Stanislaw Ulam. Historical portrait of the Polish- US mathematician Stanislaw Ulam (1909-1984). Ulam is most famous for his role in the development of the atomic bomb. He also made many contributions in other fields of science, the most notable being the Monte Carlo method for solving mathematical problems by random electronic sampling. Ulam was born and educated in Poland. In 1936 he accepted an invitation from John von Neumann to work in the USA. In 1943 Ulam joined the work at Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the atomic bomb. He helped develop the implosion igniter for the fission atomic bomb in 1945. Together with Teller, he was instrumental in developing the hydrogen (fusion) bomb of 1952.