H-bomb Father Dies at 95

Edward Teller knew a generation of American presidents

Edward Teller, the "father of the American H-bomb," the vehement fighter against communism died at the age of 95. This person stands together with such glorious names as Kurchatov, Einstein, Sakharov, Ioffe and many others. Edward Teller was a pioneer of the nuclear epoch. Nuclear weapons were designed used to destroy, not to create. Scientists were not blamed for there creating. But the same cannot said for leaders who use them. 

Nevertheless, Teller always stood for the use of advanced technologies for military purposes. In the beginning of the 1980s, the American scientist backed supported the Strategic Defense Initiative (a "star wars" project) and suggested using the roentgen laser with the nuclear pumping as the destructive tool. This anti-missile weapon is comprises a nuclear warhead outfitted with about 50 laser stems. The stems have two different range detection systems and can be aimed at any location. The nuke contains a control system and a powerful nuclear charge, the explosion of which is supposed to fuel the lasers.

The weapon's guidance system must be extremely precise: a laser must be capable of hitting a very small target (the size of a nickel) flying at the speed of up to 24,000 kilometers per hour. Needless to mention, the development of such a system is an extremely complicated scientific and technical goal.

Teller voted for the USA's pull out from the ABM Treaty, he backed the idea of deploying the ground anti-missile defense on the initiative of the incumbent American president.

The American scientist was also dealt with the UFO sightings. A meeting took place in Los-Alamos on February 16th 1949, devoted to green balls of fire flying above top secret nuclear stations in New Mexico. Edward Teller was the most famous scientist at the meeting. The discussion started with meteorites, their descriptions and peculiarities, and so on. The meeting lasted for several hours. Probably, the most interesting part of the discussion was connected with the following facts: the number of meteorite observations in December, January and February was average in the USA on the whole, but there was no message to report green balls of fire beyond Los Alamos, Las Vegas and Western Texas. In addition, the balls were noiseless, which confused Dr. Teller a lot. Edward Teller suggested, the balls could be nonmaterial optical objects. Several members of the meeting believed, the balls had to be categorized as an inexplicable natural phenomenon, although Teller and others thought, the balls were a part of a new process that could be possibly connected with plasma or electricity in the atmosphere. In addition, Teller said the green balls phenomenon was close to ionized fluorescence.

Edward Teller could access the data that could help him find out, if the balls of fire were the result of secret military experiments. The scientist assured everyone, they were not of the American technology. When the meeting was over, all questions remained unanswered. Despite the negative result, the scientist continued consulting the US government on the mysterious issue.

Dmitry Kuznetsov