Edward Teller Edward Teller ( ; January 15 , 1908 – September 9 , 2003 ) was a Hungarian - born American theoretical physicist , known colloquially as " the father of the hydrogen bomb " , even though he claimed he did not care for the title . Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics , spectroscopy ( the Jahn – Teller and Renner – Teller effects ) , and surface physics . His extension of Fermi ' s theory of beta decay ( in the form of the so - called Gamow – Teller transitions ) provided an important stepping stone in the applications of this theory . The Jahn – Teller effect and the BET theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry . Teller also made contributions to Thomas – Fermi theory , the precursor of density functional theory , a standard modern tool in the quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules . In 1953 , along with Nicholas Metropolis and Marshall Rosenbluth , Teller co - authored a paper which is a standard starting point for the applications of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics . Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s , and was an early member of the Manhattan Project charged with developing the first atomic bomb s . During this time he made a serious push to develop the first fusion - based weapons as well , but these were deferred until after World War II . After his controversial testimony in the security clearance hearing of his former Los Alamos colleague J . Robert Oppenheimer , Teller was ostracized by much of the scientific community . He continued to find support from the U . S . government and military research establishment , particularly for his advocacy for nuclear energy development , a strong nuclear arsenal , and a vigorous nuclear testing program . He was a co - founder of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) , and was both its director and associate director for many years . In his later years he became especially known for his advocacy of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems , including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using thermonuclear explosive in what was called Project Chariot . He was a vigorous advocate of Reagan ' s Strategic Defense Initiative . Throughout his life , Teller was known both for his scientific ability and his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality , and is considered one of the inspirations for the character Dr . Strangelove in the 1964 movie of the same name . Early life and education . Teller was born in Budapest , Hungary ( then Austria - Hungary ) , into a Jewish family , in the year 1908 . His parents were Ilona ( née Deutsch ) , a pianist , and Max Teller , an attorney . When he was very young , his grandfather told his mother not to be too unhappy that he was apparently an idiot , because he hadn ' t spoken by the age of three . A doctor suggested he might be mentally retarded . Teller had no interest in speaking because his father spoke Hungarian and very poor German , and his mother spoke German and very poor Hungarian . As a result , he decided that they didn ' t know what they were talking about . Despite being raised in a Jewish family , he later on became an agnostic . He became very interested in numbers , and would calculate in his head large numbers , such as the number of seconds in a year . He left Hungary in 1926 ( partly due to the " numerus clausus " rule under Horthy ' s regime ) . The political climate and revolutions in Hungary during his youth instilled a lingering animosity for both Communism and Fascism in Teller . When he was a young student , his right foot was severed in a streetcar accident in Munich , requiring him to wear a prosthetic foot and leaving him with a lifelong limp . Teller graduated in chemical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and received his Ph . D . in physics under Werner Heisenberg 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 befriended Russian physicists George Gamow and Lev Landau . Teller ' s lifelong friendship with a Czech physicist , George Placzek , was very important for Teller ' s scientific and philosophical development . It was Placzek who arranged a summer stay in Rome with Enrico Fermi for young Teller , thus orienting his scientific career in nuclear physics . Teller spent two years at the University of Göttingen , and left in 1933 through the aid of the International 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 Augusta Maria " Mici " ( pronounced " Mitzi " ) Harkanyi , the sister of a longtime friend . In 1935 , thanks to George Gamow ' s incentive , Teller was invited to the United States to become a Professor of Physics at George Washington University ( GWU ) , where he worked with Gamow until 1941 . Prior to the discovery of fission in 1939 , Teller was engaged as a theoretical physicist , working in the fields of quantum , molecular , and nuclear physics . In 1941 , after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States , his interest turned to the use of nuclear energy , both fusion and fission . At GWU , Teller predicted the Jahn – Teller effect ( 1937 ) , which distorts molecules in certain situations ; this affects the chemical reaction s of metals , and in particular the coloration of certain metallic dyes . Teller and Hermann Arthur Jahn analyzed it as a piece of purely mathematical physics . 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 . 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 émigré 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 behavior of the gas behind such a wave proved valuable to scientists who were studying missile re - entry . Manhattan Project . In 1942 , Teller was invited to be part of Robert Oppenheimer ' s summer planning seminar at the University of California , Berkeley for the origins of the Manhattan Project , the Allied effort to develop the first nuclear weapon s . A few weeks earlier , Teller had been meeting with his friend and colleague Enrico Fermi about the prospects of atomic warfare , and Fermi had nonchalantly suggested that perhaps a weapon based on nuclear fission could be used to set off an even larger nuclear fusion reaction . Even though he initially explained to Fermi why he thought the idea would not work , Teller was fascinated by the possibility and was quickly bored with the idea of " just " an atomic bomb ( even though this was not yet anywhere near completion ) . At the Berkeley session , Teller diverted discussion from the fission weapon to the possibility of a fusion weapon — what he called the " Super " ( an early version of what was later to be known as a hydrogen bomb ) . On December 6 , 1941 , the United States had begun development of the atomic bomb , under the supervision of Arthur Compton , chairman of the University of Chicago physics department , who coordinated uranium research with Columbia University , Princeton University , University of Chicago , and University of California , Berkeley . Eventually Compton transferred the Columbia and Princeton scientists to the Metallurgical Laboratory at Chicago , and Enrico Fermi moved in at the end of April 1942 and the construction of Chicago Pile 1 began . Teller was left behind at first , but then called to Chicago two months later . In early 1943 , the Los Alamos laboratory was built to design an atomic bomb under the supervision of Oppenheimer in Los Alamos , New Mexico . Teller moved there in April 1943 . Teller became part of the Theoretical Physics division at the then - secret Los Alamos laboratory during the war , and continued to push his ideas for a fusion weapon even though it had been put on a low priority during the war ( as the creation of a fission weapon was proving to be difficult enough by itself ) . Because of his interest in the H - bomb , and his frustration at having been passed over for director of the theoretical division ( the job was instead given to Hans Bethe ) , Teller refused to engage in the calculations for the implosion mechanism of the fission bomb . This caused tensions with other researchers , as additional scientists had to be employed to do that work — including Klaus Fuchs , who was later revealed to be a Soviet spy . Apparently , Teller managed to also irk his neighbors by playing the piano late in the night . However , Teller made valuable contributions to bomb research , especially in the elucidation of the implosion mechanism . He also was one of the few scientists to actually watch ( with eye protection ) the first test detonation in July 1945 , rather than follow orders to lie on the ground with backs turned . He later said that the atomic flash " was as if I had pulled open the curtain in a dark room and broad daylight streamed in . " In 1946 , Teller participated in a conference in which the properties of thermonuclear fuels such as deuterium and the possible design of a hydrogen bomb were discussed . It was concluded that Teller ' s assessment of a hydrogen bomb had been too favourable , and that both the quantity of deuterium needed , as well as the radiation losses during deuterium burning , would shed doubt on its workability . Addition of expensive tritium to the thermonuclear mixture would likely lower its ignition temperature , but even so , nobody knew at that time how much tritium would be needed , and whether even tritium addition would encourage heat propagation . At the end of the conference , in spite of opposition by some members such as Robert Serber , Teller submitted an unduly optimistic report in which he said that a hydrogen bomb was feasible , and that further work should be encouraged on its development . Fuchs had also participated in this conference , and transmitted this information to Moscow . The model of Teller ' s " classical Super " was so uncertain that Oppenheimer would later say that he wished the Russians were building their own hydrogen bomb based on that design , so that it would almost certainly retard their progress on it . In 1946 , Teller left Los Alamos to return to the University of Chicago as a professor and close associate of Enrico Fermi and Maria Mayer . He was now known as the father of the hydrogen bomb . Hydrogen bomb . Following the Soviet Union ' s first test detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949 , President Truman announced a crash development program for a hydrogen bomb . Teller returned to Los Alamos in 1950 to work on the project . He insisted on involving more theorists , such as Klaus Fuchs ; it was Fuchs who later claimed to invent compression by means of radiation implosion back in 1946 . However many of Teller ' s prominent colleagues , like Bethe and Oppenheimer , were sure that the project of the H - bomb was technically infeasible and politically undesirable . None of the available designs were yet workable . However Soviet scientists who had worked on their own hydrogen bomb have claimed that they developed it independently . In 1950 , calculations by the Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and his collaborator Cornelius Everett , along with confirmations by Fermi , had shown that not only was Teller ' s earlier estimate of the quantity of tritium needed for the H - bomb a low one , but that even with higher amounts of tritium , the energy loss in the fusion process would be too great to enable the fusion reaction to propagate . However , in 1951 , in the joint report by Ulam and Teller of March 1951 , " Hydrodynamic Lenses and Radiation Mirrors " , an innovative idea emerged , and it was developed into the first workable design for a megaton - range H - bomb . The exact contribution provided respectively from Ulam and Teller to what became known as the Teller – Ulam design is not definitively known in the public domain , and the exact contributions of each and how the final idea was arrived upon has been a point of dispute in both public and classified discussions since the early 1950s . In an interview with " Scientific American " from 1999 , Teller told the reporter : The issue is controversial . Bethe considered Teller ' s contribution to the invention of the H - bomb a true innovation as early as 1952 , and referred to his work as a " stroke of genius " in 1954 . In both cases , however , Bethe emphasized Teller ' s role as a way of stressing that the development of the H - bomb could not have been hastened by additional support or funding , and Teller greatly disagreed with Bethe ' s assessment . Other scientists ( antagonistic to Teller , such as J . Carson Mark ) have claimed that Teller would have never gotten any closer without the assistance of Ulam and others . Ulam himself claimed that Teller only produced a " more generalized " version of Ulam ' s original design . The breakthrough — the details of which are still classified — was apparently the separation of the fission and fusion components of the weapons , and to use the X - rays produced by the fission bomb to first compress the fusion fuel before igniting it . Ulam ' s idea seems to have been to use mechanical shock from the primary to encourage fusion in the secondary , while Teller quickly realized that X - rays from the primary would do the job much more symmetrically . Some members of the laboratory ( J . Carson Mark in particular ) later expressed the opinion that the idea to use the x - rays would have eventually occurred to anyone working on the physical processes involved , and that the obvious reason why Teller thought of it right away was because he was already working on the " Greenhouse " tests for the spring of 1951 , in which the effect of x - rays from a fission bomb on a mixture of deuterium and tritium was going to be investigated . Whatever the actual components of the so - called Teller – Ulam design and the respective contributions of those who worked on it , after it was proposed it was immediately seen by the scientists working on the project as the answer which had been so long sought . Those who previously had doubted whether a fission - fusion bomb would be feasible at all were converted into believing that it was only a matter of time before both the USA and the USSR had developed multi - megaton weapons . Even Oppenheimer , who was originally opposed to the project , called the idea " technically sweet . " Though he had helped to come up with the design and had been a long - time proponent of the concept , Teller was not chosen to head the development project ( his reputation of a thorny personality likely played a role in this ) . In 1952 he left Los Alamos and joined the newly established Livermore branch of the University of California Radiation Laboratory , which had been created largely through his urging . After the detonation of " Ivy Mike " , the first thermonuclear weapon to utilize the Teller – Ulam configuration , on November 1 , 1952 , Teller became known in the press as the " father of the hydrogen bomb . " Teller himself refrained from attending the test — he claimed not to feel welcome at the Pacific Proving Grounds — and instead saw its results on a seismograph in the basement of a hall in Berkeley . There was an opinion that by analyzing the fallout from this test , the Soviets ( led in their H - bomb work by Andrei Sakharov ) could have deciphered the new American design . However , this was later denied by the Soviet bomb researchers . Because of official secrecy , little information about the bomb ' s development was released by the government , and press reports often attributed the entire weapon ' s design and development to Teller and his new Livermore Laboratory ( when it was actually developed by Los Alamos ) . Many of Teller ' s colleagues were irritated that he seemed to enjoy taking full credit for something he had only a part in , and in response , with encouragement from Enrico Fermi , Teller authored an article titled " The Work of Many People , " which appeared in " Science " magazine in February 1955 , emphasizing that he was not alone in the weapon ' s development . He would later write in his memoirs that he had told a " white lie " in the 1955 article in order to " soothe ruffled feelings " , and claimed full credit for the invention . Teller was known for getting engrossed in projects which were theoretically interesting but practically unfeasible ( the classic " Super " was one such project . ) About his work on the hydrogen bomb , Bethe said : During the Manhattan Project , Teller also advocated the development of a bomb using uranium hydride , which many of his fellow theorists said would be unlikely to work . At Livermore , Teller continued work on the hydride bomb , and the result was a dud . Ulam once wrote to a colleague about an idea he had shared with Teller : " Edward is full of enthusiasm about these possibilities ; this is perhaps an indication they will not work . " Fermi once said that Teller was the only monomania c he knew who had several mania s . Carey Sublette of Nuclear Weapon Archive argues that Ulam came up with the radiation implosion compression design of thermonuclear weapons , but that on the other hand Teller has gotten little credit for being the first to propose fusion boosting in 1945 , which is essential for miniaturization and reliability and is used in all of today ' s nuclear weapons . Oppenheimer controversy . Teller became controversial in 1954 when he testified against J . Robert Oppenheimer , a former head of Los Alamos and an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission , at Oppenheimer ' s security clearance hearing . Teller had clashed with Oppenheimer many times at Los Alamos over issues relating both to fission and fusion research , and during Oppenheimer ' s trial he was the only member of the scientific community to label Oppenheimer a security risk . Asked at the hearing by AEC attorney Roger Robb whether he was planning " to suggest that Dr . Oppenheimer is disloyal to the United States " , Teller replied that : However , he was immediately asked whether he believed that Oppenheimer was a " security risk " , to which he testified : Teller also testified that Oppenheimer ' s opinion about the thermonuclear program seemed to be based more on the scientific feasibility of the weapon than anything else . He additionally testified that Oppenheimer ' s direction of Los Alamos was " a very outstanding achievement " both as a scientist and an administrator , lauding his " very quick mind " and that he made " just a most wonderful and excellent director . " After this , however , he detailed ways in which he felt that Oppenheimer had hindered his efforts towards an active thermonuclear development program , and at length criticized Oppenheimer ' s decisions not to invest more work onto the question at different points in his career , saying : Oppenheimer ' s security clearance was revoked after the hearings . Most of Teller ' s former colleagues disapproved of his testimony and he became ostracized by much of the scientific community . After the fact , Teller consistently denied that he was intending to damn Oppenheimer , and even claimed that he was attempting to exonerate him . Documentary evidence has suggested that this was likely not the case , however . Six days before the testimony , Teller met with an AEC liaison officer and suggested " deepening the charges " in his testimony . It has been suggested that Teller ' s testimony against Oppenheimer was an attempt to remove Oppenheimer from power so that Teller could become the leader of the American nuclear scientist community . Teller always insisted that his testimony had not significantly harmed Oppenheimer . In 2002 , Teller contended that Oppenheimer was " not destroyed " by the security hearing but " no longer asked to assist in policy matters . " He claimed his words were an overreaction , because he had only just learned of Oppenheimer ' s failure to immediately report an approach by Haakon Chevalier , who had approached Oppenheimer to help the Russians . Teller said that , in hindsight , he would have responded differently . Prior to the Oppenheimer controversy , Teller maintained a friendly relationship with Oppenheimer . When Leó Szilárd asked Teller to help circulate a petition that discourages The United States from using an atomic bomb on Japan unless Japan is made fully aware of the possibility of such an attack , he consulted Oppenheimer ’ s wisdom . Teller believed that Oppenheimer was a natural leader and could help him with such a formidable political problem . Oppenheimer reassured Teller that the nation ’ s fate should be left to the sensible politicians in Washington . Bolstered by Oppenheimer ’ s influence , he decided to not sign the petition . However , Teller learned soon after his meeting that Oppenheimer conversely endorsed a political use of the super bomb . Following Teller ’ s discovery , his relationship with his advisor began to deteriorate . US Government work and political advocacy . After the Oppenheimer controversy , Teller became ostracized by much of the scientific community , but was still quite welcome in the government and military science circles . Along with his traditional advocacy for nuclear energy development , a strong nuclear arsenal , and a vigorous nuclear testing program , he had helped to develop nuclear reactor safety standards as the chair of the Reactor Safeguard Committee of the AEC in the late 1940s , and later headed an effort at General Atomics which designed research reactors in which a nuclear meltdown would be impossible ( the TRIGA ) . Teller promoted increased defense spending to counter the perceived Soviet missile threat . He was a signatory to the 1958 report by the military sub - panel of the Rockefeller Brothers funded Special Studies Project , which called for a $ 3 billion annual increase in America ' s military budget . He was Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( 1958 – 1960 ) , which he helped to found ( along with Ernest O . Lawrence ) , and after that he continued as an Associate Director . He chaired the committee that founded the Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley . He also served concurrently as a Professor of Physics at the University of California , Berkeley . He was a tireless advocate of a strong nuclear program and argued for continued testing and development — in fact , he stepped down from the directorship of Livermore so that he could better lobby against the proposed test ban . He testified against the test ban both before Congress as well as on television . Teller established the Department of Applied Science at the University of California , Davis and LLNL in 1963 , which holds the Edward Teller endowed professorship in his honor . In 1975 he retired from both the lab and Berkeley , and was named Director Emeritus of the Livermore Laboratory and appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution . In 1983 , he spoke at " The Thomas Jefferson School " , a conference of intellectuals discussing Objectivism organized by economist Professor George Reisman , where he received a standing ovation . After the fall of communism in Hungary in 1989 , he made several visits to his country of origin , and paid careful attention to the political changes there . Operation Plowshare and Project Chariot . Teller was one of the strongest and best - known advocates for investigating non - military uses of nuclear explosives , which the United States explored under Operation Plowshare . One of the most controversial projects he proposed was a plan to use a multi - megaton hydrogen bomb to dig a deep - water harbor more than a mile long and half a mile wide to use for shipment of resources from coal and oil fields through Point Hope , Alaska . The Atomic Energy Commission accepted Teller ' s proposal in 1958 and it was designated Project Chariot . While the AEC was scouting out the Alaskan site , and having withdrawn the land from the public domain , Teller publicly advocated the economic benefits of the plan , but was unable to convince local government leaders that the plan was financially viable . Other scientists criticized the project as being potentially unsafe for the local wildlife and the Inupiat people living near the designated area , who were not officially told of the plan until March 1960 . Additionally , it turned out that the harbor would be ice - bound for nine months out of the year . In the end , due to the financial infeasibility of the project and the concerns over radiation - related health issues , the project was cancelled in 1962 . A related experiment which also had Teller ' s endorsement was a plan to extract oil from the tar sands in northern Alberta with nuclear explosions . The plan actually received the endorsement of the Alberta government , but was rejected by the Government of Canada under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker , who was opposed to having any nuclear weapons in Canada , although Canada had nuclear weapons from 1963 to 1984 . Nuclear technology and Israel . For some twenty years , Teller advised Israel on nuclear matters in general , and on the building of a hydrogen bomb in particular . In 1952 , Teller and Oppenheimer had a long meeting with David Ben - Gurion in Tel Aviv , telling him that the best way to accumulate plutonium was to burn natural uranium in a nuclear reactor . Starting in 1964 , a connection between Teller and Israel was made by the physicist Yuval Neeman , who had similar political views . Between 1964 and 1967 , Teller visited Israel six times , lecturing at Tel Aviv University , and advising the chiefs of Israel ' s scientific - security circle as well as prime ministers and cabinet members . At each of his talks with members of the Israeli security establishment ' s highest levels he would make them swear that they would never be tempted into signing the Nuclear Non - Proliferation Treaty . In 1967 when the Israeli nuclear program was nearing completion , Teller informed Neeman that he was going to tell the CIA that Israel had built nuclear weapons and explain that it was justified by the background of the Six - Day War . After Neeman cleared it with Prime Minister Levi Eshkol , Teller briefed the head of the CIA ' s Office of Science and Technology , Carl Duckett . It took a year for Teller to convince the CIA that Israel had obtained nuclear capability ; the information then went through CIA Director Richard Helms and then to the US president at that time , Lyndon B . Johnson . Teller also persuaded them to end the American attempts to inspect the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona . Teller ' s personal opinion became factual assertion , when in 1976 Carl Duckett testified in Congress before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , that after receiving information from " American scientist " , he drafted a National Intelligence Estimate ( NIE ) on Israel ' s nuclear capability . In the 1980s , Teller again visited Israel to advise the Israeli government on building a nuclear reactor . Three decades later , Teller confirmed that it was during his visits that he concluded that Israel was in possession of nuclear weapons . After conveying the matter to the U . S . government , Teller reportedly said : " They [ Israeli ] have it , and they were clever enough to trust their research and not to test , they know that to test would get them into trouble . " Three Mile Island . Teller suffered a heart attack in 1979 , and many observers described him as blaming it on Jane Fonda : She had starred in " The China Syndrome " , which depicted a fictional reactor accident and was released less than two weeks before the Three Mile Island accident . She outspokenly lobbied against nuclear power while promoting the film . Teller acted quickly to lobby in favor of nuclear energy , testifying to its safety and reliability , and soon after one flurry of activity suffered the attack . He signed a two - page - spread ad in the July 31 , 1979 , " Wall Street Journal " with the headline " I was the only victim of Three - Mile Island " . < br > It opened with : The next day , " The New York Times " ran an editorial criticizing the ad , noting that it was sponsored by Dresser Industries , the firm that had manufactured one of the defective valves that contributed to the Three Mile Island accident . Strategic Defense Initiative . In the 1980s , Teller began a strong campaign for what was later called the Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ) , derided by critics as " Star Wars , " the concept of using ground and satellite - based lasers , particle beams and missiles to destroy incoming Soviet ICBM s . Teller lobbied with government agencies — and got the approval of President Ronald Reagan — for a plan to develop a system using elaborate satellites which used atomic weapons to fire X - ray lasers at incoming missiles — as part of a broader scientific research program into defenses against nuclear weapons . Scandal erupted when Teller ( and his associate Lowell Wood ) were accused of deliberately overselling the program and perhaps had encouraged the dismissal of a laboratory director ( Roy Woodruff ) who had attempted to correct the error . His claims led to a joke which circulated in the scientific community , that a new unit of unfounded optimism was designated as the teller ; one teller was so large that most events had to be measured in nanotellers or picotellers . Many prominent scientists argued that the system was futile . Bethe , along with IBM physicist Richard Garwin and Cornell University colleague Kurt Gottfried , wrote an article in " Scientific American " which analyzed the system and concluded that any putative enemy could disable such a system by the use of suitable decoys . The project ' s funding was eventually scaled back . Many scientists opposed strategic defense on moral or political rather than purely technical grounds . They argued that , even if an effective system could be produced , it would undermine the system of Mutually Assured Destruction ( MAD ) that had prevented all - out war between the western democracies and the communist bloc . An effective defense , they contended , would make such a war " winnable " and therefore more likely . Despite ( or perhaps because of ) his hawkish reputation , Teller made a public point of noting that he regretted the use of the first atomic bombs on civilian cities during World War II . He further claimed that before the bombing of Hiroshima he had indeed lobbied Oppenheimer to use the weapons first in a " demonstration " which could be witnessed by the Japanese high - command and citizenry before using them to inflict thousands of deaths . The " father of the hydrogen bomb " would use this quasi - anti - nuclear stance ( he would say that he believed nuclear weapons to be unfortunate , but that the arms race was unavoidable due to the intractable nature of Communism ) to promote technologies such as SDI , arguing that they were needed to make sure that nuclear weapons could never be used again ( " Better a shield than a sword " was the title of one of his books on the subject ) . There is contrary evidence . In the 1970s , a letter of Teller to Leó Szilárd emerged , dated July 2 , 1945 : The historian Barton Bernstein argued that it is an " unconvincing claim " by Teller that he was a " covert dissenter " to the use of the weapon . In his 2001 " Memoirs " , Teller claims that he did lobby Oppenheimer , but that Oppenheimer had convinced him that he should take no action and that the scientists should leave military questions in the hands of the military ; Teller claims he was not aware that Oppenheimer and other scientists were being consulted as to the actual use of the weapon and implies that Oppenheimer was being hypocritical . Teller ' s own comments on the role of lasers in SDI , as disclosed in live panel discussions , were published , and are available , in two laser conference proceedings . Legacy . In his early career , Teller made contributions to nuclear and molecular physics , spectroscopy ( the Jahn – Teller and Renner – Teller effects ) , and surface physics . His extension of Fermi ' s theory of beta decay ( in the form of the so - called Gamow – Teller transitions ) provided an important stepping stone in the applications of this theory . The Jahn – Teller effect and the BET theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry . Teller also made contributions to Thomas – Fermi theory , the precursor of density functional theory , a standard modern tool in the quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules . In 1953 , along with Nicholas Metropolis and Marshall Rosenbluth , Teller co - authored a paper which is a standard starting point for the applications of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics . Teller ' s vigorous advocacy for strength through nuclear weapons , especially when so many of his wartime colleagues later expressed regret about the arms race , made him an easy target for the " mad scientist " stereotype . In 1991 he was awarded one of the first Ig Nobel Prize s for Peace in recognition of his " lifelong efforts to change the meaning of peace as we know it " . He was also rumored to be one of the inspirations for the character of Dr . Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick ' s 1964 satirical film of the same name ( others speculated to be RAND theorist Herman Kahn , rocket scientist Wernher von Braun , and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ) . In the aforementioned " Scientific American " interview from 1999 , he was reported as having bristled at the question : " My name is not Strangelove . I don ' t know about Strangelove . I ' m not interested in Strangelove . What else can I say ? . . . Look . Say it three times more , and I throw you out of this office . " Nobel Prize winning physicist Isidor I . Rabi once suggested that " It would have been a better world without Teller . " In addition , Teller ' s false claims that Stanislaw Ulam made no significant contribution to the development of the hydrogen bomb ( despite Ulam ' s key insights of using compression and staging elements to generate the thermonuclear reaction ) and his personal attacks on Oppenheimer caused even greater animosity within the general physics community towards Teller . In 1986 , he was awarded the United States Military Academy ' s Sylvanus Thayer Award . He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Association for the Advancement of Science , and the American Nuclear Society . Among the honors he received were the Albert Einstein Award , the Enrico Fermi Award , the and the National Medal of Science . He was also named as part of the group of " U . S . Scientists " who were " Time magazine " magazine ' s People of the Year in 1960 , and an asteroid , 5006 Teller , is named after him . He was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W . Bush less than two months before his death . His final paper , published posthumously , advocated the construction of a prototype liquid fluoride thorium reactor . Teller died in Stanford , California on September 9 , 2003 , at the age of 95 . Sources . Herken ( 2002 ) is the source where not otherwise indicated . Further reading . Written by Teller Books about Teller References to Teller in Other Writings