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Edward Teller (January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was an American theoretical physicist. He was born in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. At the time Hungary was called Austria-Hungary. He is known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb".
Teller's family was Jewish. Teller did not speak until he was three years old. He left Hungary in 1926. He moved to Germany. He went to the University of Karlsruhe there. He then went to the University of Leipzig. He got his Ph.D. in physics there. In 1933 Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany. Teller decided that he would move so that the Nazis didn't kill him for being a Jew. In 1934 Teller moved to Copenhagen in Denmark. He joined the Institute for Theoretical Physics there. He married Augusta Maria Harkanyi. Then Teller moved to London in England to teach at University of London.
In 1935 he moved to the United States to become a professor at George Washington University. In 1941 he stopped working at George Washington University. He joined the Manhattan Project in 1942. At the time it was called the Manhattan Engineering District. In 1952 Teller opened Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the University of California with Ernest Lawrence. In 1953 Teller became a professor at the University of California. He was on the cover of TIME magazine in 1957. From 1958 to 1960, Teller worked as the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He was the associate director until 1977. The laboratory is now called Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.
In 1979 Teller had a heart attack. He blamed it on Jane Fonda. In 1982 he became a member of the White House Science Council.
Teller was given one of the first Ig Nobel Prizes for Peace in 1991. In 2000 Teller's wife died.
In 2001 a book Teller wrote about his life, Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey In Science And Politics, was published by Basic Books. Teller was 93.
He died from a stroke on September 9, 2003 at Stanford University.
Teller was an agnostic. He also was a Republican.
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Teller in his youth
Teller's ID badge photo from Los Alamos
Physicists at a Manhattan District-sponsored colloquium at Los Alamos on the Super in April 1946. In the front row are (left to right) Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi and J. M. B. Kellogg. Robert Oppenheimer, in dark coat, is behind Manley; to Oppenheimer's left is Richard Feynman. The Army officer on the left is Colonel Oliver Haywood.
The 10.4 Mt "Ivy Mike" shot of 1952 appeared to vindicate Teller's long-time advocacy for the hydrogen bomb.
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Teller testified about J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1954.
One of the Chariot schemes involved chaining five thermonuclear devices to create the artificial harbor.
Teller became a major lobbying force of the Strategic Defense Initiative to President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
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Edward Teller in his later years
Appearing on television discussion After Dark in 1987
