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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."
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.
That's sad to hear. Though some might strongly disagree, as a military guy myself, anyone who advances the capability for the USA to protect and defend itself is held in high regard by me.
Thank you Mr Teller.
I have no objections to a healthy debate about nuclear weapons, but you have to think that their main task is wholesale destruction.
By Richard Rhoads.
It's a fantastic book about the creation of the Atomic Bomb -- from when scientists first realized the possibility, through the manhatten project. It's set against the backdrop of political events of the first half of the century and provides a fascinating account of the entire experience, including the actions of Edward Teller.
I'd highly recommend it.
Some will mourn the loss of a man who vocally advocated the a strong national defense and who made great contributions to the development of the hydrogen bomb. I'm sure as well that others will castigate the man for those very same achievements.
However, I remember myself as a geeky kid in Malaysia interested in science and technology, writing a letter to one of the 'great names'. I was quite amazed to receive a personal reply to my letter, typewritten but signed by hand. His reply was humble (he never put down any of what must have seemed to him to be naive and silly observations), encouraging (the words "I am pleased that there are children from all over the world like you who are interested in science." aren't much to an adult, but they sure meant a lot to me as a kid!) and inspiring.
That sums up the man in my mind, and I mourn the loss of that man.
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?
Walter Sullivan, a science writer and editor for The New York Times, died in 1996.
Spooky.
It should also be said that he unfairly denounced another scientist, Robert Oppenheimer, as a comunist. Because Oppenheimer didn't think we should go for the H-bomb.
Not exactly a nice guy, glowing obituaries asside.
Gentoo Sucks
The world needs missiles.
Nope.
Eventually every nation, even the ones in Africa, will have nukes.
Yep.
"Nukes" are nuclear explosives, sometimes called "warheads". They do not need missiles to deliver them. Kamikaze terrorists are sufficient. A good ICBM shield does nothing against nukes.
An African nation that fired an ICBM at the US would have 80 missiles targeted to melt it into a puddle before their single shot even reached the Atlantic. Any non-suicidal African dictator who wishes to nuke America will transport the bomb by SUV, not ICBM.
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.
Leni Riefenstahl died the same (previous?) day aged 101! Maybe making Nazi propaganda movies is the secret to longevity?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Probably just a coincidence, maybe...
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.
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.
.gasp, use the internet.
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. .
KFG
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!
Yes, but what people are forgetting is that this was really just his half life....
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
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.
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
No one would accept the army following the logic, "The enemy has guns, so we could buy bulletproof vests for our soldiers, but if we did that the enemy would just sneak up on them and use knives or bombs instead, so let's not bother with the bulletproof vests and let our soldiers get shot to pieces."
Who's to say that there won't be a suicidal/insane dictator in Africa? Or more likely, what happens if the US decides to invade N. Korea? (Perhaps on a mistaken belief that they don't really have long range missiles, or perhaps for other reasons) In that situation the leader of N. Korea might decide that he's fucked anyways, and decide to launch against the US.
If the US has no antimissile defense, it's going to be in a tough spot. The fact that we can turn N. Korea into a parking lot afterwards won't make those of us on the west coast feel much better about the situation. There's even a slight chance the US won't feel that launching a counterstrike is politically viable. Our friends in S. Korea wouldn't be too happy about all the radiation right next door, and although i would expect internation opinion to be on our side, the way the US has been treating it's allies lately, who knows?
If the US had an antimissile shield on the other hand, N. Korea's nukes get blown up in flight, and the ground invasion grinds on.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
For good or bad, Teller wasn't the only father of the hydrogen bomb.s /giants/teller .html
From:
http://www.phy.bg.ac.yu/web_project
----
Teller and his colleagues at Los Alamos made little actual progress in designing a workable thermonuclear device until early in 1951, when the physicist Stanislaw M. Ulam proposed to use the mechanical shock of an atomic bomb to compress a second fissile core and make it explode; the resulting high density would make the burning of the second core's thermonuclear fuel much more efficient. Teller in response suggested that radiation, rather than mechanical shock, from the atomic bomb's explosion be used to compress and ignite the thermonuclear second core. Together these new ideas provided a firm basis for a fusion weapon, and a device using the Teller-Ulam configuration, as it is now known, was successfully tested at Enewetak atoll in the Pacific on Nov. 1, 1952; it yielded an explosion equivalent to 10 million tons (10 megatons) of TNT.
----
Apparently nobody studies history anymore, but Mr. Teller should be recognized as a national hero of science.
.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.
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
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?