Edward Teller 2003 Deaths

Edward Teller

Hungarian-born atomic physicist who helped to establish the nuclear era with his advocacy for and work on the atomic bomb and later the hydrogen bomb. He was widely criticized in scientific circles for his testimony that implied that J. Robert Oppenheimer was a security risk. In the 1980s he championed a space-based antimissile system, widely known as the Star Wars program. He won the 1962 Enrico Fermi Award and a 2003 Presidential Medal of Freedom.