I recently watched the film “Oppenheimer”. Since the character of Edward Teller (Teller Ede), played by Benny Safdie, had an important role in the film, I decided to visit the house in Budapest where he grew up.

Teller Ede was born in 1908 at Kozma Ferenc utca 3, in the 5th district of Budapest. When he was 5 years old, in 1913, Ede’s father, Miksa, who was a famous lawyer, purchased an apartment in Szalay utca 3/ Honvéd utca 18. I am sharing with you a photo of the courtyard of this huge apartment building designed by Emil Vidor and built in 1910 and 1912.

After finishing high school, Teller moved to Germany to study physics at the University of Munich. He earned his doctorate in 1930 and then worked as a research assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. In 1933, he fled Germany and, after a brief passage in Denmark and Copenhagen, moved to the United States.

Teller joined the Manhattan Project in 1941 and worked on the development of the atomic bomb. He was one of the scientists who advised President Harry Truman to use the bomb against Japan. While still living in Budapest, Teller befriended three of the most brilliant physicists of their generation: Eugene Wigner (Wigner Jenő), John von Neumann (Neumann János), and Leo Szilárd who later all played key roles in the Manhattan Project.