Teller, Edward (1908–2003)

American physicist who played an instrumental role in developing the hydrogen bomb. Edward Teller was born in Hungary, where he received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in 1930. He came to the United States in 1935 to teach physics at George Washington University. In 1939, he watched Albert Einstein sign a letter urging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb. He became an American citizen in 1941 and worked on the Manhattan Project, which successfully detonated the first nuclear weapon in New Mexico in July 1945.

Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Teller became an advocate of bigger and stronger nuclear devices and critical of the reticence of Manhattan Project scientists to develop such weapons. His criticism of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who headed the Manhattan Project, and Teller's subsequent call for a new laboratory to develop more potent nuclear weapons, alienated Teller from many of his colleagues.

After World War II, Teller served as a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, and he was also associated with the thermonuclear research program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Teller was instrumental in the development of the first hydrogen bomb, which was detonated on November 1, 1952. As a result, he is often called the Father of the Hydrogen Bomb, an appellation he reportedly disliked. In 1952, Teller became a professor at the University of California and cofounder and director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. In 1960, he resigned from the laboratory to devote time to teaching and research. In 1962, he received the Enrico Fermi Award for his contributions to the development, use, and control of nuclear energy.

Teller was a staunch supporter of President Ronald Reagan's socalled Star Wars space-based missile defense system and an advocate for new and more potent weapons systems as a means to maintain peace. He opposed several treaties aimed at reducing the spread of nuclear weapons. Teller worked in his office at the Livermore lab several days a week until his death at the age of 95.