At 1:38 PM -0400 4/24/01, John Young wrote:
>
>Teller lied, the NYT says, it was a young physicist who
>designed the H-bomb, the very one who later became
>a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons. A rat.
I just read this article--thanks for mentioning that it existed!--and
find your statement above, that Teller lied, to misrepresent what the
article said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/science/24TELL.html?searchpv=nytToday
The article says, amongst other things:
--begin excerpt--
...Edward Teller took a breath, sat down with a friend and a tape
recorder and offered his views on the secret history of the hydrogen
bomb.
"So that first design," Dr. Teller said, "was made by Dick Garwin."
He repeated the credit, ensuring there would be no misunderstanding.
Dr. Teller, now 93, was not ceding the laurels for devising the bomb
- a glory he claims for himself. But he was rewriting how the rough
idea became the world's most feared weapon. His tribute, made more
than two decades ago but just now coming to light, adds a surprising
twist to a dispute that has roiled historians and scientists for
decades: who should get credit for designing the H-bomb?
...
The New York Times obtained a transcript of the recording recently
from the friend with whom Dr. Teller shared his memories. Some
historians of science praise Dr. Teller's tribute to Dr. Garwin as
candid; others fault it as disingenuous.
....
In an interview, Dr. Garwin said Dr. Teller was correct to include
him among the bomb's designers, likening himself to its midwife. "It
was the kind of thing I do well," he said of joining theory,
experiment and engineering to make complex new devices.
....
If Dr. Teller's version of events is right, he and Dr. Garwin were
the main forces behind one of the most ominous inventions of all
time, a bomb that harnessed the fusion power of the sun.
Dr. Teller had championed the goal since the early 1940's, long
before the atomic bomb flashed to life. His basic idea was to use the
high heat of an exploding atomic bomb to ignite hydrogen fuel, fusing
its atoms together and releasing even larger bursts of nuclear
energy. But no one working at Los Alamos could figure out how to do
that.
....
Dr. Garwin arrived at Los Alamos in May 1951 from the University of
Chicago, where he had been a star in the laboratory of Enrico Fermi,
the Nobel laureate and arguably the day's top physicist. Dr. Garwin
had been at Los Alamos the previous summer and, intrigued by the
work, had come back for another atomic sabbatical.
In the interview, Dr. Garwin recalled that Dr. Teller had told him of
the new idea and asked him to design an experiment to prove that it
would work - something the Los Alamos regulars failed to do. "They
were burnt out" from too many rush efforts to build and test
prototype nuclear arms, Dr. Garwin recalled. "So I did it."
--end excerpt--
Tim's comments: the new information is welcome. A pity Richard Rhodes
did not have access to this information when he wrote "Dark Sun," his
excellent history of the H-bomb project.
Teller has certainly never claimed, that I have seen, that he was the
sole inventor. He was the champion, the driving force, as Garwin
acknowledges. Garwin played an important role as an engineer of the
working design, but such is the nature of teams.
Why his role was never discussed publically until now, even by _him_,
is interesting. Perhaps there were security clearance issues, or even
personal security concerns (kidnapping of Garwin, for example).
By the way, I consider Teller to be one of the most ethically
forthright public figures I've encountered. He has argued _against_
classification of secrets except in rare circumstances (troop
movements, submarine positions, nuclear bomb designs). I heard him
make this point eloquently at a lecture I attended in 1972 or so. It
always stuck with me.
Whether people like or dislike the H-bomb, or whether they think
Teller was the model for Dr. Strangelove [see note], these feelings
have no bearing on his integrity. He spoke out forthrightly on what
he considered to be the shortcomings of Oppenheimer, which earned him
(Teller) many enemies, but his comments were his honest assessments
of Oppenheimer's political leanings.
Note: There have been several articles on the Net about who the
likely influences for Strangelove were. Some say Herman Kahn, the
American scientist and expert on escalation scenarios...reading "On
Thermonuclear War" in high school was eye-opening for me. Others say
Werner von Braun, especially with the heavy German accent Strangelove
had. And others claim John von Neumann was an influence, as he was
advocating a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the U.S.S.R. in the
mid-50s. Edward Teller is also cited as a model. I believe Kubrick
was coy to the end about who he modelled Strangelove after, and I
also recollect that Kubrick once said Strangelove was a composite of
many influences.]
--Tim May
--
Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
