PHYSICIST

Edward Teller

1908 - 2003

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Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of the Teller–Ulam design inspired by Stanisław Ulam. He had a volatile personality, and was "driven by his megaton ambitions, had a messianic complex, and displayed autocratic behavior." He devised a thermonuclear Alarm Clock bomb with a yield of 1000 MT (1 GT of TNT) and proposed delivering it by boat or submarine to incinerate a continent. Born in Austria-Hungary in 1908, Teller emigrated to the US in the 1930s, one of the many so-called "Martians", a group of Hungarian scientist émigrés. He made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy, and surface physics. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Edward Teller is the 76th most popular physicist (down from 26th in 2019), the 20th most popular biography from Hungary (down from 6th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular Hungarian Physicist.

Edward Teller is most famous for his work on the hydrogen bomb.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Edward Teller ranks 76 out of 851. Before him are Philipp Lenard, Lev Landau, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Ludwig Boltzmann, Max von Laue, and Johannes Diderik van der Waals. After him are James Chadwick, Hermann von Helmholtz, Christian Doppler, Ernst Mach, Manne Siegbahn, and Luis Walter Alvarez.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1908, Edward Teller ranks 13. Before him are Claude Lévi-Strauss, Lyndon B. Johnson, Herbert von Karajan, Lev Landau, Otto Skorzeny, and Amon Göth. After him are Willard Van Orman Quine, Olivier Messiaen, Hannes Alfvén, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Don Bradman, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Among people deceased in 2003, Edward Teller ranks 6. Before him are Charles Bronson, Leni Riefenstahl, Katharine Hepburn, Idi Amin, and Heydar Aliyev. After him are Johnny Cash, Gregory Peck, Alija Izetbegović, Barry White, Robert K. Merton, and Maurice Gibb.

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In Hungary

Among people born in Hungary, Edward Teller ranks 20 out of 1,077. Before him are Harry Houdini (1874), Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1868), Louis I of Hungary (1326), Leo Szilard (1898), Imre Kertész (1929), and Imre Nagy (1896). After him are Árpád (845), Franz Lehár (1870), John Zápolya (1487), Robert Capa (1913), Edgar Ætheling (1051), and Jadwiga of Poland (1374).

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Among PHYSICISTS In Hungary

Among physicists born in Hungary, Edward Teller ranks 2. Before him are Leo Szilard (1898). After him are Eugene Wigner (1902), Dennis Gabor (1900), Georg von Békésy (1899), Arpad Elo (1903), Ferenc Krausz (1962), Nicholas Kurti (1908), Zoltán Lajos Bay (1900), Valentine Telegdi (1922), and Egon Orowan (1902).

Hungarian born Physicists

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