Teller, Edward

Teller, Edward (b. Budapest, Hungary, 15 January 1908) In 1930 Teller earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Leipzig, and was a research assistant in Germany until he came to the US in 1935 as a refugee from the Nazis. In 1941 he became a US citizen, went to Columbia to work with Enrico Fermi on nuclear fission, and joined the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. During World War II, he did pathbreaking theoretical work on nuclear fusion, needed for a hydrogen bomb. After the USSR acquired the atomic bomb, Teller emerged as the leading spokesman for a priority program to build a US thermonuclear weapon; he was assistant director of the Los Alamos, N.Mex., research facility (1949–51), during which period the major hurdles to H-bomb production were overcome. He emerged as the scientific community’s most vigorous advocate of nuclear weapons development, and strongly criticized proposals for bans or moratoriums on testing. After 1953 he divided his energies between the Berkeley physics department and the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) laboratory at Livermore, Calif. He received the AEC’s Fermi award in 1962.