weapon—what he called the 'Super', an early conception of the hydrogen bomb. In early 1943, construction of the Los Alamos Laboratory began; Teller moved there in March 1943. He made a concerted push to develop fusion-based weapons, but ultimately fusion bombs only appeared after World War II. To get support for the hydrogen bomb project, Teller supported and worked on the George shot of the Operation Greenhouse nuclear tests, resulting in the world's first thermonuclear burn. He co-founded the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was its director or associate director. In his later years, he advocated controversial technological solutions, including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using a thermonuclear explosive in Project Chariot, and Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Teller was a recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award and Albert Einstein Award. He died in 2003, at 95.

Reader's Guide

Edward Teller's significance lies in his central role in the development of thermonuclear weapons and his lasting contributions to theoretical physics and chemistry. As 'the father of the hydrogen bomb,' he co-created the Teller–Ulam design inspired by Stanisław Ulam, which enabled fusion-based weapons. His scientific legacy includes the Jahn–Teller effect and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory, which remain fundamental in physics and chemistry. Teller's advocacy shaped US nuclear policy, including support for a strong arsenal and testing programs. However, his later support for controversial projects, such as using a thermonuclear explosive to excavate a harbor in Alaska in Project Chariot, reflects a complex legacy. His work on the Monte Carlo method, co-authoring a 1953 paper with Nicholas Metropolis, Arianna Rosenbluth, Marshall Rosenbluth, and Augusta Teller, is a starting point for the application of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics and the Markov chain Monte Carlo literature in Bayesian statistics.

Did You Know?

• Teller was a late talker but became very interested in numbers and, for fun, calculated large numbers in his head.
• In 1928, while a student in Munich, Teller fell under a streetcar and his right foot was nearly severed; he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
• Teller's dissertation under Werner Heisenberg dealt with one of the first accurate quantum mechanical treatments of the hydrogen molecular ion.
• He married Augusta Maria 'Mici' Harkanyi in a Calvinist church in February 1934, as she was a Calvinist Christian.
• Teller co-authored a 1953 paper that is a starting point for the application of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics and Markov chain Monte Carlo literature.