Edward Teller - Heisenberg, Bohr and the atomic bomb (34/147)

To listen to more of Edward Teller’s stories, go to the playlist: • Edward Teller (Scientist)
Hungarian-American physicist, Edward Teller (1908-2003), helped to develop the atomic bomb and provided the theoretical framework for the hydrogen bomb. He remained a staunch advocate of nuclear power, calling for the development of advanced thermonuclear weapons. [Listener: John H. Nuckolls]
TRANSCRIPT: I would like to finish my story about Bohr and, in a way, about Heisenberg, by telling you of a very sad fact. When the Nazis came, when Hitler occupied Denmark, Bohr was in danger of his life. He had a Jewish grandfather, I think, at least. He was to escape. Shortly before that, Heisenberg listened- came to him. Bohr came out to America and told us that Heisenberg is working on the atomic bomb for the Nazis. Heisenberg and Bohr have been good friends. Bohr did enormous damage to Heisenberg's reputation. I heard him say that, I even heard him say that in a one-to-one conversation. I never quite believed it. I went back to Germany, found out - in more ways than in a short time I can tell you - but found out what actually happened. Heisenberg went to visit Bohr, he had to talk with him. He talked with him in his home, the Carlsberg Castle, the, the beer producing Carlsberg people or- I don't know whether it was beer, but they gave it to Bohr. And when they were talking indoors and Heisenberg was afraid that there might be- that the Nazis might have put in listening apparatus, he said things- I am working for my government and it's good to work for my country. That is what Bohr quoted. Then they went out into the garden and Heisenberg was no longer afraid. And then he added- I am with a group working on the atomic bomb. I hope we won't succeed. I hope the Americans won't succeed either. I cannot do otherwise than give an ab- abbreviated version of all this but here is one point, one generalization which I would like to make. My years in Germany, about which I want to talk a little more later, have been at a wonderful constructive period of science. Hitler destroyed it. You were not allowed to talk about Einstein. A Jewish lie, relativity. Heisenberg resisted it. I have many detailed indications that Heisenberg, if he did not directly sabotage the work on the atomic bomb, he never seriously worked on it. After war he and maybe ten other people were taken to a place in England and kept there and now the British did listen by secret apparatus to what they were saying to each other. I couldn't get that record until two years ago when it was published. And Heisenberg said about atomic bombs some of things which clearly prove that he did not think about the subject. They were told in August 1945 that we'd dropped an atomic bomb and the Germans didn't believe it. And then Heisenberg told them- Perhaps they did, and explained to them how the atomic bomb worked, wrongly so. A point about which I am very proud because the mistake that Heisenberg then made, I made a few years earlier when I was starting to think about it - and found out within a few months that it was wrong. That Heisenberg should make the same mistake gives me pleasure. But it shows, in the case of the excellent intelligence of Heisenberg, that he never seriously tried to work on the subject.

[@richardkovacs2006]

Historian Richard Rhodes said that in his opinion it was already a foregone conclusion that Oppenheimer would have his security clearance revoked by then AEC chairman Lewis Strauss, regardless of Teller's testimony. However, as Teller's testimony was the most damning, he was singled out and blamed for the hearing's ruling, losing friends due to it, such as Robert Christy, who refused to shake his hand in one infamous incident. This was emblematic of his later treatment which resulted in him being forced into the role of an outcast of the physics community, thus leaving him little choice but to align himself with industrialists.

[@bitcointechboy9910]

There needs to be a movie about Teller as much as there was about Oppenheimer. Teller had as fascinating and interesting life as Oppie.

[@AAA20713]

The father of atomic bomb, and the father of hydrogen bomb.

[@garrysnett7688]

@@AAA20713 yes.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

A lot more arrogance than brilliance. He was not unlike Rosalind Franklin NOT discovering the structure of DNA, he could not see the wood for the trees. Others got the key ‘Super’ breakthrough. In reality he could not work with people and contributed next to nothing to the Manhattan Project, his essential sidelining there fuelled his resentment towards Oppenheimer.

[@nico210]

Lol. The whole physics from 1850 to 1950 needs a movie. Teller is the least of the whole band. And one of the most despicable.

[@mrsrjlupin3650]

​@@AAA20713there was a great shot of them together in the movie standing side by side - should have been the movie poster

[@wtx8084]

Thank you for transcript.

[@rahululla7637]

We need him back now more than ever. ❤

[@peterbietenholz2491]

By no means

[@carlloeber]

this is great .. thank you very much .. I love what he said at the end about the mistake of Heissenburg .. the same as his own ..

[@bachtube11]

Im curios: what was the mistake of Heisenberg (which made made Teller too before Heisenberg)?

[@Our_Sole_Pusch]

I dunno. Hearing this stuff about Heisenberg makes me feel a bit...uncertain.

[@enkibumbu]

It's interesting to hear about the years before blue meth.

[@stanleycates1972]

Thank you

[@docalou]

Gives another spin on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle :)

[@animalntelligence3170]

Teller was a brilliant man who knew Heisenberg well and when he was recorded here he was probably the last or at least one of the very few remaining people to have this first hand knowledge of not just the person (he got his doctorate under Heisenberg and admired the man tremendously, saying in another interview that he still dreamt of the man almost a century since studying under him) but also the science. However, despite this authority Teller has, watch and read some other stuff. Heisenberg may have not been a nazi but he said multiple times that he wanted Germany to win and, by today's standards, he was certainly a racist who bought into the aryan superiority thing. I think Teller let his affection for Heisenberg cloud his judgement, made him interpret his actions and motivations with very positive prejudice. Meitner, no dummy herself and also acquainted with both the physics and the people, was very critical of Heisenberg. One anecdote about WH was his talking to a Jewish physicist who had lost his parents in a concentration camp -- Heisenberg basically told him that nazism was just a phase and if Germany had won the war, eventually they would have been either replaced or calmed down after 50 years -- not much consolation to the man whose parents had been murdered. At best WH was naïve; at worst he was a racist who took the whole genocide thing pretty lightly. Kathy Loves Physics & History has more than one video about WH and the German bomb and WH's meeting with Bohr.

[@danielbrstak5730]

It is hard to believe for me that Heisenberg was a Nazi. All people around him were Jews.His teachers : Niels Bohr and Max Born, his students: Edward Teller, Felix Bloch , his colleaugues : Wolfgang Pauli and people that Heisenberg knew very well: Einstein, Bethe, Weisskopf, Wigner , Landau....by the way, don't forget that WH was arrested by Gestapo, blamed he is "white jew" and released only because his mother knew Himmler's mother .

[@Jalcolm1]

I agree. Kathy loves physics seems to marshal a lot of evidence that Heisenberg tried to make a bomb. Bohr was half Jewish; his mother’s family name was Adler. Until the Nazi’s roundup and deportations of Danish Jews began, Bohr was treated well. Once the charade was over, Bohr had to flee to safety.

[@stephenpeterson7940]

From what I gather, Heisenberg was pro-Nazi but despised Hitler.

[@animalntelligence3170]

@@stephenpeterson7940 Heisenberg was pro=German, not pro-Nazi -- you pretty have to like Hitler to be pro-Nazi. But WH did want Germany to win and said some very stupid stuff to Jewish colleagues after the war, very insensitive to men who had lost iirc parents in the camps.

[@g.l.5072]

That's not true. Most of his PhD students are still alive. He taught up until the 1960s.

[@jamesmason2228]

I'm conflicted about Teller. I agree that there was a need to understand the "super" sufficiently that no one else could get there ahead of the west. But I wonder if that pursuit required the destruction of Oppenheimer's reputation. Because that's a very unsavory part of Teller's legacy too.

[@richardkovacs2006]

As if Tellet single handedly did anything to Oppenheimer. Ad if Oppenheimer didn't have communist leaning... Teller was despised of nazis AND communists. He had the chance to experience both in Hungary. And none was a joke.

[@markdouglas8073]

I met Teller during the Reagan era and it led me to changing my career.

[@tringuyen7519]

WW2 was a different time. Think of the code breakers @ Bletchley Park. When coders & physicists held the future of the world in their hands. Imagine the pressure on them.

[@SMGJohn]

@@richardkovacs2006 Teller did nothing really, there was strong evidence Oppenheimer supplied the Communists with the atomic data as there historical documents showing the Soviets knew about the bomb before they even put a spy inside of Los Alamos, thats why they put a spy there to begin with, because they knew beforehand, at the time the american military police could not prove anything, all they could prove was that Oppenheimer had "contacts" with Communists, the government did not want someone like that to be in the position Oppenheimer was in.

[@hrussell9677]

@@richardkovacs2006Teller helped to get Oppenheimer blacklisted and lose his security clearance. Teller was one of the most hated people when the dust settled, in addition to being a racist.

[@NoahSpurrier]

Interesting perspective on why Teller believed Heisenberg never seriously worked on the bomb. He makes a good point.

[@morpher44]

It seems to me that the NAZI didn't need just Heisenberg to work on the bomb, or other weapons of mass destruction including bio weapons.

[@NoahSpurrier]

@@morpher44 A lot of scientists in the Manhattan project were European refugees. Germany shot themselves in the foot if they had really hoped to build an atomic bomb. They lacked the resources, time, infrastructure, and expertise to build an atomic bomb. A quarter million people, three nations, and the best scientists and engineers from all over the world spent 1% of the US GDP to build an atomic bomb in peace and quiet, without constant allied bombing destroying their labs and factories. Germany spent 60% of its GDP on its military in WW2. Germany could only dream of building an atomic bomb. It just couldn’t happen. Impossible. Nobody but the US could have gotten even remotely close to building an atomic bomb during WW2.

[@hoagybob]

Wow. An amazing interview with a giant of physics.

[@atg131000]

I knew him personally

[@workingmoodleclass5925]

Giant of physics??? His only “contribution” was to be a big promoter of the hydrogen bomb . And even then, Ulam was the brain behind that bomb

[@richardkovacs2006]

​@@workingmoodleclass5925if you don't know sh*t, why do you comment? A single hoogle research would be enough to know it's not true. Yeah, great, you saw a movie. Wow, now you're an expert.

[@omarsamir3000]

Honestly, thank you for this! I had this question in my mind for many years, about why Heisenberg worked on the atomic bomb project for the Nazis. It was quite disturbing. Now I feel relieved :)

[@vivgm5776]

Exactly ! relieved ! Feels good to know that a man capable of such intelligence and innovative ideas couldn't be that kind of person !

[@D800Lover]

@Orbán Viktor Mihály - Have you just suffered a brain implosion?

[@rcmrcm3370]

@@D800Lover , but tell Teler was a backstabbing, self-serving, political animal and a full bag of s***

[@element4element4]

Teller was a student of Heisenberg and his narrative is very much pro-Heisenberg. Detailed historical studies and evidence, do not make Heisenberg look that good sadly.

[@Atom15]

@@element4element4 There is the translation of the recordings made the British secret service, when they brought the german scientist to Britain after the war. And Heisenberg also states that they never worked on it and never wanted to built an atomic bomb.

[@barrym5310]

Read “Operation Epsilon: The Farm Hall Transcripts”. Farm Hall is the manor in Godmanchester, England where the 10 German scientists, including Heisenberg, were kept. Their rooms were bugged. There’s a great deal to be learned about man, defeated German scientists, hubris, etc.

[@barrym5310]

Yes, their hubris, in particular. I’ve read the book several times over the years and have never had the sense that Heisenberg did any less than his best. It’s important, too, to consider that Germany lost nearly all of their outstanding physicists (including those in occupied countries) to the US and Britain, thus almost assuring their (the Nazis) inability to create an atomic bomb.

[@GSuii]

What a man. And loyal too.

[@johncarrigan9352]

Maybe the fire in Heisenbergs lab was the main set back?

[@Kosmonooit]

It seems whether or not Heisenberg et al did not facilitate the Nazi A Bomb by choice is one of the biggest questions in 20 century science. Teller has had his say but he had personal allegiances. btw The Nazi's 'Manhattan Project' was really the A4/V2 Rocket program in terms of size / expenditure.

[@chrislong3938]

I remember Teller during the Reagan presidency and Star Wars. He wanted to build an X-Ray laser in space that would be powered by an atomic bomb!!! Sometimes I think he was a nut job as well as a genius!

[@thomasfisher5742]

did read some where Chris that TELLER was very opinionated and difficult to work with at times stay well my friend

[@morpher44]

And the movie "Real Genius" used a space-based laser weapon to make popcorn in the house of the professor.

[@deirdre108]

Right! A lot of geniuses are nut jobs. Isaac Newton for example believed in numerology, alchemy and probably died of lead poisoning from trying to extract the gold from lead. Apparently he was a life long celibate too.

[@willhovell9019]

Why did Teller defend Heisenberg, it doesn't stack up. He has no real evidence of H's resistance against the Nazi regime. Teller was brilliant and heralded the even darker age of the H bomb

[@D800Lover]

No, Bohr's Mother was from a Jewish family. So Teller wasn't quite right, but it does mean that his Grand Father on his Mother's side was indeed also from the same Jewish family. But Bohr didn't consider himself Jewish as such. But Bohr did hide a number of Jews from the Nazis and gave them safe passage.

[@NisseOhlsen]

Here in Denmark, we don't really distinguish between Jewish and ethnical Danes. We have too much in common, including strong faith in democracy, freedom of speech and the importance of education and free thought for that.

[@NisseOhlsen]

@Liza Tanzawa I actually think your president is doing your country a lot of good, not just regarding job creation (although I strongly disagree regarding the environment). And I think Tulsi Gabbard is helping taking out the rot of the Democratic party. Clinton is, indeed, a war monger and morally, as well as financially, corrupt. I fully agree with Trump that the US should not sacrifice its young men and women getting into wars that are basically about oil. I also agree with Trump when he stated that Bush & Co lied about WMD. It was all lies and a lot of people got killed for that.

[@F_Tim1961]

There is no readily available evidence that Bohr hid any fellow Jews. He did however persuade King Gustav V of Sweden to broadcast that Danish Jews would find sanctuary in Denmark and thereby helped save thousands. HOWEVER Gustav V would most likely not have done so had Stalingrad not fallen - so showing that the Russians were going to push the Nazis back. Once that broadcast was made , Bohr rushed off to the UK under the invitation of Chadwick. This invitation must , I guess, have come through the British embassy in Sweden. It was a very risky flight because Bohr travelled in the bomb bay of a Mosquito with civil aviation markings. The Luftwaffe flying out of Norway were known to shoot these aircraft down - often they were flying ball bearing components from Sweden into the UK for war work.

[@D800Lover]

@@F_Tim1961 - Bohr did shield some Jewish physicists prior to 1943, the year the Nazies moved on the Danish Jewish population. They are two separate things. As you say, Bohr was not in the country then, having fled across to Sweden and ending up unconscious in the bombing bay of a Mosquito.

[@F_Tim1961]

@@D800Lover The amusing thing out of all of this effort to get Bohr out of Sweden, where he was perfectly safe , is that he made next to no contribution to the US Manhattan project. Later on the Russians (Kapitza) approached him about collaboration within the context of WWII and the British found out and became extremely nervous. He was a man of strong moral convictions regarding use of the Abomb but too naive to realise that nobody was interested in what he thought. THere are rumours that Lise Meitner was also sounded out about moving from Sweden to the US to work on atomic work and she refused on moral grounds. I find this attitude indefensible given what the Germans were doing to her people but it is easy to take the high moral ground when you are warm and safe in Sweden.

[@luismanuel2612]

Interesting staff. Two completely different versions of Heisenberg's commitment to the Nazi project of building a nuclear bomb...

[@timdyer5903]

I'd agree with the notion that Heisenberg didn't work hard enough, and thank God he didn't. Whether because he was holding back on purpose, as Teller suggests, or due to inadequacy is 50-50. As Teller knew how smart he was, you can understand why he feels Heisenberg held back on purpose, against the Nazis.

[@diamonddog13]

Another factor is that the atomic bomb program in Nazi Germany was hardly funded. I think it was the equivalent of $8million at the time, compared to $2billion for the Manhattan Project. Even with full effort, WH wasn't going to build a bomb on that budget.

[@F_Tim1961]

This raise the interesting question - Did Heisenberg et al pretend to work on atomic piles , because after all they built a heavy water moderated pile **, in order to be kept from the coal face of the war ? on balance, it appears that the majority of German work in the atomic area was along the lines of building a power source for Nazi submarines which would allow them to remain at see only limited by crew stamina. That alone, if successful would have been a serious outcome. That's not to say that Hitler would not have built a bomb if there were a chance of doing so but the odds of the Third Reich doing so were very limited given all the other demands for engineering and physical resources. ** All the heavy water came out of Norway and the Germans obviously had some military application in mind , given all the effort they went to to move this heavy water.

[@morpher44]

it is easy to say "I didn't work on it too hard" when some other team on the planet beats you to the punch.

[@mrsrjlupin3650]

You need a reactor to make plutonium from uranium

[@caiogiraorodrigues930]

i'm here because of Oppenheimer.

[@Rampart.X]

Wow

[@sh0001]

Is its just me or does he remind you of Henry Kissinger!?

[@D800Lover]

The error both Teller and Heisenberg made was the amount of fissionable material required. The elegant equation they used looked so right, but is was flawed. The amount was not in tons, it was in Kilograms.

[@waynesimpson2074]

I understand modern day retellings of WH's involvement with the Nazis trying to make him out to be a double agent for the peace core, deliberately undermining the Nazi bomb efforts with subterfuge. This revisionist theory doesn't hold true when we review where Heisenberg was when the first weaponised atom bomb was detonated over Japan? He was under house arrest at Hall Farm, UK and his every word was secretly bugged and recorded. As he learned of the successful Allied detonation he then discussed ,at great length, with his fellow prisoners exactly how the US scientists must have cracked the details for the weapon. WH was so far wrong on the technicalities that it became clear that the Nazis were years behind in the race for the bomb but this had not stopped him from trying his utmost to build one for the Third Reich. WH and Hitler had fallen prey to their biggest mistake of WW2 ; ''...no Jewish physics...''.

[@D800Lover]

@@waynesimpson2074 - I am fully aware of the whole story. That the Nazis were never seriously going to get the atomic bomb, the farm recordings etc.

[@D800Lover]

Agreed.

[@PhilMoskowitz]

Heisenberg was no engineer. He nearly flunked his graduate thesis because he couldn't explain how a battery works. Besides building the bomb required massive resources. Resources Germany could ill afford at this juncture in the war.

[@thedarksage328]

Exactly!

[@rowingaway]

The V2-program was as costly as the Manhattan Project. The Germans misallocated their resources - luckily so.

[@johnpalmer5131]

I agree Heisenberg was a theoretical physicist… they guys that built the bomb were almost exclusively experimental physicists. Theoretical physicists come up with ideas (theories), experimental physicists build thins that prove whether the idea actual works. It then takes a bunch of engineers to make practical and scalable. I think always knew this and was just blowing smoke up the crazy Nazi asses.

[@Wienerblutable]

I don’t know where u got that:) he only made his doctor „only“ cum laude because he hadn’t detailed knowledge about the optic in microscopes. They did know that he wasn’t a engineer and so they asked him that, because they were and it made them angry. He still did it, even when he didn’t know what’s exactly the order of parts in a microscope.

[@MS-fg8qo]

He was interested in pure physics and will be in any list of the most important physicists ever. Without these guys, engineers wouldn't have the slightest idea where to start.

[@11Kralle]

Weizäcker quarreled repeatedly with Heisenberg about the best way to achieve this horrible aim.

[@jc03571]

Incredibly brilliant but also also dangerously overconfident and overly prone to rationalizing.

[@coolcat23]

Hearing the real people speak is so much more fascinating than the feeble fictionalisation in the form of the movie "Oppenheimer". I hope the latter at least gets people started to explore the original documents and witnesses.

[@meahoola]

You all know that this is Dr. Strangelove, do you?

[@richardkovacs2006]

No, that was von Neumann

[@meahoola]

@@richardkovacs2006 The wiki page mentions both, von Braun and some others...

[@michaeldavis4368]

I thought Strangelove was Henry Kissinger. Maybe he’s a composite.

[@Setmose]

The character Dr. Strangelove, and Peter Sellers' portrayal, are based on Herman Kahn.

[@jacobvandijk6525]

Mr Teller shows so much respect for Heisenberg and German science in general that I just don't know how objective he is; listen to the first minute of the next video too. In other words, I still don't know what to make of this story about Heisenberg during WW-II.

[@gyulahalasz8178]

Jacob if you interested to better understand why Teller respects Heisenberg read The Life and Times of Edward Teller. Heisenberg was teller mentor or one of the greatest physicist in Germany where the cradle of nuclear science lied in the Golden age of physics. They were friends and both had to work opposite sides simply because Hitler hated jews. Otherwise if teller and the other Jews that made the atomic bombs stayed in Europe likely the 3rd Reich would have completed the A or H bomb. So it is really fortunate that Hitler was an idiot chasing away brainpower.

[@jacobvandijk6525]

@@gyulahalasz8178 Thank you! I will go and search for the book. I love the history of physics. Yes, these were fascinating times indeed. P.S. Unfortunately, there are still a few Hitler-look-alike's around: in Russia, Turkey, Syria, North Korea, etc.

[@gyulahalasz8178]

Someone said politicians not to be trusted, autocrats and dictators should not have nuclear power. Your observation is right about Teller, he has serious personal bias and some historian highlighted it as a weakness, but it is a very human trait and to a degree understandable, but also for many unforgivable. Heisenberg is not as good as made out by Teller, and also Teller did not knew him during the late 30-s and till 45's so he is making observation on him as his former professor from the pre nazi Era. Teller is far from perfect but understandable and for many admirable. The Oppenheimer incident left a great scar on Teller and forced him out of the science circles into the political/ powerplay roles. I think he loved the science circles where they got him while politician could never understood him, that is his great tragedy.

[@jacobvandijk6525]

@@gyulahalasz8178 Everyone has to deal with his own character, intelligence, ambition and circumstances.

[@nowhereman8564]

Whether we like it or not, Germany has given the world the most brilliant scientists of the galaxy 😐, and they have the best outfits during the war 😁

[@workingmoodleclass5925]

Teller betrayed Oppenheimer

[@richardkovacs2006]

According to Nolan, yes. But Nolan's movie is far from being truthful. I should say it lies about facts.

[@tallsmile28]

I find it hard to believe that Heisenberg could not have built the bomb if he really wanted to. He must have been intentionally dragging his feet.

[@markusweissenbock6337]

Teller was trying to explane exactly that...

[@vivgm5776]

last sentence of the speaker

[@F_Tim1961]

I doubt if he could have built a U235 based bomb because Speer asked about getting results in 9mo. if he were given money and Heisenberg could not commit to that. Heisenberg did not know of the potential of Pu bred in a reactor because all US scientific publishing on U and of course Pu had been stopped for the duration of the war. It appears Heisenberg's estimate of critical mass was massively over estimated, possibly because he did not know that the capture radius of the U235 nucleus was dependent on the energy of the approaching neutron.. anyway he got a number in tonnes which at 90 percent purity was not technically possible for years, even for the US. BUT The discussion with Bohr finally galvanised Bohr and one of his sons to move to the US (Via the belly of a UK Mosquito to Scotland). Bohr's discussion with atomic scientists about the Heisenberg interview would have helped provide additional energy to get the US programme to produce a military result.

[@thedarksage328]

Look at how much work went into the Manhattan Project, with Hundreds of physicists and Engineers and the complete backing of the US Government Heisenberg might have been talented, but he was one physicist, and Germany just didn't staff the project properly to make it work. Hitler viewed the atomic bomb project as a high risk-gamble project and was more interested in the V-2 Ballistic Missie.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

If you find it hard to believe, spend some time finding out about the subject.

[@sentfrom4477]

Philip Ball's book 'Serving the Reich' is well researched and far less sympathetic to Heisenberg.

[@EthelredHardrede-nz8yv]

" that was standing up to Capitalist-Communist ' My what a LIE. Did you study lying with the other Nazis.

[@mattnewhouse1781]

@Pedro Vaz you sound like a complete idiot.....haha......keep talking on the internet And your name is Pedro, don't think you count as white bro sorry.

[@LarsAgerbk]

@@mattnewhouse1781 you dispute the white race being genicided?

[@David_7171]

Speed looks the same

[@Wienerblutable]

In 39 5hey made plutonium, and Heisenberg did know how to make a nuclear explosion in theory. They didn’t fund it, because in 1939 they almost took whole Europe without effort, and they produced regular weapons. They could have built one till 42 or 43, they had the best engineers to work for him, they just didn’t, and as told he wasn’t too interested to make this moral decision.

[@eastcoastsailingcenter7768]

Mr 'megaton!'

[@atypocrat1779]

🧛‍♀️

[@Schindler414]

Too bad there are letters written by Heisenberg that say otherwise...

[@NisseOhlsen]

It would have been easy for Heisenberg to communicate to Bohr that he believed that such a bomb should never be built. Failing to do so, it's clear that he was going to attempt to create one. Heisenberg was no Niels Bohr.

[@markusweissenbock6337]

OK, So you think that these people would have been the only ones to think things further that were discovered earlier on? Do you think that there only were 3-5 geniuses, that could think things further? What a mess of thinking you are...

[@markusweissenbock6337]

@Liza Tanzawa Heidenberg was a sack of shit because? Because of him beeing a German?

[@New_Blue_2]

Markus Weissenböck and @Liza Tanzawa Werner Heisenberg was a complicated figure. He was arguably the top atomic physicist of his time. I believe that Heisenberg was a nationalist and felt sympathetic to the Nazi regime in the early 1930s (like most German citizens at the time). But at the same time, he was not trusted by the Nazis media outlets due to his a Jewish heritage. This may have been a struggle between the best actions to take in the early days of the Nazi regime, but I believe that after he saw the decimation of Poland, France & Czechoslovakia and that Nazis were killing the Jewish people that an atomic weapon would be detrimental to Europe & the world. I do think he help stalled the creation of Nazi Germany creating an atomic weapon. He certainly wasn’t no hero by any means; just a weak man who was very conflicted and self-consumed.

[@Zurvanox]

It was known among physicists that it was possible. One disbeliever would not make a difference.

[@NisseOhlsen]

@@Zurvanox write in your own name. Then make a difference.

[@vicent436]

Why not captions ?

[@mortenchristiansen4331]

Interesting, but hard to believe. Why would Heisenberg be lead physicist in creating a german nuclear bomb if he didn’t believe in the project ? He could easily have assumed a much less central position in the work. Maybe Heisenberg played two horses. Seems Teller is eager to aquit Heisenberg but again, hard to believe.

[@abelgerli]

Actually there was a German documentation and about the German bomb what they had achieved was a nuclear reaction in reactor. But they didn't extracted the uranium isotopes to get enriched uranium for an uranium bomb. But the reactor may have had produced plutonium but this was also not chemically separed like it was done in the US for the fat man bomb. Heisenberg had in my opinion no drive to give the narcissistic sociopath with a delusional fascist movement behind him (Hitler) the atomic bomb. Because he had a big moral problem with the Nazis despot he loved Germany. The more nazi leaning scientist in his group also questioned his commitment but Heisenberg had the most prestige in the group so he utilised it in my opinion. As a German I am by the way only proud about one man in this dark area Georg Elser wo made an attempt to kill Hitler with a bomb just after the occupation of part of Czechia.

[@johnditoro1676]

Interesting. Hitler used the same words about relativity that Trump used for climate change (just swap the word Jewish for Chinese).

[@philweight3480]

Teller was a self-promoter who threw Oppenheimer to the wolves to further his own obsession with developing ever more powerful nuclear weapons. A deeply flawed man.

[@richardkovacs2006]

Yeah, you watched a movie, which has not much to do with historical facts and feel you have the moral highground and throw judgement. Teller is a Nobel prize winner physicist, a jew, wbo haf to leave his homeland because of nazis and believed the US should be the leading power in the world against extremists political regimes, be it nazi or communist. How horrible.he was to help create a world leader US... how horrible he was to see the terror of communists, something Oppenheimer was blind to.

[@thomasfisher5742]

Saw an interview with someone who worked with him at LOS ALAMOS who inferred your thoughts PHIL

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

An apologist for Heisenberg but a resentful back stabber of Oppenheimer.

[@oleandersen2228]

Who is an apologist?

[@richardkovacs2006]

Such a stupid comment. This Oppenheimer movie really f*cked with some people's minds. DO READ A HISTORY BOOK. Nolan's fil has not much to do with history. Opprnheimer was a communist. And to Teller nazis and communists were the same. With his personal experiences he was right. He wanted the US to rule and not the nazis or the communists. And you somehow think he was wrong. We'll like it or not the US is thr leading power because of the atomic bomb.

[@fostercathead]

@@oleandersen2228 Teller.

[@parasuraman1155]

I respect Oppenheimer but not Edward Teller so much. Both are obviously brilliant men. Remarkably brilliant, especially Oppenheimer.

[@dopamine_Seeker]

but hygenberg seriously worked at BreakingBad tv series

[@lifewalk244]

I still believe in Heidenberg

[@bigblue6917]

Heisenberg was a Nazi and even after the war held Nazi views. The idea he was working against the Nazis was put forward by him after the war to try and whitewash his reputation. Any damage Bohr did to Heisenberg was deserved. There is an unsent letter from Bohr to Heisenberg which points out that Heisenberg's recollection of their meeting is nothing like what was actually said. Heisenberg did not push for the bomb because he thought it would need 120,000 men and he felt he could not justify the cost in the middle of the war. And this at a time when many military projects were being cancelled. When Heisenberg heard that the US had dropped the bomb on Japan he did not believe it as he thought that the amount of uranium needed would make the bomb too big for an aircraft to carry. It was only after being told of the second bomb that he realised his understanding of how much uranium he thought was needed was totally wrong.

[@MS-fg8qo]

I wonder if you have read any of Heisenberg's books or if you understand German at all. You would not be able to claim he was a real Nazi if you had any clue.

[@Fredpotts]

I met Doctor Teller in about 1967 at a lecture at the University of Texas. He was treated rudely by some students in the audience and it pissed me off so I made a point to go up and shake his hand and welcome him to Austin. UT was not as bad as Berkely but was even then being infiltrated by the Woke.

[@bachtube11]

Im curios: what was the mistake of Heisenberg (which made made Teller too before Heisenberg)?

[@4tnemele]

Teller was a brilliant physicist, but he was rightfully highly disliked by the wider physics community back then (and even today, for those that care). It had nothing to do be being "woke".

[@mckenyon]

Please define what you mean by "woke". This is a word that has become a stand-in for whatever someone of a certain political perspective disagrees with. Imputing this on people in the 60s just amplifies that. Insult is not argument.

[@kshred3043]

@@mckenyon Oh, I can answer that. "Woke" to neo-facists MAGAs is just a different flavour of the same sort of them-vs-us labelism as "Jews" were to the real Nazis back in Hitler's day.

[@markdouglas8073]

I met him later during Reagan’s SDI program in the early 80s and the whole immorality of MAD moved me to switch careers and smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union. Brilliant atheists do not make good moral decisions. Seeing and hearing him here surely brought me back in time.

[@epsives1699]

Edward Teller hate account.

[@MrJafredderf]

Trying to whitewash Heisenberg and the things he did before and after the war is ridiculous. Teller was a self promoting bullshitter.

[@vincentvanwyk5522]

Heisenberg was a true patriot. He believed in his country and fighting communism. Anyway he also knew the bomb was impossible to build and still is.

[@rcmrcm3370]

What a nasty man.

[@Elo-hv3fw]

One of the greatest scientists of mass destruction, without any consideration of any life whatsoever. His mind was about destruction, and nothing else because there was nothing else left he could ever attach to any value. A really miserable creature that God forgot to eliminate.

[@willboudreau1187]

Speed the hell up man I don't have forever waiting for you to get your words out!

[@tonobehnke5885]

Two things about the Jews are as creepy as they are hallucinating. The first of these is the enormous number of geniuses in all areas of knowledge and human development, this is, in science and the arts, in a world population that barely reaches...15 or 16 million? And the second thing, almost as "incredible" as the first, is that they achieved those positions with their hands tied behind their backs, as Mark Twain said. Despite more than two thousand years of persecution and murder, the last one in charge of the envious psychopaths Germans... Others needed special laws, forced quotas and progressive and leftist activists to achieve what they deserve neither by talent nor effort. It is a people, a nation, that is a miracle in itself. And they are western. Do not forget. Chapeau, jewish people!