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Edward Teller Passes Away At 95

Posted by simoniker on from the no-more-strange-love dept.

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."

14 of 618 comments (clear)

  1. Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the salad days of nuclear-weapons testing, the United States detonated 331atomic, hydrogen, and thermonuclear bombs. Many of those explosions appear in Trinity and Beyond, which utilizes a lot of declassified footage, most of it in color. Standouts include the United States' South Pacific detonation of an atom bomb 90 feet below the water to study the effects on a fleet of ships. Surprise, surprise, they sink! If that wasn't enough, the navy also loaded the decks with sheep to study the effects of the blast on life forms. Surprise, surprise, they die! Glowing leg of lamb anyone? This film will alternately amuse and horrify you at the rampant irresponsibility of the Soviets and Americans in their quest for nuclear domination. The Russians have the honor of having detonated the largest nuclear bomb ever at a whopping 58 megatons. The Hiroshima bomb was barely a kiloton. Of course, after the U.S.and Russia ceased their activities, the Chinese decided to get in on the act. But that's a different story for a different documentary.

  2. Hiroshima by scrote-ma-hote · · Score: 5, Interesting
    After visiting Hiroshima on a school trip, and seeing the awesome destruction of nuclear weapons, I have been scared witless of them. It didn't help that I was also in Tokyo when they had their nuclear "accident".

    I have no objections to a healthy debate about nuclear weapons, but you have to think that their main task is wholesale destruction.

    1. Re:Hiroshima by bishmasterb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For what it's worth, Mr. Teller said (at least later in life) that we should have high-altitude detonated the first bomb over Tokyo bay as a demonstration of power, where casualties would have been minimal.

    2. Re:Hiroshima by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is Hiroshima as it was after the blast?

      Hiroshima is gorgeous. It's not a crater and not a radioactive wasteland. Unless you recognize the name, you'd have no way to tell it apart from any other gleaming Japanese city. Some people have absorbed anti-nuclear propaganda and assume that atomic weapons will render the target area uninhabitable for centuries. That's just wrong (although the propaganda is based on Cold War era weapons, which dwarf the power of the bombs dropped on Japan)

      Note that 100% of Japanese cities were bombed flat in WWII, so all buildings are less than 50 years old (even without the bombing, earthquakes would keep destroying them). Thus they may all look similar to a naive visitor.

    3. Re:Hiroshima by rjkimble · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were designed to be exploded in the air, roughtly 1000 feet above the ground. They were nowhere near powerful enough to put much of a dent into Mount Fuji. Most of the damage caused at Hiroshima was done by the fires afterward. To be sure, the blast did enormous damage, but the fires that followed leveled the city. Truman and his cabinet debated the merits of various approaches and concluded that the best approach was the one they followed. I think history has shown them to have been right.

      --

      Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
      But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
  3. Edward Teller, via IOP by photoblur · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I just received news of Edward Teller's passage today via PhysicsWeb update, a physics news summary service of the Institute of Physics. Here's what they had to say:
    Edward Teller dies (Sep 10) http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/9/6 Edward Teller died on September 9 at his home on the campus of Stanford University in California, having had a stroke a few days earlier, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Teller was instrumental in the development of the hydrogen bomb, having previously worked on the Manhattan atomic-bomb project during the Second World War. A passionate advocate of nuclear weapons, he angered many physicists after he gave evidence at the 1954 trial of Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan project, that led to Oppenheimer losing his security clearance.
  4. obituary writer dead too by jwachter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Did anyone notice that the obituary in the New York Times was written by someone who himself is already dead?

    Walter Sullivan, a science writer and editor for The New York Times, died in 1996.

    Spooky.

  5. Praise? I think not. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Edward Teller did more to bring this world to the brink of destruction than any other human that has ever lived.

    His ego drove him to push the hydrogen bomb on the world, and his ego prevented him from both admitting his mistake and from doing his best (like many of the other scientists who aided him) to make amends.

    For those of who you insist the hydrogen bomb is necessary for national security, you're both ignorant and foolish. The hydrogen bomb has basically no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

    A non-hydrogen based atomic bomb has more than enough bang to destroy our enemies. The ONLY use for a hydrogen bomb is planetary destruction.

    I, for one, will not miss Teller in the least. He represents the worst of humanity. He was willing to put his ego ahead of, quite literally, ALL else.

  6. Hans Bethe by alphaseven · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Not only that, he worked along with Hans Bethe who was born in 1906, and he's still alive (and still working last I read).

    Probably just a coincidence, maybe...

  7. I met him once... by Scott+Ransom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I posted this a few years ago for a related story, but it seems worth repeating now:

    So, I met him in an pseudo-interview with about 6 other students. I asked him if it ever bothered him to be the "Father of the H-Bomb" since his "baby" could be used for such evil and/or immoral purposes.

    I thought he was going to jump out of his chair at me.

    He got very upset and angrily announced that a scientist's only responsibility is to science. The possible uses of a discovery should not even be considered by the researchers -- that is someone elses business. And because of this, he did not feel even the slightest bit of remorse for his work on the bomb.

    And then he upbraided _me_ (since I was on my way to grad school to become a scientist at the time) for thinking that a scientist _should_ worry about the moral implications of his/her work.

    Needless to say, I didn't ask any more questions. ;)

  8. Re:Missiles are necessary by kfg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nope, they won't even need an SUV. They'll just build it in place. It makes the whole thing much easier and cheaper that way since you can make a big, heavy, crude sucker out of whatever you can turn to the task.

    You just rent that abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. Every big town has many to choose from.

    No need to be a kamikaze either since you don't need to worry about getting close enough to the target like you do with a conventional bomb.

    Either set a timer a week or so down the road, set it off with a radio,, or maybe a phone call, or. . .gasp, use the internet.

    KFG

  9. Re:A great? by javiercero · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He was also a cretin who tried to destroy the carreers of more talented people who stood in his way (Oppenheimer cough) he used other physicist under fear of alienation, rather than by sheer briliance and respect.

    His contributions to the field of physics are nil, unlike Oppenheimer et al.

    He also brought the most destructive power in the universe and allowed humans to not only destruct themselves but the whole planet. That is just too rotten... thank you Mr. Teller!

  10. Re:Thank you Teller. by refactored · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Strange. Most Russians I have met say that living in Communist Russian was hell. But quite a lot better than living in the Capitalist Russia they have now.

  11. Edward the Great by im+a+fucking+coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apparently nobody studies history anymore, but Mr. Teller should be recognized as a national hero of science.

    Oppenheimer had been closely associated with communists from his earliest relationships, had latter vigorously attempted to stop H bomb development, and the secrets of the atomic bomb were stolen from under his management. To fault Teller for bearing true witness is lunacy, nearly as crazy as it was to fault Robert for his friendships and point of view, (which he had forthrightly admitted prior to becoming admin of Los Alamos).

    Moreover, Teller had a legitimate reason to fear and despise Stalin, along with any group to which he was associated, having witnessed the terror of the Red army spilling familial blood in the streets of Hungary. He had first hand knowledge of the depths of its depravity, and was prescient in his understanding that only inexplicable horror would sate the whims of communist dictators.

    That he should love this country enough to devote the greater part of his life and mental energies to protecting US dominance and expanding our sphere of influence to cover the globe demonstrates an uncanny foresight coupled with what must have been a deeply held love for the whole of humanity. Admittedly he hid it well with gruff mannerisms, but any other conclusions are based on illogical, often hysterical premises.

    Consider the historical context: Both the Germans AND Japanese were developing nuclear weapons. Stalin killed 25 million Russians, Poles, Jews, etc. Germans killed untold millions after working them to death, and experimented on living 'subjects'. The Japanese were guilty of the Bataan death march, and countless atrocities not limited even to hacking off prisoners penises and sewing them to their lips while still alive, and easily raping and killing millions of innocent civilians. You have to be strictly ignorant of the 20th century not to realize that our obtaining first mastery of atomic structure is the only thing that stopped terrorism on a continental scale. If any of these parties had gained an unanswerable first strike nuclear capability, the untold misery of billions would have hung in the balance.

    Teller, Szilard, Oppenheimer, Rabi, Bohr, Rutherford, Einstein, and the other scientists involved in atom & H bomb development are owed a HUGE debt of gratitude by the world, by civilization itself.

    The world is a shade darker with the loss of Edward's brilliance.

    Kommando Chris

    PS: It's sad to realize the unknowing sacrifice of .25 million Nipponese saved the lives of at least 15 million. If you can coherently argue otherwise, I agree to disagree, but would encourage an indepth study of Japan circa 1920-45 rather than trade meaningless barbs. The study of radiation effects is impossible to understand humanely, but asking a million Marines to kill millions is hardly an adequate answer.
    Hirohito was powerless and mute without the shock and terror delivered to the populous, and if the destruction of Tokyo by bombardment had not produced the desired surrender (civilians were ordered to stay in their homes and try to put out the fires until dead), how many more millions should we have blown up to bring the war to an end?
    Simply put, it was the most horrible and humane way to bring a merciful end to the insanity of that war.
    PSS: Pacifists (Einstein, Szilard & Fermi(?)) hatched the idea of atomic bombs, the liberal Democrats (FDR) in government secretly commited to and funded these 'horrible' and 'inhumane' weapons, a 'communist' (Oppie) developed them, and another Democrat (Truman) dropped them. Please explain to me why I'm more intelligent, compassionate and humane as a pacifist Democratic voter again? Oh yeah, our party blew up 250,000 innocent civilians. And we freed the slaves, er... wait a minute... and we directly increased taxes to consumers by increasing taxes on the evil corporations, who only add that cost directly to their goods and services...ummmm, shit. Harakiri anyone?