Edward Teller (; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a
Hungarian-born American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the
hydrogen bomb", although he claimed he did not care for the title. He made numerous contributions to
nuclear and
molecular physics,
spectroscopy (in particular, the
Jahn–Teller and
Renner–Teller effects) and
surface physics. His extension of
Enrico Fermi's theory of
beta decay, in the form of the so-called
Gamow–Teller transitions, provided an important stepping stone in its application, while the Jahn–Teller effect and the
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry. Teller also made contributions to
Thomas–Fermi theory, the precursor of
density functional theory, a standard modern tool in the
quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules. In 1953, along with
Nicholas Metropolis and
Marshall Rosenbluth, Teller co-authored a paper which is a standard starting point for the applications of the
Monte Carlo method to
statistical mechanics.