ered the advancement of nuclear power one of the most important applications of science and engineering. In the late 1940s, he served as a member of the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and chaired the Reactor Safeguard Committee. In his desire to make nuclear power plants safe, Teller identified operator error as the first problem to be solved, and he conceived the idea of burying reactors to avoid a catastrophic release of radiation. In the late 1950s, during the summer Teller spent at General Atomics in San Diego, he challenged Freeman Dyson, Frederic de Hoffmann, and others to design a small, ultrasafe research reactor. The General Atomics team succeeded with TRIGA®.
During the last year of his life, when Teller was almost completely blind, he wrote a paper with Livermore physicist Ralph Moir on thorium-burning reactors sited underground. This reactor design would use molten salt technology either without reprocessing for proliferation resistance or with reprocessing to maximize resources. Teller argued for leaving the fission products stored underground at the reactor site indefinitely or, if required, eventually transporting them to a dedicated repository. This paper, his last, was published in 2005 in Nuclear Technology.
In applying science to issues of national importance, Teller tirelessly supported collaboration and openness. He believed advances in national security and research were stronger when conducted in the open. Teller was instrumental in the declassification of magnetic energy research. Nuckolls recalls that “Teller argued magnetic fusion had little, if anything, to do with weapons and was potentially a major force for good.”
One of Teller’s great accomplishments at Livermore was promoting the use of computers to advance applied science. He was influenced by his long association with John von Neumann of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, who helped pioneer the first electronic computers. Throughout its history, Livermore has been a world leader in using supercomputers and establishing simulation as a worthy partner with theory and experiment. In the 1950s and 1960s, however, computation in physics was not regarded as entirely respectable. “Real physicists worked with equations, not programs,” says Livermore physicist Mal Kalos. “Teller understood better.”
Reflecting Teller’s Style
Perhaps the words of President George W. Bush, when he presented Teller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, best describe this giant of a man: “For a long life of brilliant achievement and patriotic service, America is in debt to Dr. Edward Teller.”
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For further information contact Stephen B. Libby (925) 422-9785 (email@example.com).
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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