RIP Edward Teller

From Rec.Humor.Funny, talk about topical



Edward Teller, the ultra-hawkish father of the hydrogen bomb, died
earlier this week. Defending his work in an interview with Scientific
American a few years back, Teller averred that if the U.S. had not
developed the H-bomb, we'd all be speaking Russian now. The interviewer
refrained from pointing out that had we pursued most of Teller's other
nuclear programs by now, we'd all be speaking cockroach.

--
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Dave Kearton

hooray the most evil person ever to exist in the world is now dead

Dave Kearton wrote:

From Rec.Humor.Funny, talk about topical

Edward Teller, the ultra-hawkish father of the hydrogen bomb, died
earlier this week. Defending his work in an interview with Scientific
American a few years back, Teller averred that if the U.S. had not
developed the H-bomb, we'd all be speaking Russian now. The interviewer
refrained from pointing out that had we pursued most of Teller's other
nuclear programs by now, we'd all be speaking cockroach.

--
Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to
.
If you see a problem with an RHF posting, reply to the poster please,
not to us. Ask the poster to forward comments back to us if this is
necessary.
For the full RHF guidelines, see http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/

This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/03/Sep/teller.html

Dave Kearton

Subject: RIP Edward Teller
From: Aerophotos
Date: 9/12/03 7:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time

hooray the most evil person ever to exist in the world is now dead

He could have stayed in Germany and given Hitler the atom bomb. Be thankful for
little things.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Pretty smart guy. Thy said it was impossibe to make an X-Ray LASER (XASER? or
gamma ray LASER, GRAZER) till he showed then how.

-- Charlie Springer

Teller wasn't one of the major players in the Manhattan project. I doubt
his presence in Germany would have materially effected a half-hearted effort
to achieve the bomb. His fatherhood of the H-bomb is somewhat exaggerated.
Certainly he was a big proponent of the weapon, but it was Hans Ulam who
figured out the concepts that made the bomb practical and scaleable. When
Teller and his group splintered off from Los Alamos to develop weapons to
his theoretical designs, the results were not spectacular.

R / John

He could have stayed in Germany and given Hitler the atom bomb. Be
thankful for
little things.

Subject: RIP Edward Teller
From: "John Carrier"
Date: 9/13/03 4:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Teller wasn't one of the major players in the Manhattan project. I doubt
his presence in Germany would have materially effected a half-hearted effort
to achieve the bomb. His

You doubt? Is that strong enough to risk it? What if you are wrong, which you
must admit is a possibility. And if you are wrong, we would all be speaking
echt deutch heute.

..


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: RIP Edward Teller
From: "John Carrier"
Date: 9/13/03 4:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Teller wasn't one of the major players in the Manhattan project. I doubt
his presence in Germany would have materially effected a half-hearted
effort
to achieve the bomb. His

You doubt? Is that strong enough to risk it? What if you are wrong, which
you
must admit is a possibility. And if you are wrong, we would all be
speaking
echt deutch heute.

Playing "what if" with history is a game for idiots and for those with
lots of idle time on their hands, but even If Germany had had all of the
USA's nuclear scientists, they still did not have the industrial capacity to
pull off the job in a reasonable time. As it was, the USA barely managed to
field a couple of weapons before the war was over.

Vaughn

Teller wasn't one of the major players in the Manhattan project. I doubt
his presence in Germany would have materially effected a half-hearted
effort
to achieve the bomb. His

You doubt? Is that strong enough to risk it? What if you are wrong, which
you
must admit is a possibility. And if you are wrong, we would all be
speaking
echt deutch heute.

Considering the overwhelming intellectual and industrial effort made to
develop the bomb, the movement of one mind (not a particularly critical one
at that) would have had no material effect on either a US (delayed) or
German (advanced) ability to develop the bomb. So I'll retract my original
statement. His presence in Germany (vice the USA) would have had no
material impact on their ability to develop an atomic weapon. Similarly his
absence wouldn't have been a show-stopper for the Manhattan project.

Germany and Japan had not expended enough effort in research to even begin
to develop an appreciation for the commitment required for a weapon's
development. Neither had the industrial or economic capacity to construct
the plants required to enrich uranium or generate plutonium WHILE
simultaneously supporting the war effort with conventional weapons
manufacture. Add the reality of the harassing effect of strategic bombing,
and it was even more hopeless.

Germany had an outstanding group of theoretical physicists. They had access
to a limited amount of uranium ore. Never the less, they did not succeed in
producing a sustained nuclear reaction by war's end (we did it in 1942 at U
of Chicago).

We WERE concerned that Germany had a bomb program. We directed missions to
hamper it (bombed heavy water production plants). When we got the right
people on the ground in Germany, we were amazed by their lack of progress.

Needless to say, this is hindsight. Things looked a lot different with
Great Britain on the edge and the Pacific Fleet battle line resting in the
Pearl Harbor mud.

R / John

In article ,
"John Carrier" wrote:

Teller wasn't one of the major players in the Manhattan project. I doubt
his presence in Germany would have materially effected a half-hearted effort
to achieve the bomb. His fatherhood of the H-bomb is somewhat exaggerated.
Certainly he was a big proponent of the weapon, but it was Hans Ulam who
figured out the concepts that made the bomb practical and scaleable. When
Teller and his group splintered off from Los Alamos to develop weapons to
his theoretical designs, the results were not spectacular.

Teller spent a lot of time being annoyed at journalists and
others who referred to him as the "father of the H-bomb".

I suspect he'd not argue with you.

Teller was not German, but a Hungarian Jew. He fled from the facists
ruling Hungary in 1926, at age of 17. He obtained his Ph.D. in Germany
in 1930 and wrote many papers on quantum mechanics there. No atomic
bomb work, as the fission reaction was then still unknown. Once the
Nazis took over, he knew he had to get out ASAP. He left around
1935.

So, Teller was long gone by the time nuclear fission was discovered
(1939), and it's most unlikely he'd have told the Nazis how to make a bomb.

This is from Richard Rhodes' book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

Mark

ArtKramr wrote:
Subject: RIP Edward Teller
From: Aerophotos
Date: 9/12/03 7:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time


hooray the most evil person ever to exist in the world is now dead


He could have stayed in Germany and given Hitler the atom bomb. Be thankful for
little things.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer