History will remember him both as the father of the hydrogen bomb and as one of the most controversial physicists ever. Born in Hungary in 1908, Edward Teller worked with the greatest minds in his field, including Heisenberg, Bohr, and Fermi. But his hawkish stand on nuclear weapons and ferocious battles with political adversaries overshadowed nearly everything else he did. With his voluminous Memoirs due for publication this month, he spoke to us from his home in California.
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Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?