Jack Devanney
Jun 9
Teller like most of us was a bundle of contradictions. He was certainly aware that a major release from an NPP would provide ammunition to those who wanted to shut down weapon testing, which he thought was absolutely necessary to keep up with the Soviets.

Here's a mind-blowing fact. Teller, Leo Szilard, John vonNeumann and Eugene Wigner, a sizable proportion of the American WWII brain trust, all graduated from the same Budapest high school within a few years of each other. That must have been a hell of a high school.

No wonder Teller wanted to upgrade American education.

Rod Adams
Jun 9
Jack - Didn't some of the other members of the Manhattan project refer to the Hungarians as "The Martians", implying that their skills were out of this world?

Jack Devanney
Jun 9
The story is that the Manhattan Project greats were having lunch at the University of Chicago. Fermi is speculating about earth being visited by a master race, possibly from Mars. Szilard chimes in "They are already here, disguised as Hungarians". He had a point, but apparently the Martians used this one high school as a staging point.