Edward Teller is the father of the hydrogen bomb. From Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/news030908-6
This used to be mainly a LLNL blog. Many of us that worker there saw Edward and knew many people who interacted with him at one time. The stories we have are numerous and I invite people to share them here. Unfortunately there has been a thread about Teller that has relied on canned attacks and verbal gymnastics to discount his contributions and label him a villain. I would like to have a discussion that looks at the entire man and measures his impact on science and the nation.
24 comments:
Stanislaw Ulam, the true story!!!!
Two can play at the citation off the internet game!!!! I am in and raise.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/the-many-tragedies-of-edward-teller/
Edward Teller was born on this day 106 years ago. Teller is best known to the general public for two things: his reputation as the “father of the hydrogen bomb” and as a key villain in the story of the downfall of Robert Oppenheimer. Ironically it is the two most publicly known facts about Teller that are also probably not entirely accurate. He was also often a warm person and clearly desired friendship with his peers, so why did he choose to alienate so many who were close to him?
Sadly his initial design for the Super was fatally flawed; while an atomic bomb would in fact ignite a large mass of tritium or deuterium, energy losses would be too rapid to sustain a successful fusion reaction. Even after knowing this Teller kept pushing for the design, taking advantage of the worsening political situation and his own growing prominence in the scientific community. This was Teller's first real dishonest act.
His second dishonest act was withholding credit from the man who actually came up with the first successful idea for a hydrogen bomb - Stanislaw Ulam. An exceptionally brilliant and versatile mathematician, Ulam first performed detailed calculations that revealed holes in Teller's original Super design and then thought of the key process of radiation implosion that would compress a batch of thermonuclear fuel and enable its sustained fusion.
Since then almost every hydrogen bomb in the world's nuclear arsenals has been constructed on the basis of the Teller-Ulam model. Yet Teller seems to have denied Ulam the credit for the idea even in his later years, something that is especially puzzling considering that he downplayed his own role in the development of hydrogen bombs in the waning years of his life.
After the Teller-Ulam design came to light Oppenheimer actually supported the project but by that time he had already made powerful enemies, especially in the person of Lewis Strauss, a vindictive, petty and thin-skinned former Secretary of the Navy who unfortunately had the ear of President Eisenhower
How about a good story from Lowell Wood, that sure would be a credible. Wood and Teller, or CV, the crackpot and the villain.
False why do you keep saying this. Oppenheimer was against super on technical grounds but changed his mind when he saw the design
from the real father of the super, Pasta. He and many others where on board after that. Why do you keep saying this stuff? I
12/22/2022 10:04 AM
Ulam not Pasta. By the way Fuchs and von Neumann also played a role. Bethe also played arole and said Ulam, was the father, Teller the mother and that Bethe was the midwife. Oppenheimer was to change his mind on the idea of super after the Ulam design as the first Teller idea was a failure.
The whole "Teller is the father of the H-bomb" is just a myth that you find in the media including obituaries.
Ha ha! The Lowell comment really triggered you! That was the intention! You fell for it, dude! I know Lowell and can post plenty of stories. Just to test your knowledge, since you rely on popular accounts and not firsthand knowledge, what is the connection between Lowell and the recent NIF ignition breakthrough?
Worked with an engineer who had been on the SDI. Had a big run in with Lowell. Hated him with a passion. The engineers’ nickname for Lowell was the “round mound of sound”. Is that credible for you? Sorry it didn’t come from a book. Had to rely on my experience as a scientist working at LLNL.
Lowell and the recent NIF ignition breakthrough?
12/23/2022 11:08 AM
What NIF ignition breakthrough?
"Just to test your knowledge"
How about we test your knowledge first is Lowell a physicist or not?
As for part twoLowell has nothing to with NIF, it is insult to all the people who work on NIF to give any credit to the crackpot. I am sure Lowell takes credit for NIF, SDI, and every other crackpot idea that was never thought through. Saying he had ideas about using high power lasers to destroy things is so utterly vague, pointless and not even original. By the way you do not even know what the key to the NIF breakthrough was yet since the do not have a publication yet. You have no idea how NIF works or even what the issues are.
" connection between Lowell and the recent NIF ignition breakthrough?"
I think you hinting at Lowell pushing for pulsed lasers but pulsed laser existed before Lowell and he played no role in their development.
It is like saying Lowell thought about putting lasers in space and giving him credit for creating lasers, weapons and space itself. Name one concrete thing that he actually worked out mathematically that is his idea alone that made a major contribution. As for Teller there are plenty of things and he should get credit for. The issue with Teller is he or others try to give him way more credit for these things than he deserves, the other is he also get credit for what he did to Oppenheimer, in fact there are other Manhattan scientists that he attacked as well. Lowell on the other hand has no such accomplishments and tried to live off the reputation of Teller. LLNL has some odd people such Wood and Chapline. At least George had some decent work up 1980 before he went off the deep end.
To be fair LANL has some crackpots as well but they are never got any notoriety, they just sort of locally known. The only one that got any kind traction was some guy trying to show through simulations that the earth was 6000 years old. I think some right wing Christian groups would go about how LANL showed the earth was only 6000 years old. I cannot remember his name? Gell-Mann gave a talk at LANL one time on complexity and mentioned evolution and this guy went nuts but Murray just said he would only address scientific questions not ones based on superstition, and the guy started yelling "that is insulting!!!", it was pretty funny.
"Then Lowell Wood approached the podium. At sixty-five, Wood is a big, rumpled guy, tall and broad as a missile silo, with a full red beard and pale blue eyes that burn with a thermonuclear glow. In scientific circles, Wood is a dark star, the protégé of Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb and architect of the Reagan-era Star Wars missile-defense system. As a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California for more than four decades, Wood has long been one of the Pentagon’s top weaponeers, the agency’s go-to guru for threat assessment and weapons development. Wood is infamous for championing fringe science, from X-ray lasers to cold-fusion nuclear reactors, as well as for his long affiliation with the Hoover Institution, a right-wing think tank on the Stanford campus. Everyone at Snowmass knew Wood’s reputation. To some, he was a brilliant outside-the-box thinker; to others, he was the embodiment of Big Science gone awry."
Oh, man, could someone please provide a real scientist that thinks highly of Wood. Look I get that this makes for fun stuff for newspapers and magazines but what do real scientists think.
Interestingly Lowell Wood has more patents than Edison. How many bloggers here can say they have even one…?
Lowell has a PhD in Chemistry from Berkeley, I think.
Man, you are super-triggered. I said “connection”, not that Lowell figured out the breakthrough! I should have said “connection to ICF ignition”. Oh, and it’s not vague, it’s well-known at the lab. Part of the history of ICF. It’s not in any of the popularized accounts so you have to do some research. Please get ahold of yourself and maybe examine your need to attack people you don’t even know.
“To be fair LANL has some crackpots”
God, you’re a LANL person. No wonder you hate Teller and deify Oppenheimer. I understand now.
Since LANL never had a legitimate ICF program, you wouldn’t get the Lowell connection. It’s common knowledge at LLNL. Hint: it involves John Nuckolls. I guess you’ll have to look up John Nuckolls now.
Interestingly Lowell Wood has more patents than Edison. How many bloggers here can say they have even one…?
12/24/2022 12:43 PM
How about how many bloggers have patents that went on to make real money compared to any patents that Wood has is the actual question. Let us just say I know some posters on this blog who have a few patents ;). Another question is how many of his patents did he pay for versus the lab or another company and so on. I get the feeling this guy patented junk just to say he patented it because I cannot seem to find any major invention that can be traced back to wood. The whole more patents than Edison is just outright bizarre because one can find patent after patent from Edison that had major impact, yet if you look into Wood you get nothing but nonsense like the mosquito laser that was a total flop. (yes it is using laser to kill mosquitos) and idea that I sure kids had in elementary school long before Woods thought of it. I have one called the roach NIF, instead of a roach motel it is one where the a serious of lasers blasts roaches in circular cavity, or it uses the NIF ignition to create a shock wave to kill roaches. I bet Wood will now patent this, but you heard here fist on the blog!!!.
"Lowell has a PhD in Chemistry from Berkeley, "
Nope a bs in biochemistry from UCLA and a Phd in Geology.
"and it’s not vague, it’s well-known at the lab. Part of the history of ICF. It’s not in any of the popularized accounts so you have to do some research."
It is well known at the lab but not any popularized account? You see the problem now.
" It’s common knowledge at LLNL. "
Sure it is, sure. This is just getting weird on your part.
“As for Teller there are plenty of things and he should get credit for”
Whoa, this must have been a slip. Are you saying this evil villain who didn’t found the lab and wasn’t the father of the hydrogen bomb has “plenty of things” to his credit.
Seeing you struggle with the Lowell comment is amusing. I never said he was a great scientist. There is simply a “connection” that you’re not aware of because you rely heavily on these popular accounts. Anyone from the ICF program would have figured it out.
Great article about Teller’s life
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2396
page 18 details, in his own words, his contributions to the hydrogen bomb, including his advocacy for the submarine launched weapons that are the backbone of the stockpile today.
Lowell was a co author one of the first papers on laser ignition:
https://www.nature.com/articles/239139a0
Was kind of a joke at the lab as they estimated they only need a 1 KJ laser for ignition. Part of the history of needing bigger and bigger lasers which culminated in NIF.
Sorry I got his pedigree wrong. I know he had studied chemistry. My mistake.
Oh, man, could someone please provide a real scientist that thinks highly of Wood. Look I get that this makes for fun stuff for newspapers and magazines but what do real scientists think.
12/24/2022 12:36 PM
You need to really chill about this stuff. Again, not saying that Lowell is a great scientist. Anything but and he was a legendary sycophant to Teller. I thought you would have gotten the Nuckolls paper reference. Sorry.
Whoa, this must have been a slip. Are you saying this evil villain who didn’t found the lab and wasn’t the father of the hydrogen bomb has “plenty of things” to his credit.
Of course Teller did lots of good science. Oddly enough most of it was before Los Alamos and yes he deserves credit for it. He even deserves some credit for the Hydrogen bomb, it is simply incorrect to say he was the father of hydrogen bomb, it is incorrect to say he was the father of SDI, and he tried or at least did not discourage the idea that he came up with all sorts things like submarine based missiles, UFO tech, SDI, and so on. The other of course is what he did to Oppenheimer which everyone at the time knew was just done so he get power. As such he is considered a villain by physicists but even villains still deserve credit for the good work just as they deserve credit for the bad things. This is not that hard to understand.
As for Lowell I think we are in agreement and have beaten that dead horse enough. Personally I take Lowell over the anti dinosaur LANL guy.
"including his advocacy for the submarine launched weapons that are the backbone of the stockpile today."
You make it sound like if it were not for Teller we would not have submarines with nuclear launch capabilities. This is simply not true and there are many other the pushed for this both in terms of technical ability and politics. Once again Teller utterly overstates his role in something.
"thought you would have gotten the Nuckolls paper reference.""
There is some paper with Nuckolls and Woods which is just a historical like review but there is nothing really in it. The laser fusion idea
as for Nuckolls, Stirling Colgate and Ray Kidder. Colgate has a number of accomplishments. Also there is work Zimmerman, Carl Haussmann, John Emmett, and plenty of papers with various early ideas and calculations. To say Wood has some super important originals ideas on any of this is false. I think there is also some talk about "stupid pebbles" or some nonsense. By they way Wood may have also been part of the reason Nuckolls was such a disaster as a lab director.
If you recall Nuckolls is also a bit of infamous character and as removed as the lab director.
Early in his tenure, Nuckolls joined Lowell Wood and Edward Teller in a visit to the White House to brief President George Bush Sr. on Wood's Brilliant Pebbles concept for the Strategic Defense Initiative. This was a break with tradition, where Directors generally remained aloof from such actives, and a number of commenters stated this made the lab "like any other defense contractor".[13] This led to a "devastating decline in morale among Livermore scientists."[14]
" In late 1993 the University of California, who managed the lab, called for a review of Nuckolls' directorship. The review was "universally negative"[3] and there were private calls for his resignation. At first he refused, claiming there was support for his position within the Department of Energy and the Pentagon, and then calling into question the objectivity of the review due to its chair being Richard Truly, who had been dismissed after being criticized by Teller.[3] The University called a meeting for 6 April to discuss the issues, but on 4 April Nuckolls offered his resignation.[14][3]" I believe part of this is involvement with some Woods crackpot stuff and many at LLNL thought this was a bad sign.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-05-mn-42357-story.html
It just seems that the more research you do in these guys the worse it gets.
"Lowell was a co author one of the first papers on laser ignition:"
This paper was from 1972 As I said there was already ideas work and calculations for laser ignition at least 10 years earlier including pellet design. This was the work of Colgate, Kidder, Zimernann and so on. We will not even count all the people who invited lasers in the first place like Townes. Also the 1972 paper is so far off and different from the current NIF design.
“The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.”
-Thomas Carlyle
“A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
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