Edward Teller

Edward Teller (original Hungarian name Teller Ede) (January 15, 1908 – September 9 2003) was a Hungarian-born American nuclear physicist of Jewish descent. He was known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb."

Early life and education

Teller was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. As a child, he was slow to speak, and his grandfather warned that he might be retarded. However, when he spoke, he did so in complete sentences. He left Hungary in 1926 (partly due to the Numerus clausus rule under Horthy's regime) and received his higher education in Germany. The political climate and revolutions in Hungary during his youth instilled a deep hatred for both Communism and Fascism in Teller. When he was a young student he was involved in a streetcar accident which severed his leg, requiring him to wear a prosthetic foot and leaving him with a life-long limp. Teller graduated in chemical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and received his Ph.D. in physics under Werner Heisenberg in 1930 at the University of Leipzig. Teller's Ph.D. dissertation dealt with one of the first accurate quantum mechanical treatments of the hydrogen molecular ion. In 1930 he made friends with young Russian physicists George Gamow and Lev Landau who then visited Western Europe.

Related Topics:
Budapest - Austria-Hungary - Hungary - Numerus clausus - Horthy - Germany - Communism - Fascism - University of Karlsruhe - Physics - Werner Heisenberg - University of Leipzig - George Gamow - Lev Landau

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He spent two years at the University of Göttingen and left Germany in 1934 through the aid of the Jewish Rescue Committee. He went briefly to England and moved for a year to Copenhagen, where he worked under Niels Bohr. In February 1934, he married "Mici" (Augusta Maria) Harkanyi, the sister of a longtime friend.

Related Topics:
University of Göttingen - Jewish Rescue Committee - England - Copenhagen - Niels Bohr

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In 1935, thanks to George Gamow's incentive, Teller was invited to the United States to become a Professor of Physics at the George Washington University, where he worked with Gamow until 1941. Prior to 1939, and the announcement to the scientific community of the discovery of fission, Teller was engaged as a theoretical physicist working in the fields of quantum physics, molecular physics, and nuclear physics. In 1941 after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, his interest turned to the use of nuclear energy, both fission and fusion.

Related Topics:
George Gamow - George Washington University - Naturalized

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Perhaps the most important contribution by Edward Teller was the elucidation of the Jahn-Teller Effect (1939) which describes the geometrical distortion that electron clouds undergo in certain situations; this plays prominently in the description of chemical reactions of metals, and in particular the coloration of certain metallic dyes. In collaboration with Brunauer and Emmet, Teller also made an important contribution to surface physics and chemistry; the so called Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) isotherm.

Related Topics:
Jahn-Teller Effect - Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) isotherm

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When World War II began, Teller wanted to contribute to the war effort. On the advice of the well-known Caltech aerodynamicist and fellow Hungarian emigré Theodore von Kármán, Teller collaborated with his friend Hans Bethe in developing a theory of shock-wave propagation. In later years, their explanation of the behaviour of the gas behind such a wave proved valuable to scientists who were studying missile re-entry.

Related Topics:
World War II - Caltech - Theodore von Kármán - Hans Bethe - Missile

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