On 6/1/04 9:47 PM, in article ,
"JASON A. KAATZ" wrote:

Dr. Teller would not steal anything. If it were someone's else's idea he
would say so out front. You obviously know nothing about the mans character
and credibility.

Actually, it seems to be fairly well documented that Teller tried very hard
all his life to deny that Stan Ulam made a significant contribution to the
important principle of staged radiation implosion. It's true that the
evidence points to Teller's contribution being the most essential, i.e.,
using the radiation instead of Ulam's initial suggestion of hydrodynamic
compression, and Teller's idea of a Pu sparkplug. But Ulam did get the
intellectual ball rolling in the first place - until early 1951, the US
h-bomb program was in the doldrums, due to the increasing evidence for the
unfeasibility of the classical Super. In his memoir, Teller said he had
already considered compression when Ulam suggested it. Near the end of his
life, Teller switched gears and tried to give credit to Dick Garwin. The
general consensus of those around at the time was this: Ulam (and Von
Neumann) calculated that the classical Super would radiate energy away at
too fast a rate, and that Teller's design would need large amounts of
tritium, if it would work at all. Rather than acknowledge the unfeasibility
of the design, Teller was miffed at Ulam for what he perceived as sabotage
of his dream and Teller had no patience for those who were unenthusiastic
about the thermonuclear program. History may judge Teller correct about the
wisdom of acquiring the Super before the Russians did, but he was not above
some duplicity.

Barnaby