I just finished reading Edward Teller's autobiography 'Memoirs, A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science & Politics' [628 pages, Perseus Press - 2001. ISBN:0-7382-0532-x]. I highly recommend this book!
Say what you will about his politics, but the story of his life is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed his memories of working with Heisenberg (Teller was a grad student under Werner, something I did not know) & the early history of Los Alamos laboratory. Included in an appendix are the transcripts from the hearings in which Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, as well as quite a bit of text explaining why Teller testified the way he did.
It is clear that Teller is trying to spin a lot of the history covered in the book to make him look less like the person described in the subject line of this post (a description by Tass, the Soviet news agency). But nevertheless, the book is a great read. All of the work Teller did on nuclear reactor design was interesting to read about. This work of his was important &, IMHO, very worthwhile.
Cheers
Say what you will about his politics, but the story of his life is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed his memories of working with Heisenberg (Teller was a grad student under Werner, something I did not know) & the early history of Los Alamos laboratory. Included in an appendix are the transcripts from the hearings in which Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, as well as quite a bit of text explaining why Teller testified the way he did.
It is clear that Teller is trying to spin a lot of the history covered in the book to make him look less like the person described in the subject line of this post (a description by Tass, the Soviet news agency). But nevertheless, the book is a great read. All of the work Teller did on nuclear reactor design was interesting to read about. This work of his was important &, IMHO, very worthwhile.
Cheers