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The Hungarian immigrant known as the "father of the H-bomb" died at his home on the Stanford University campus in California Tuesday. Link
I remember interviewing Edward Teller for a high school paper that I was writing about the A-Bomb. I remember my teacher not believing that I had actually interviewed him. We knew him because he was a good friend of the company that my parents and later I worked for, ECD. He had written a book about atomic power which was ready to go to print. He heard about the solar technology we were working on at ECD. He had discounted solar energy in the book, but he came to visit ECD to make sure he was right. After we convinced him that we were further ahead in solar technology than he thought, he stopped the press and changed his comments in his book. His integrity with respect to scientific facts was very impressive, even if I didn't agree with his politics.
I also had the opportunity to talk to him several times over the years and found him to be a very curious, neotenous, genius who had made a choice to build the H-Bomb based on his fear of the Russians based on his experience. I will miss him.
If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.
The Bhagavad-Gita
Quoted by Oppenheimer before the Trinity test blast
BTW, I'm a great fan of Oppenheimer and I think what Teller did to Oppenheimer was terrible. I will not defend Teller's politics or actions around the bomb.
Quoted by Oppenheimer before the Trinity test blast
I believe that Oppenheimer said "I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds",after witnessing the trinity explosion (not before)according to witnesses with him in the control room. It is worth noteing that he may have only quoted the line from the Bhagavad-Gita "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" without reference to the aspect of light as he seems to have been more focused on the death aspect, and uncertainty for the future of mankind!