TELLER

Dr. Edward Teller (1908-) Hungarian-born American physicist, whose work in nuclear physics helped develop the hydrogen bomb. During World War II (1939-1945) Teller joined the effort to develop a nuclear weapon and worked on the Manhattan Project, a wartime project, headed by American nuclear physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), established in the US for the development of the atomic bomb. Following the war, in spite of the effects of the first atomic bomb as seen in the bombing of Hiroshima, Teller continued to push for development of an even more powerful bomb. In 1952 the first hydrogen bomb was tested in the Pacific Ocean; its explosion was equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT. Teller became known as the "father of the H-bomb."