"Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" Edward Teller Signed 3X5 Card Todd Mueller COA

Description

Up for auction the
"Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" Edward Teller Hand Signed 3X5 Card. Slight smudging of the signature not affecting its integrity.
This item is authenticated by Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity.
ES-4943E
Edward Teller
(
Hungarian
:
Teller Ede
; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a
Hungarian-American
theoretical physicist
who is known colloquially as "the father of the
hydrogen bomb
" (see the
Teller–Ulam design
), although he did not care for the title, and was only part of a team who developed the technology.Throughout his life, Teller was known both for his scientific ability and for his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality. Teller was born in Hungary in 1908, and emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, one of the many so-called
"Martians"
, a group of prominent Hungarian scientist émigrés. He made numerous contributions to
nuclear
and
molecular physics
,
spectroscopy
(in particular the
Jahn–Teller
and
Renner–Teller
effects), and
surface physics
. His extension of
Enrico Fermi
's theory of
beta decay
, in the form of
Gamow–Teller transitions
, provided an important stepping stone in its application, while the Jahn–Teller effect and the
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (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
,
Ariann Rosenbluth
,
Marshall Rosenbluth
, and his wife
Augusta Teller
, Teller co-authored a paper that is a standard starting point for the applications of the
Monte Carlo method
to
statistical mechanics
.
Teller was an early member of the
Manhattan Project
, charged with developing the first
atomic bomb
, and proposed the
solid pit
implosion design which was successful. He made a serious push to develop the first
fusion
-based weapons as well, but these were deferred until after
World War II
. He did not sign the
Szilard petition
, which sought to have the bombs detonated as a demonstration, but not on a city, but later agreed that
Szilard
was right, and the bombs should not have been dropped on a defenceless civilian population. He was a co-founder of
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
, and was both its director and associate director for many years. After his controversial negative testimony in the
Oppenheimer security hearing
convened against his former
Los Alamos Laboratory
superior,
J. Robert Oppenheimer
, Teller was ostracized by much of the scientific community. He continued, however, 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. In his later years, Teller 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
, and
Ronald Reagan
's
Strategic Defense Initiative
. Teller's contributions to science garnered him numerous awards, including the
Enrico Fermi Award
and
Albert Einstein Award
. He died on September 9, 2003, in
Stanford, California
, at 95.