October 2011 is the Fifth Anniversary of “Madeline’s Monthly Article & Musical Tips” and the Fourth Anniversary of “Madeline’s One Minute Musical Radio Show”.
Many of the world’s scientists, medical doctors, mathematicians, authors, and teachers have studied and played musical instruments since they were children. These eminent individuals have integrated music into their thinking process. Classical music has the power to motivate, inspire, and to soothe pain.
If anyone has an experience they would like to share with our readers on the benefits of classical music please send it and it will be include it in the November 2011 newsletter.
October’s article of the month:
“Have You Ever Given Up When It Became Too Difficult For You to Solve Your Problem?” By Dr. Madeline Frank
For other articles by Dr. Madeline Frank click on the following link:
Madeline’s Musical One Minute Radio Show for October 2011
How did Classical music play a part of Dr. Edward Teller’s life as a theoretical Physicist and what musical instrument did he play?
Who was Dr. Edward Teller?
Dr. Edward Teller was a theoretical physicist, worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project, developed the H Bomb, was Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was a Professor at the University of Berkeley teaching Quantum Mechanics physics and other courses from 1952-1975, led a strong campaign for Strategic Defense Initiative (the X-ray laser in the 1980s), and was a lifelong pianist, husband for 66 years to “Mici”, father, grandfather, and great grandfather.
Edward Teller was born on January 15, 1908 in Budapest, Hungary. His father, Max Teller was a lawyer, and his mother Ilona Deutsch Teller, was a fine pianist. “Little Ede Teller,”as he was known, had an older sister named Emmi. He did not speak till he was 3 years old and at that time he spoke in complete sentences.
Edward began playing the piano at the age of eight. One of his first recollections as a child was hearing his mother, Ilona Deutsch Teller, play a Beethoven Sonata beautifully on the piano.
Dr. Teller’s piano traveled with him to Los Alamos when he was working on the Manhattan Project. “When the burdens seemed greatest he would sit down at the keyboard and coax forth the sounds of Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach” late into the night. (Blumberg & Owens, 1967, p.121 & p. 132).
Edward at 10 years of age was considered a mathematics prodigy. His father asked a friend of his, Professor Leopold Klug, a retired professor of mathematics to work with Edward on mathematics. The first book they worked on was “Algebra” by Leonhard Euler.
Growing up in Hungary he grew to hate Communism and Fascism. Edward’s father did not see how he could make a living as a mathematician so he insisted Edward study chemical engineering. In 1926 he left Hungary to study at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. As a young student he was in a street car accident in Munich which severed his right foot and required “him to wear a prosthetic foot and leaving him with a life-long limp.” After graduating with his degree in chemical engineering Edward studied physics at the University of Leipzig with Werner Heisenberg where he received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1930. “Teller’s Ph.D. dissertation dealt with one of the first accurate quantum mechanical treatments of the hydrogen molecular ion.”
Edward became friends with George Gamow and Lev Landau, Russian physicists in 1930 and also had a lifelong friendship with George Placzek, a Czech physicist. “It was Placzek who arranged for young Teller a summer stay in Rome with Enrico Fermi and oriented his scientific career to nuclear physics.”
For two years Edward worked at the University of Gottingen and in 1933 he left Germany as Hitler took over. The Jewish Rescue Committee assisted him moving to England then he traveled to Copenhagen to work under Niels Bohr for a year. Edward Teller married Augusta Maria Harkanyi called “Mici” on February 1934. “In 1935, thanks to George Gamow’s incentive, Teller was invited to the United States to become a Professor of Physics at the George Washington University, where he worked with Gamow until 1941. Prior to the discovery of fission in 1939, Teller was engaged as a theoretical physicist working in the fields of quantum, molecular, and nuclear physics.”
Edward Teller “became a naturalized citizen of the United States” in 1941, and “his interest turned to the use of nuclear energy, both fusion and fission. At GWU, Teller predicted the Jahn-Teller Effect (1937), which distorts molecules in certain situations; this particularly affects the chemical reactions of metals, and in particular the coloration of certain metallic dyes. Teller and Hermann Arthur Jahn analyzed it as a piece of purely mathematical physics.” Teller in working with Emmet and Brunauer “made an important contribution to surface physics and chemistry: Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) isotherm.”
The beginning of the Manhattan Project:
“The development of nuclear physics had continued at a slower pace in Hitler’s Germany, but by 1939, German scientists had discovered nuclear fission. It was theoretically possible to split the atom, releasing energy as heat. It appeared to Teller and the other refugee physicists that the most destructive force ever known to man might fall into the hands of Adolf Hitler. Their fear was amplified by the knowledge that the German nuclear program was led by Heisenberg himself.”
Dr. Edward Teller: “I had a good friend, one of the most ingenious people I have known, and of course a Hungarian, Leo Szilard. He thought for years on how to utilize nuclear energy, and then when the discovery came from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute, he said, “That’s it!” Leo Szilard could do anything except he could not drive a car. I drove Szilard to the summer place of Albert Einstein.“
“Einstein was a democrat in that he invited not only Szilard in for a cup of coffee, but also his driver [me]. So, I was there when Leo Szilard took out of his pocket the letter addressed to Roosevelt. Szilard told Einstein, “Here it is. It can be done. It will change everything, sign it.” That was the second of August, 1939 and World War II had not yet started. Einstein read the letter carefully, and he said, “Well, that will be the first time that nuclear energy will be used by us in a different way than by getting it indirectly from the Sun.” He signed and gave it back to Leo Szilard who gave it to a friend of the President, a banker by the name of Alexander Sachs. The President saw the letter at the end of October.”
President Roosevelt “convened a meeting,… and I brought a message from Dr. Enrico Fermi that the first thing we had to do was to make a nuclear reactor. We knew the people that could make one who were from the universities. …We would not need support, just materials – very pure graphite. And to buy graphite, we needed $20,000. That is what we got. We got it, and we got started. Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi did not get along very well. I was on good terms with both. Therefore, I was needed. I was there from the very beginning in 1939.“http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventors/a/Edward_Teller_2.htm
Dr. Teller was Director at Livermore National Laboratory and Professor at the University of California at Berkeley (1952-1975) “He chaired the committee that founded the Space Science Laboratory at Berkeley.”
Dr. Teller was appointed Senior Research Fellow at Hoover Institute beginning in 1975 and was named Director Emeritus of the Livermore Laboratory.
During the 1990s, Teller continued to do research and lecture, maintaining his arguments for a strong U.S. defense.”
Awards and Honors:
Dr. Edward Teller was awarded the “Albert Einstein Award” in 1958, the “Enrico Fermi Award” in 1962, “The National Medal of Science” in 1982, “the United States Academy’s Sylvanus Thayer Award” in 1986, and the “Corvin Chain Award” in 2001. President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Edward Teller the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” shortly “before his death” on September 9, 2003.
In 1989 an asteroid was named after Dr. Teller, “5006 Teller”. In 1960, he was “named as part of the group of “U.S. Scientists” who were “Time Magazine’s People of the Year. ”
Dr. Edward Teller throughout his life worked at many universities mentoring students, teaching and encouraging young people to appreciate and understand science and technology. During Dr. Edward Teller’s final years he was interested in “attracting young people to science and engineering, and especially teacher training.” Dr. Teller began the “Edward Teller Education Center at UCD-LLNL site, and the Saturday science sessions for Illinois gifted students.”
Dr. Teller, expressed the “belief that gifted students need early and special training” and that ” the present US high school system waste too many lives and wastes too much time.” Dr. Teller’s students said of him “He was a great teacher, most effective in explaining real-world problems and urging people to solve them, or at the very least to deal with them.” One former student, NW, said of Dr. Teller “ET would have taught kindergarten if asked”.
Dr. Edward Teller died on September 9, 2003 at the age of 95 in Stanford, California.
“Health Choirs: Let’s Have Singing On Prescription: Joining a Choir May Help Those Suffering from a Range of Chronic Illnesses.” (Sep. 12, 2011) by Jo Carlowe from the Telegraph in the UK. “At a conference of the Royal Society for Public Health in London last week, Grenville Hancox, professor of music at The Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, Canterbury, described the changes that can take place through singing together as “extraordinary”.
Professor Hancox, “told how he and colleagues have witnessed people with respiratory problems learning to breathe more easily, those with depression beating the blues and patients with Parkinson’s disease standing tall and singing loudly.” He “is the founder of Skylarks, a new choir for people with Parkinson’s. This disorder of the central nervous system makes normal movements difficult and weakens the voice as the muscles in the face and vocal chords deteriorate.”
“Dance, Exercise Classes Help Those With Parkinson’s Disease” (September 1, 2011) by Cece Nunn from the Star News On Line.com. Teaching the Argentine Tango to improve balance and movement for patients with Parkinson’s.
“The World Doctors Orchestra September 11 Concert” (August 25, 2011) by Charles T. Downey from The Washingtonian. “These amateur musicians are also physicians, and they’re putting on a 9/11 concert to benefit Whitman-Walker Health.”
“Music Program With All The Strings Lets Plucky Pupils Take A Bow” (Sep 15, 2011) by Sarah-Jane Collins from the.age.com.au “For half an hour once a week, students at Meadows Primary settle in for an instrumental music class. Taking up their violins, violas and cellos, the children learn their skills from … members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The program, called the Pizzicato Effect, is in its third year with more than 90 students in grades 2, 3 and 4 learning about classical music and playing string instruments. It is credited with improving the attention spans and fine motor skills of children who otherwise may never have had a chance to pick up a bow.”
“Good Oral Hygiene Linked to Overall Pet Health (August 26, 2011) from the San Francisco Chronicle . “Reduce pet stress: Pets are sensitive beings and can pick up the stress of their family members. In addition to carrying human stress, separation anxiety, fear of loud noises (fireworks, thunder storms, etc.) and over-excitement all have their effect on pets’ stress hormone levels. Stress has an effect on both the health of the body and oral health. Loren suggests the following ways to help distress pets: Classical music specifically Baroque, is said to have a stress-reducing effect on both pets and people.”
“The Treorchy Male Choir” (August 31, 2011) by Charlotte Kirkham from the Independent Catholic News.com. “It has been realized that there are significant health benefits from singing in a choir. … “Music and singing is a big part of Welsh heritage,” says Dean Powell. Most members are “from the mining communities of the valleys of South Wales.”
Elizabeth L. Hamilton is an Internationally known expert in teaching “high moral values”, “character” to students in public and private schools. She is an educator, missionary, bestselling author of “Date With Responsibility” and “Remember Pearl Harbor”, wife for over 47 years, mother, and a third generation musician . We interviewed Mrs. Hamilton for our article and Radio Show on December 2009.
Below Mrs. Hamilton shares one of the most important “Character Building Traits”:
“Character is – simply put – always doing what is morally right, regardless. The most important character trait is love – not the emotion, but the conscientious commitment to do what is best for the other person, even when that requires personal sacrifice. Character-in-Action’s free Newsletters help you build this and other character traits in yourself and in those for whom you hold responsibility. You can sign up for the free newsletter, and also find books, lesson plans, activities, and a wealth of information on character building” at
Evidence & Articles supporting the benefits of classical music in your daily life, in the Public School Classrooms, and while doing homework after school:
Mrs. S teaches 7th grade Math at Davis Middle School in Hampton, VA.: “Students perform better on tests and quizzes while listening to Mozart Symphonies in the background.”
Mrs. C’s high school math class in Colorado: “The students asked for music in class. I told them I would play only Mozart. At first they objected but soon decided they liked the music, because it made them feel better and able to focus more on their lessons. Consequently, not only did the grades get better, so did the discipline. Then the students began requesting Mozart.”
Mrs. G had her fifth grade students listening to classical music, played softly, while the children did creative writing assignments and when they did problem solving in math. It created a calm atmosphere conducive to problem solving and creative thinking as well as an appreciation of music that they might not have experienced. The results were so good that she incorporated this into her teaching for the last five years of her teaching career.
Mrs. JC had her fourth grade reading class of 22 students, listening to Mozart and other classical music during class for the entire school year .The children have consistently made 100’s on tests and work. These are just average students not exceptional.
Mrs. J has 4 children, ages 18, 15, 11 and 7 who have been listening to Mozart and other classical music while doing their homework after school since March 05. She has seen them become more focused and relaxed, finishing homework quicker, with more accuracy which has led to higher grades.
Northside Middle School in Norfolk, Virginia is using classical music in halls and class rooms with very good success. “Classical Music Plays at Norfolk School”
For more scientific evidence, medical evidence, test results, and true stories of the world’s scientists, medical doctors, and mathematicians who have studied and played musical instruments since they were children read “The Secret of Teaching Science & Math Through Music” by Madeline Frank, Ph.D. Click on the link:
“Musical Notes On Math” by Dr. Madeline Frank teaches your child fractions and decimals, the fun way, through the rhythm of music, Winner of the Parent To Parent Adding Wisdom Award. For more information click on the following link:
For Tips on how to use “Musical Notes On Math” click on the following link: