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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."

8 of 618 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you Teller. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  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.

  3. A great loss by leeum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  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. 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. ;)

  7. Re:It should also be said.. by hoofie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Extract from Times Obituary :

    "He was later to say that, unlike Oppenheimer, he was opposed to the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, and would have preferred a demonstration of the new weapon's power to Japanese scientists. Nevertheless, in his memoirs, published in 2001, Teller admitted, while continuing to believe that Oppenheimer's opposition to the H-bomb was wrong, that the hearings had been a mistake, and that he himself had been unwise to testify."