Edward Teller made a major contribution to the development of the atomic bomb. He was the lead scientist on the Manhattan Project, where scientist worried that the proposed bomb would result in an uncontrolled nuclear reaction that would harm the earth. Teller’s calculations reassured the team that the nuclear explosion, while enormously powerful, would only destroy a limited area. In 1945 the atom bomb was successfully tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Due to recent interest in what happened at Los Alamos as a result of the film Oppenheimer, Keith Pannell decided pull this interview from the archives of the upcoming Science Studio Archive Website. The interview was part of a call in show with Edward Teller, who was on a the campus of UTEP for a symposium. During the conversation Dr. Teller shares a story of how he was convinced to participate in the Manhattan Project, among other anecdotes.
Thank you to Claudia Rivers at Special Collections Department at UTEP and Raymond Arias at the College of Science for archive material.