Edward Teller Passes Away At 95

Lord Prox writes "Edward Teller, one of the 20th Century's greats in physics, died Tuesday afternoon at his home in Stanford. He was 95." Newsforge.com also has one of the final interviews with Teller, who was "a principal architect of the hydrogen bomb, [and] passionate advocate of nuclear power and antimissile defense."

Comments

Hungary is EVIL I tells ya!

[platform]

Edward Teller: advocated the use of nuclear weapons for everything from digging holes to brushing teeth.

Charles Simonyi: primarily responsible for the creation of Microsoft Office and Hungarian notation. *shudder*

Coincidence or evil Hungarian conspiracy?

Re:Hungary is EVIL I tells ya!

[Charles Dodgeson]

There is a story that at one of the meetings at Los Alamos, Feynman was absent and Fermi had to leave the room for some reason. At this point one of the remaining physicists in the room said:

Jol van, most maygarul folytathatunk.

(Fine, now we can continue in Hungarian.)

Re:Wow he was old

[Capsaicin]

95 is an impressively long time for a human being to live. I would bet that all the nuclear materials Teller worked with somehow mutated him into having extraordinary longevity.

Leni Riefenstahl died the same (previous?) day aged 101! Maybe making Nazi propaganda movies is the secret to longevity?

Re:Thank you Teller.

[Nept]

Except Australia, they'll just get radioactive fallout and nuclear winter

then we'll have to live on the beach

Re:Wow he was old

[Concerned Onlooker]

Yes, but what people are forgetting is that this was really just his half life....

"Perils of Modern Living"

[E-prospero]

An old, but good poem, originally published in the New Yorker, that makes mention of Dr Teller. RIP.
--

Perils of Modern Living - Harold P. Furth

Well up above the tropostrata
There is a region stark and stellar
Where, on a streak of anti-matter
Lived Dr. Edward Anti-Teller.

Remote from Fusion's origin,
He lived unguessed and unawares
With all his antikith and kin,
And kept macassars[1] on his chairs.

One morning, idling by the sea,
He spied a tin of monstrous girth
That bore three letters: A. E. C.[2]
Out stepped a visitor from Earth.

Then, shouting gladly o'er the sands,
Met two who in their alien ways
Were like as gentils. Their right hands
Clasped, and the rest was gamma rays.

--
[1]. Macassar oil was a popular hair dressing in the 19th century, named after the Indonesian port where the oil purportedly came from. An "antimacassar" is the decorative fabric used on chairs or sofas to protect the upholstery.

[2]. AEC=Atomic Energy Commission, now replaced by DOE=Department of Energy. The AEC (like the DOE today) funded most of the National Laboratories, including Teller's Livermore Laboratory.

Re:I met him once...

[refactored]

So long as they go up,
who cares where they come down,
that's not my department
says Werner von Braun.

by Tom Lehrer

Re:Thank you Teller.

[secolactico]

Thank you Mr Teller.

Likewise over here. I just hope your long time partner Penn Jillette is able to carry on with your work.

Re:Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

[confused one]

Actually that's not true. A majority of the radioactive material is naturally occuring. I actually find it interesting just how much radioactive material exists on Earth naturally... The truth is: due to atmospheric nuclear testing, we (collectively) increased the "natural" amount of background radiation by around 30%. The current annual dosage for the average person is around 300 mRem.