Editing Edward Teller (section)

==Hydrogen bomb==
{{Main|History of the Teller–Ulam design}}
[[File:Los Alamos colloquium.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Physicists at a Manhattan District–sponsored colloquium at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] on the [[History of the Teller–Ulam design|Super]] in April 1946. In the front row are (left to right) [[Norris Bradbury]], [[John H. Manley|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]]. |alt=A group of men in shirtsleeves sitting on folding chairs]]
Despite an offer from [[Norris Bradbury]], who had replaced Oppenheimer as the director of Los Alamos in November 1945 to become the head of the Theoretical (T) Division, Teller left Los Alamos on February 1, 1946, to return to the University of Chicago as a professor and close associate of Fermi and [[Maria Goeppert Mayer]].{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=153–155}} Goepper-Mayer's work on the internal structure of the elements would earn her the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963.{{sfn|Teller|Shoolery|2001|pp=239–243}}

On April 18–20, 1946, Teller participated in a conference at Los Alamos to review the wartime work on the Super. 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 favorable, 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.{{sfn|Rhodes|1995|pp=252–255}}{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=171–173}}

At the end of the conference, in spite of opposition by some members such as [[Robert Serber]], Teller submitted an optimistic report in which he said that a hydrogen bomb was feasible, and that further work should be encouraged on its development. Fuchs also participated in this conference, and transmitted this information to Moscow. With [[John von Neumann]], he contributed an idea of using implosion to ignite the Super. 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, as it would almost certainly delay their progress on it.{{sfn|Rhodes|1995|pp=252–255}}

{{multiple image
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| image1   = Edward Teller & Stanislaw Ulam 1951 On Heterocatalytic Detonations - Secret of hydrogen bomb - p 1.png
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| image2   = Edward Teller & Stanislaw Ulam 1951 On Heterocatalytic Detonations - Secret of hydrogen bomb - p 3.png
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| footer   = Classified paper by Teller and Ulam on March 9, 1951: ''On Heterocatalytic Detonations I: Hydrodynamic Lenses and Radiation Mirrors'', in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, the secret of the hydrogen bomb.
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[[File:Teller-Ulam device 3D.svg|right|thumb|upright|The Teller–Ulam design kept the fission and fusion fuel physically separated from one another, and used X-rays from the primary device "reflected" off the surrounding casing to compress the secondary.]]

By 1949, [[USSR|Soviet-backed governments]] had already begun seizing control throughout [[Eastern Europe]], forming such [[puppet state]]s as the [[Hungarian People's Republic]] in Teller's homeland of Hungary, where much of his family still lived, on August 20, 1949.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq8.html |title=Early Research on Fusion Weapons |publisher=Nuclear Weapons Archive |date=November 15, 2015}}</ref> Following the [[Soviet Union]]'s first test detonation of [[Joe-1|an atomic bomb]] on August 29, 1949, President [[Harry Truman]] announced a crash development program for a [[hydrogen bomb]].{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=201–210}}

Teller returned to Los Alamos in 1950 to work on the project. He insisted on involving more theorists, but many of Teller's prominent colleagues, like Fermi 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.{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=201–210}} However, Soviet scientists who had worked on their own hydrogen bomb have claimed that they developed it independently.<ref name="bas">{{cite journal | last1=Khariton |first1=Yuli | author-link=Yuli Khariton |first2=Yuri |last2=Smirnov |author-link2=Yuri Andreyevich Smirnov| title=The Khariton version | journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | volume=49 | issue=4 |date=May 1993 | pages=20–31 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1993.11456341 |bibcode=1993BuAtS..49d..20K }}</ref>

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 reaction to begin too low, but that even with more tritium, the energy loss in the fusion process would be too great to enable the fusion reaction to propagate. In 1951 Teller and Ulam made a breakthrough, and invented a new design, proposed in a classified March 1951 paper, ''On Heterocatalytic Detonations I: Hydrodynamic Lenses and Radiation Mirrors'', for a practical 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.{{sfn|Rhodes|1995|pp=461–472}}

In an interview with ''[[Scientific American]]'' from 1999, Teller told the reporter:
{{blockquote|I contributed; Ulam did not. I'm sorry I had to answer it in this abrupt way. Ulam was rightly dissatisfied with an old approach. He came to me with a part of an idea which I already had worked out and had difficulty getting people to listen to. He was willing to sign a paper. When it then came to defending that paper and really putting work into it, he refused. He said, "I don't believe in it."<ref name="stix" />}}

The issue is controversial. Bethe considered Teller's contribution to the invention of the H-bomb a true innovation as early as 1952,<ref>{{cite web | author=Bethe, Hans | title=Memorandum on the History of the Thermonuclear Program | year=1952 | publisher=Federation of American Scientists | access-date=December 15, 2007 | url=https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/nuclear/bethe-52.htm | author-link=Hans Bethe}}</ref> and referred to his work as a "stroke of genius" in 1954.<ref name="testimony">{{cite web | author=Bethe, Hans | title=Testimony in the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer | year=1954 | publisher=Atomic Archive | access-date=November 10, 2006 | url=http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Oppenheimer/OppyTrial2.shtml | author-link=Hans Bethe}}</ref> In both cases, 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.<ref>{{cite journal| doi=10.2968/059004013 | first=Bengt | last=Carlson | title=How Ulam set the stage | journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | date=July–August 2003 | pages=46–51 | volume=59 | issue=4}}</ref> Ulam himself claimed that Teller only produced a "more generalized" version of Ulam's original design.{{sfn|Ulam|1983|p=220}}

[[File:Ivy Mike Sausage device.jpg|right|thumb|A view of the Ivy-''Mike'' "SAUSAGE" device; the world's first ever fully-fledged thermonuclear-device, with its instrumentation and cryogenic equipment attached. The long pipes were for measurement purposes; their function was to transmit the first radiation from the "primary" and "secondary" stages (known as "Teller light") to instruments just as the device was detonated, before being destroyed in the explosion. The man seated lower right shows scale.]]
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-ray]]s produced by the fission bomb to first compress the fusion fuel (by a process known as "radiation implosion") 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 "[[Operation Greenhouse|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.{{sfn|Rhodes|1995|pp=461–472}}

[[Priscilla Johnson McMillan]] in her book ''The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race'', writes that Teller "concealed the role" of Ulam, and that only "radiation implosion" was Teller's idea. Teller even refused to sign the patent application, because it would need Ulam's signature. [[Thomas Powers]] writes that "of course the bomb designers all knew the truth, and many considered Teller the lowest, most contemptible kind of offender in the world of science, a stealer of credit".<ref name="Powers">{{cite magazine |last1=Powers |first1=Thomas |title=An American Tragedy |magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]] |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/09/22/an-american-tragedy/ |access-date=16 July 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210511090244/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/09/22/an-american-tragedy/ |archive-date=11 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

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 had previously 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 US and the USSR had developed [[TNT equivalent|multi-megaton]] weapons. Even Oppenheimer, who was originally opposed to the project, called the idea "technically sweet".{{sfn|Thorpe|2006|p=106}}

[[File:IvyMikeGIFColorCorrected.gif|left|thumb|The successful "[[Ivy Mike]]" shot of 1952; the world's first fully-fledged thermonuclear explosion, appeared to vindicate Teller's long-time advocacy for the [[hydrogen bomb]].]]
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 [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Livermore]] branch of the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory|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]] at Berkeley.{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=256–257}}

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.{{sfn|Gorelik|2009|pp=169–197}} 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).<ref name="bas" />

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 (journal)|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.{{sfn|Teller|Shoolery|2001|p=407}}<ref>{{cite journal | first=Soshichi | last=Uchii | title=Review of Edward Teller's Memoirs | journal=PHS Newsletter | volume=52 | date=July 22, 2003 | url=http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/phisci/archives/newsletters/newslet_52.html | access-date=October 22, 2009 | archive-date=July 25, 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725214353/http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/phisci/archives/newsletters/newslet_52.html | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Teller was known for getting engrossed in projects which were theoretically interesting but practically infeasible (the classic "Super" was one such project.)<ref name=StanfordDeath /> About his work on the hydrogen bomb, Bethe said:
{{blockquote|Nobody will blame Teller because the calculations of 1946 were wrong, especially because adequate computing machines were not available at Los Alamos. But he was blamed at Los Alamos for leading the laboratory, and indeed the whole country, into an adventurous programme on the basis of calculations, which he himself must have known to have been very incomplete.<ref>{{cite journal | title=Comments on The History of the H-Bomb | journal=Los Alamos Science | year=1982 | first=Hans A. | last=Bethe | volume=3 | issue=3 | page=47 | url=https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00285791.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00285791.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live | access-date=November 28, 2007 }}</ref>}}

[[Image:IvyMikeCloudTrinity&Beyond.jpg|thumb|''Mike'' [[mushroom cloud]], yielding 10.4 megatons.]]
During the Manhattan Project, Teller advocated the development of a bomb using uranium hydride, which many of his fellow theorists said would be unlikely to work.{{sfn|Goodchild|2004|p=217}} At Livermore, Teller continued work on the [[uranium hydride bomb]], and the result was a dud.{{sfn|Herken|2002|pp=284–286}} 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."{{sfn|Rhodes|1995|p=467}} Fermi once said that Teller was the only [[monomania]]c he knew who had several [[mania]]s.{{sfn|Goodchild|2004|p=131}}

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Library/Teller.html |title=Basic Principles of Staged Radiation Implosion ("Teller–Ulam Design") |first=Carey |last=Sublette |access-date=November 15, 2015 }}</ref>

In the early 1950s Edward Teller proposed project [[Sundial (weapon)|Sundial]] at a meeting of the General Advisory Committee of the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]], the bomb was intended to have a yield of 10 gigatons of TNT, while its counterpart, Gnomon, was intended to have a yield of 1 gigaton. Neither device was ever built or tested.