Interviews with Edward Teller and Eugene P. Wigner

Abstract

Teller: There is a very real problem. The United States used to be, by a big margin, the world’s leader in technology. This is no longer so. We hear in computers a lot about competition, for instance, by the Japanese. That, I think, in part, is due to mistakes, not sufficient emphasis on theoretical and applied science in our educational system. But I think it is not just the educational system. It is a general cultural problem of which all schools and universities are a part. And I have two complaints: One is that people can be ignorant of very basic facts such as entropy, that it is growing all the time; such as the irreversibility of events, or even about relativity. We understand that if a person cannot spell, he is uneducated; but a person can be considered highly educated and intellectual and still not know simple facts about the physical world in which we live. That is a problem of sorts. There is another issue, and it is even more serious. People are saying to a greater and greater extent, or at least very loudly, that technology is dangerous. Today somebody came to me and asked me if computers are developed more and more, will that not be a danger? I believe the Japanese and the Soviet Union and many others have a great advantage; they know that technology is necessary for a good life, for many other things, even for intellectual growth. When I came to the United States more than 50 years ago, I believed that then technology was valued too highly in the United States. I have changed my opinion. I don’t know whether I changed or the world changed. I believe, today, that in the United States, technology is not valued highly enough. And something I hope our universities will do is to tell the young people how very important the development of science and technology has to be and that science and technology are, in fact, inseparable.