The Martians of Science

Abstract

Five men born at the turn of the 20th century in Budapest: Theodore von Kármán, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller, became a special group often referred to as the Martians. Through immigration from Hungary to Germany and to the United States, they remained friends and continued to work together and influence each other throughout their lives. As a result, their work was integral to some of the most important scientific and political developments of the 20th century. Wigner won a Nobel Prize in theoretical physics; Szilard was the first to see that a chain reaction based on neutrons was possible and initiated the Manhattan Project, but later tried to restrict nuclear arms; von Neumann developed the modern computer for complex problems; von Kármán provided the scientific bases for the US Air Force; and Teller was the father of the hydrogen bomb, whose name is also synonymous with the controversial “Star Wars” initiative of the 1980s. Each was fiercely opinionated and all were politically active reactionaries against all forms of totalitarianism. They risked their careers for the defense of the United States and the Free World.

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