Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

Edward Teller 1908-2003

A Hungarian-American nuclear physicist, Edward Teller came to be known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb." A native of Budapest, he immigrated to the United States in 1935 and was a major figure in the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Teller laid the groundwork for a "super bomb" based on fusion, later known as the hydrogen bomb. Later, he became co-founder and director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a national security lab in California. Teller also advocated for the anti-missile program that became known as Star Wars. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.