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J. Robert Oppenheimer

, Scientist
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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  • Born: 22 April 1904
  • Birthplace: New York, New York
  • Died: 18 February 1967 (throat cancer)
  • Best Known As: The physicist who directed the Manhattan Project

J. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret World War II program which developed the world's first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was an unusual personality: intensely brainy and ambitious and yet distinctly philosophical, with a facility for languages and an interest in Eastern religions and philosophy. In the 1930s he taught physics at both Caltech and the University of California at Berkeley, before being chosen to lead the Manhattan Project's team of scientists. The first atomic bomb was exploded on 16 July 1945, and less than a month later President Harry S. Truman ordered two bombs dropped on Japan, ending World War II. After the war, Oppenheimer became head of the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. As such, in 1949 he recommended against the development of the super-powerful hydrogen bomb, pitting him against fellow physicist and H-bomb proponent Edward Teller. In 1953, during the era of intense anti-communism fomented by Senator Joseph McCarthy, Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist sympathizer, based on his support of various pro-communist and left-wing groups during the years before and during WWII. His security clearance was revoked, despite formal hearings in 1954 in which many fellow scientists testified on Oppenheimer's behalf. The incident cast a shadow over his career, although in 1963 he was nonetheless given the Enrico Fermi award for "outstanding contributions to theoretical physics" by the Atomic Energy Commission. From 1947-1966 Oppenheimer also was the director of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, the longtime home of Albert Einstein.

Oppenheimer married Katherine Puening Harrison in 1940. They had two children: Peter (b. 1941) and Katherine (b. 1944)... Oppenheimer remarked that when seeing the first text explosion of the atomic bomb he was reminded of a passage from the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become death, destroyer of worlds"... The "J." at the start of Oppenheimer's name is the source of some confusion: it is sometimes said to be short for Julius or Jerome, but Oppenheimer himself once told an interviewer that the initial stood for nothing.

 
 
Scientist: Julius Robert Oppenheimer

American physicist (1904–1967)

Oppenheimer came from a wealthy New York City family. He was educated at Harvard, at Cambridge, England, and at Göttingen where he obtained his PhD in 1927. From 1929 to 1942 he was at the University of California, and while there accepted the post of director of the Los Alamos laboratory where he worked on the development of the atom bomb. After the war in 1947 he was appointed director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, a post he held until his death. He also served (1947–52) as chairman of the important General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission.

He is mainly remembered, however, for his work on the Los Alamos project. It has been argued that only Oppenheimer could have made Los Alamos viable for only he could have commanded the allegiance of the world's best talents in physics, who gathered around him in the New Mexico desert. It was also only Oppenheimer who had sufficient independence and authority to persuade the military and General Groves, his superior, to grant sufficient freedom to the scientists to make the project workable.

Freeman Dyson, who saw Oppenheimer in the early 1950s at Princeton with some of his old colleagues, caught in their talk “a glow of pride and nostalgia. For every one of these people the Los Alamos days had been a great experience, a time of hard work and comradeship and deep happiness.” But Oppenheimer stayed on after the war when, by all accounts, there was little comradeship, much divisiveness and, ultimately, tragedy for Oppenheimer and some of his friends. In 1948 he was on the cover of Time magazine; four years later he was summarily dismissed from his post with the Atomic Energy Commission.

Oppenheimer had actually been under investigation since 1942, first as a matter of routine and then more rigorously when reports critical of his loyalty began to arrive at the office of Colonel Pash, who was responsible for security at Los Alamos. It should be emphasized that at no time has any evidence been published to suggest that Oppenheimer was disloyal to his country. Suspicions were aroused because some of his friends had been members of the Communist party and because he had moved freely in left-wing circles. Both his wife and brother were well-known left-wing sympathizers, if not communists.

Before long the suspicions became more precise: it was felt that a Russian agent had made an approach to Oppenheimer and although he had not responded he was guilty of failing to report the approach to the authorities. Oppenheimer finally admitted that an approach had been made to him but he refused to disclose any names for he felt the man was no longer involved and in any case had merely been a messenger. In a classic dialogue with his inquisitor he kept insisting that, “I feel that I should not give it. I don't mean that I don't hope that if he's still operating that you will find it ... But I would just bet dollars to doughnuts that he isn't still operating.”

Finally, at the end of 1943, the Army lost patience and Groves put it clearly to Oppenheimer that he must either provide names or go. He named Haakon Chevalier, a professor of romance languages at the University of California whom he had known since 1938. Chevalier was of course ruined and, although no charges were ever laid against him, it became impossible for him to find academic employment ever again in America. Whether Oppenheimer had behaved honorably by his own judgment is far from clear as there is too much conflicting evidence about the crucial approach. For some, Chevalier was a totally innocent man maligned by a man consumed by ambition; for others Chevalier was a Russian agent who was lucky not to collect a heavy sentence. Where precisely the truth lies must await the release of further documentation.

Oppenheimer was thus free to develop the bomb and at 5.30 a.m. on 16 July 1945 the first bomb was tested. When Oppenheimer saw the huge cloud rising over the desert, he later reported, a passage from the Bhagavad Gita came to him: “I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.” A move by senior scientists led by James Franck and Leo Szilard to arrange for a public demonstration of the bomb's power rather than its military use on a Japanese city was referred to Oppenheimer for comment. He was in favor of using it on a Japanese town.

After the war, when he could reasonably have left Government service and devoted himself to theoretical physics, he – for reasons that are not clear – remained as the leading adviser on nuclear weapons, taking responsibility for the development of the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer had made many enemies and when accusations were made that he had in fact obstructed the program to build the fusion bomb they were more than willing to work for his downfall. A commission to investigate his loyalty reported in 1954 that “Dr. Oppenheimer did not show the enthusiastic support for the Super (H-bomb) program which might have been expected of the chief adviser of the Government” and rendered its judgment that he was unfit to serve his country. Although Oppenheimer never regained his security clearance, peace of a sort was made with the authorities when in 1963 he received the Fermi award from President Kennedy. Four years later, after bearing his illness with great courage, he died of cancer of the throat.

 
US Military History Companion: J. Robert Oppenheimer

(1904–1967), physicist

Perhaps the most controversial scientist of this century, J. Robert Oppenheimer was awarded kudos in the 1940s for his contributions to the war effort and censure for allegedly betraying the country of his birth. Born in New York City and educated at Harvard and Görringen, Oppenheimer earned his Ph.D. in 1927 and quickly became recognized as a leader in theoretical physics, simultaneously rising through the academic ranks at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley, and gathering large numbers of the best scientific minds in the United States to his seminars and laboratories. In so doing, he became the catalyst for the emergence of American theoretical physics as preeminent in the world.

At the National Academy of Scientists in 1941, Oppenheimer led a group of scientists in theoretical discussions of nuclear bombs. Although intensely ambivalent about the creation of such weapons of mass destruction, he was concerned that the Nazis might produce one first, so he accepted an offer from Gen. Leslie Groves to serve as director of a highly classified U.S.‐led effort to build an atomic bomb. This effort, the Manhattan Project, was headquartered at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Many atomic scientists gathered there between 1942 and the first detonation of an atomic bomb on 16 July 1945.

Even though the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II and kept the Russians from invading Japan, Oppenheimer was overwhelmed by the devastation he had wrought. He called for a cessation of atomic research or for international guidelines on the use of atomic weaponry. Both during the war and later he became associated with Communist Party members and others with strong leftist political positions. Although no clear violations of security were ever proven, there had been instances of negligence and indiscretion. During the McCarthy investigations and purges of alleged Communists in the U.S. government in the 1950s, Oppenheimer lost his security clearance and was forced to resign from the seven atomic committees he chaired. He became director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was later at least partially vindicated when President Lyndon B. Johnson presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award in 1962.

[See also Cold War: Domestic Course.]

Bibliography

  • Michel Rouze, Robert Oppenheimer: The Man and His Theories, trans. Patrick Evans, 1962.
  • Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story, 1969.
  • Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds, 1981
 
US Military Dictionary: J. Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904-67) theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (1942-45), born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in New York City. As director of the bomb design unit of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer recommended the site, recruited the scientists, and supervised more than 1, 500 people, successfully mediating the demands of the military with those of the scientists. In addition, he solved innumerable theoretical and practical scientific problems. Deeply affected by the devastation wrought by the bomb, Oppenheimer resigned from the laboratory and later opposed development of the hydrogen bomb. From 1946 until 1952 Oppenheimer chaired the general advisory committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, but in 1953 his security clearance was revoked because of leftist associations dating from the prewar period. He also directed the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1947-52).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Biography: J. Robert Oppenheimer

The American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) made fundamental contributions to theoretical physics and was director of the atomic energy research project at Los Alamos, N.Mex.

On April 22, 1904, J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose father was a German immigrant and wealthy textile importer, was born in New York City. After attending the Ethical Culture School in New York, where his lifelong devotion to literature, the arts, and science was nurtured, he entered Harvard University in 1922 and completed his bachelor's degree in 3 years. He required only 2 additional years of study at Cambridge University and the University of Göttingen to complete his doctoral degree in 1927.

Following 2 years of postdoctoral study at home and abroad on fellowships, Oppenheimer became associate professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Almost immediately, however, he began spending part of each academic year at the University of California at Berkeley, and he simultaneously rose through the academic ranks at both institutions. His teaching and research abilities were so exceptional and his personal magnetism was so great that many of his students followed him in his annual Berkeley-Pasadena pilgrimages, often willingly repeating the courses he offered. In general, by attracting and training an unusually large number of highly competent physicists, Oppenheimer, more than any other individual, was responsible for moving theoretical physics in America from a position of obscurity into one of preeminence in the world.

Oppenheimer's own researches between 1926 and 1942 took root in his extremely insightful exploitation of the recently discovered quantum mechanics of Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Dirac, Max Born, and others. With Born he developed a now-standard quantum theoretical understanding of molecules and their spectra. He undertook extensive investigations on processes involving transitions to the continuous spectrum, showing, for example, how to understand the photoelectric effect quantum-mechanically. He explored electron capture and exchange processes, as well as electron-atom collision processes. In 1930 he presented a cogent symmetry argument that was later recognized to be tantamount to the prediction of the positive electron, or positron. He studied the production of cosmic-ray showers. He explored various problems in quantum electrodynamics, as well as the properties and role of the meson in nuclear forces. He helped develop the so-called Oppenheimer-Phillips interpretation of deuteronnuclear reactions, which eventually led to great insight into the structure of the nucleus. In all of these theoretical investigations - and many more could be cited - Oppenheimer displayed his genius in implementing Wolfgang Pauli's conviction that a physicist should concern himself first and foremost with those problems on the very frontiers of current knowledge.

To the general public, Oppenheimer, as a scientist, is best known for his role in directing the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, the laboratory high on a New Mexican mesa at a site he chose. Many of America's foremost physicists were persuaded to come with their families to this isolated laboratory to beat the Germans in the development of the most awesome weapon of destruction in human history. When all of the huge and unique problems were solved, and the test bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945, in the desert near Alamogordo, N. Mex., Oppenheimer was deeply shaken. He thought of the words from the Bhagavad-Gita: "If the radiance of a thousands suns/ Were to burst into the sky/That would be like/The splendor of the Mighty One…./Iam become Death, the shatterer of worlds." Not much later Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated.

Oppenheimer was a complex man, one who could inspire distrust as well as utter devotion, and one who could commit indiscretions as well as be a scientist of faultless integrity. After the war, his early left-wing sympathies, inflated by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his coterie of witch-hunters, made Oppenheimer the defendant in perhaps the most celebrated trial since the time of Galileo. In spite of the fact that Oppenheimer's past associations had aroused no undue concern earlier - he had received the coveted Presidential Medal of Merit in 1946 and had been serving on the highest policy-making committees - his security clearance was revoked, deeply shocking the vast majority of his fellow scientists. Not until 1961, when President John F. Kennedy made the decision to give the Fermi Award to Oppenheimer (it was actually presented in 1963 by President Lyndon B. Johnson), was a significant attempt made to publicly clear Oppenheimer's name. In the interim, Oppenheimer had been serving as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, giving his splendid administrative and technical talents to the young group of highly gifted physicists who had gathered there.

Oppenheimer will remain a subject of study, discussion, controversy, and admiration for years to come. His profound concern for uniting the intellectual community, and humanity in general, is evident from the vast number of lectures and articles he devoted to the subject. He died of cancer in Princeton on Feb. 18, 1967.

Further Reading

The most complete obituary notice of Oppenheimer is by H. A. Bethe in the Royal Society of London, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 14 (1968). Considerable biographical information, along with selected writings of Oppenheimer included as an addendum, is in a study of his scientific contributions to atomic theory: Michel Rouze, Robert Oppenheimer: The Man and His Theories, translated by Patrick Evans (1964). See also Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story (1969).

A number of works deal with the dramatic and controversial investigation of Oppenheimer's security status. The reports of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1954-1955, published as In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, constitute the official record of his trial. Haakon Chevalier, Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship (1965), is a personal account of the still obscure events of the 1940s. Other books on this aspect of Oppenheimer's life are Joseph and Stewart Alsop, We Accuse! (1954); Cushing Strout, ed., Conscience, Science and Security: The Case of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1963); and Philip M. Stern and Harold P. Green, The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial (1969).

For Oppenheimer's work on atomic energy see J. Alvin Kugelmass, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Story (1953); Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (2 vols., 1962-1969); and Nuel Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer (1968).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Julius Robert Oppenheimer

(born , April 22, 1904, New York, N.Y., U.S. — died Feb. 18, 1967, Princeton, N.J.) U.S. theoretical physicist. He graduated from Harvard University, did research at Cambridge University, and earned a doctorate from Göttingen University. He returned to the U.S. to teach at the California Institute of Technology (1929 – 47). His research focused on energy processes of subatomic particles, and he trained a generation of American physicists. In World War II he was named director of the army's atomic-bomb project, later known as the Manhattan Project, and set up the laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., that remains a principal weapons-research laboratory. He directed the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1947 – 66). He strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and in 1953 he was suspended from secret nuclear research as an alleged communist sympathizer and a security risk; the case, which pitted him against Edward Teller, became a worldwide cause célèbre. In 1963 he was reinstated and awarded the Enrico Fermi Award.

For more information on Julius Robert Oppenheimer, visit Britannica.com.

 
US History Companion: Oppenheimer, J. Robert

(1904-1967), physicist and father of the atomic bomb. A charismatic leader of rare good qualities and commonplace flaws, Oppenheimer brought an uncommon sensibility to research, teaching, and government service. Ushered into the American pantheon as "the father of the atomic bomb" in 1945, he was ejected during the McCarthy era as a security risk for having opposed the escalation of the nuclear arms race. His life reveals how war and politics altered science in the twentieth century.

Raised in an environment of wealth and culture, Oppenheimer was educated at Harvard University. Equally brilliant in the humanities and sciences, he graduated summa cum laude in 1925, after only three years. Following an unhappy year studying experimental physics at Cambridge University, he moved to Göttingen, Germany, where he earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1927.

In 1929, already internationally recognized as a brilliant theoretical physicist, Oppenheimer returned to the United States to accept a unique joint appointment at both the University of California at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. In less than a decade he established Berkeley as the major American center for the study of quantum physics.

Languages, literature, music, art, and especially physics filled Oppenheimer's life until the mid-1930s when fascism in Europe and the Great Depression in America drew him into progressive politics. Although never a member of the Communist party, he was active in and contributed to many of the causes supported by the party--desegregation, better working conditions for migratory farm workers, and the Loyalist side in the Spanish civil war.

In 1939, the discovery of nuclear fission and Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland linked science and Oppenheimer to the military. In 1942, overriding the protests of intelligence officers, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the officer in charge of the Manhattan Project, appointed Oppenheimer director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. His assignment: to direct the design and construction of atomic bombs for use during the war. On August 6, 1945, the destruction of Hiroshima confirmed Groves's judgment of Oppenheimer's ability, although history will forever debate the wisdom of the result.

In 1947 Oppenheimer moved to Princeton, as director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Commuting to Washington, D.C., he served on numerous government committees, including the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission (aec), which he chaired. In 1949, after the Soviet Union's successful test of an atomic bomb, he urged President Harry S. Truman to reject Edward Teller's proposal for a crash program to build a hydrogen bomb. He believed that instead the United States should seek an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union. Although Truman rejected this advice, resentment of Oppenheimer's continuing influence spread among Teller and his allies.

As the cold war developed, science and scientists were profoundly affected by the emerging political culture of conformity. Oppenheimer's opposition to the hydrogen bomb and his former communist associations were cited by his enemies as evidence of his unreconstructed sympathy for the Soviet Union. In 1954, an aec security hearing, distorted by illegal fbi telephone taps and a biased hearing board, led to the revocation of his security clearance.

Nevertheless, Oppenheimer continued to direct the Institute for Advanced Study and to lecture throughout the world on science and education until his death. With respect to the most important issue of the day, the nuclear arms race, however, he had been silenced.

Bibliography:

Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds (1980); Philip Stern, The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial (1969).

Author:

Martin J. Sherwin

See also Anticommunism; Hydrogen Bomb; Manhattan Project; Nuclear Weapons: Origins and Legacy; Science and Technology.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Oppenheimer, J. Robert
(ŏp'ənhī'mər) , 1904–67, American physicist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1925), Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1927. He taught at the Univ. of California and the California Institute of Technology from 1929 (as professor from 1936) until his appointment in 1947 as director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J. His early work was concerned with the quantum theory and nuclear physics. With Max Born he contributed to the quantum theory of molecules, and later (1930) he published an important paper on the nature of antiparticles, which had been predicted but not yet detected.

As director of the atomic-energy research project at Los Alamos, N.Mex., from 1942 to 1945, Oppenheimer made important contributions to the development of atomic energy for military purposes. After the atomic bomb was used against Japan, Oppenheimer became one of the foremost proponents of civilian and international control of atomic energy; he was chairman of the general advisory committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to 1952 and consultant to the American delegate to the UN Atomic Energy Committee. He strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1949 on both technical and moral grounds. In 1953, Oppenheimer was suspended by the Atomic Energy Commission as an alleged security risk, in part due to criticism from fellow scientist Edward Teller, who was instrumental in the development of the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer's case stirred wide controversy. In Oct., 1954, he was unanimously reelected director of the Institute for Advanced Study. In addition to his contributions as a theoretical physicist and an administrator, Oppenheimer achieved a reputation as one of the outstanding teachers of his generation; he left a lasting influence both at California and at Princeton. His book Science and the Common Understanding was published in 1954.

Bibliography

See I. I. Rabi et al., Oppenheimer (1969); J. Major, The Oppenheimer Hearing (1971); P. M. Stern and H. P. Green, The Oppenheimer Case (1971); P. Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds (1985); G. Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb (2002); J. Bernstein, Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma (2004); K. Bird and M. J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005); D. C. Cassidy, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century (2005); P. J. McMillan, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005).

 
Science Dictionary: J. Robert Oppenheimer
(op-uhn-heye-muhr)

An American physicist of the twentieth century. Oppenheimer led the research and development of the atomic bomb and was head of the Manhattan Project.

  • In the early 1950s, Oppenheimer's opposition to building the hydrogen bomb and his past association with leftists led to a hearing regarding his security clearance. Although the committee found that he was a “loyal citizen,” his security clearance was not restored, and he was barred from government research. Oppenheimer's chief opponent in the scientific community at this time was Edward Teller.
  •  
    Quotes By: Julius Robert Oppenheimer

    Quotes:

    "The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; The wise grows it under his feet."

    "A man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man."

    "The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist knows it."

    "In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose."

    "As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress."

    "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb."

    See more famous quotes by Julius Robert Oppenheimer

     
    Wikipedia: Robert Oppenheimer
    Robert Oppenheimer
    JROppenheimer-LosAlamos.jpg
    J. Robert Oppenheimer, "the father of the atomic bomb", worked on the first nuclear weapons before becoming a government advisor.
    Born April 22, 1904
    New York, New York
    Died February 18, 1967
    Princeton, New Jersey
    Residence Flag_of_the_United_States.svg USA
    Nationality Flag_of_the_United_States.svg American
    Institutions Manhattan Project
    University of California, Berkeley
    Institute for Advanced Study
    Alma mater Harvard University
    University of Cambridge
    University of Göttingen
    Known for Atomic bomb development
    Religion Jewish (unorthodox)

    J. Robert Oppenheimer[1] (April 22, 1904February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Known as "the father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer was shocked by the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, he said "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

    After the war, Oppenheimer was a chief advisor to the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission and used that position to lobby for international control of atomic energy and to avert the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. After invoking the ire of many politicians and scientists with his outspoken political opinions during the Red Scare, he had his security clearance revoked in a much-publicized and politicized hearing in 1954. Though stripped of his direct political influence, Oppenheimer continued to lecture, write, and work in physics. A decade later, President John F. Kennedy awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation. As a scientist, Oppenheimer is remembered most for being the chief founder of the American school of theoretical physics while at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Early life and education

    Oppenheimer was born to Julius S. Oppenheimer, a wealthy textile importer, who had emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1888, and Ella Friedman, a painter. Oppenheimer had one brother, Frank, eight years younger, who also became a physicist. The Oppenheimers were of Jewish descent but they did not practice or observe the religious traditions.

    Oppenheimer studied at the Ethical Culture Society School, founded by Felix Adler to promote a form of ethical training based on the Ethical Culture movement. At the school, he studied mathematics and science, as well as subjects ranging from Greek to French literature. Oppenheimer was a versatile scholar, interested in the humanities and in psychotherapy, as well as science. He entered Harvard University one year late due to an attack of colitis. During the interim, he went with a former English teacher to recuperate in New Mexico, where he fell in love with horseback riding and the mountains and plateau of the Southwest. At Harvard, he majored in chemistry, but also studied topics beyond science, including Greek, architecture, classics, art, and literature. He made up for the delay caused by his illness, taking six courses each term and graduating summa cum laude in just three years. When at Harvard, Oppenheimer was admitted to graduate standing in physics in his first year as an undergraduate on the basis of independent study. During a course on thermodynamics taught by Percy Bridgman, Oppenheimer was introduced to experimental physics. In 1933 he learned Sanskrit and met the Indologist Arthur W. Ryder at Berkeley, and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life.[2]

    Europe

    After graduating from Harvard, Oppenheimer was encouraged to go to Europe for future study, as a world-class education in modern physics was not then available in the United States. He was accepted for postgraduate work at Ernest Rutherford's famed Cavendish Laborajutory in Cambridge, working under the eminent but aging J.J. Thomson.

    Oppenheimer's clumsiness in the laboratory made it apparent that his forte was theoretical, not experimental physics, so he left in 1926 for the University of Göttingen to study under Max Born. Göttingen was one of the top centers for theoretical physics in the world, and Oppenheimer made a number of friends who would go on to great success, such as Werner Heisenberg, Pascual Jordan, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller. At Göttingen, Oppenheimer was known for being a quick student.[3] However, he was also known for being too enthusiastic in discussions, sometimes to the point of taking over seminar sessions, a fact that used to irritate a few of Born's pupils. In 1927 Oppenheimer obtained his Ph.D. at the young age of 22 at the University of Göttingen, supervised by Max Born. After the oral exam for his Ph.D., the professor administering it is reported to have said, "Phew, I'm glad that's over. He was on the point of questioning me."[4] At Göttingen, Oppenheimer published more than a dozen articles, including many important contributions to the then newly developed quantum theory, most notably a famous paper on the so-called Born-Oppenheimer approximation, which separates nuclear motion from electronic motion in the mathematical treatment of molecules.

    Early professional work

    In September 1927, Oppenheimer returned to Harvard as a young maven of mathematical physics and a National Research Council Fellow, and in early 1928 he studied at the California Institute of Technology.

    While at Caltech he received numerous invitations for teaching positions, and accepted an assistant professorship in physics at the University of California, Berkeley. In his words, "it was a desert", yet paradoxically a fertile place of opportunity. He maintained a joint appointment with Caltech, where he spent every spring term in order to avoid isolation from mainstream research. At Caltech, Oppenheimer struck a close friendship with Linus Pauling and they planned to mount a joint attack on the nature of the chemical bond, a field in which Pauling was a pioneer—apparently Oppenheimer would supply the mathematics and Pauling would interpret the results. However, this collaboration, and their friendship, was nipped in the bud when Pauling began to suspect that the theorist was becoming too close to his wife, Ava Helen.[5] Once when Pauling was at work, Oppenheimer had come to their place and blurted out an invitation to Ava Helen to join him on a tryst in Mexico. She flatly refused and reported this incident to Pauling. This, and her apparent nonchalance about the incident, disquieted him, and he immediately cut off his relationship with the Berkeley professor. Later, Oppenheimer invited Pauling to be the head of the Chemistry Division of the atomic bomb project, but Pauling refused, saying that he was a pacifist.

    In the autumn of 1928, Oppenheimer visited Paul Ehrenfest's institute at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, where he impressed those there by giving lectures in Dutch despite having little experience with the language. There he was given the nickname of "Opje," which was later Anglicized by his students as "Oppie". From Leiden he continued on to Zurich, Switzerland to work with Wolfgang Pauli on problems relating to quantum theory and the continuous spectrum, before heading back to the United States. Oppenheimer highly respected and liked Pauli, and some of his own style and his critical approach to problems was said to be inspired by Pauli. During his time with Ehrenfest and Pauli, Oppenheimer polished his mathematical skills.

    Before his Berkeley professorship began, Oppenheimer was diagnosed with a mild case of tuberculosis, and with his brother Frank, spent some weeks at a ranch in New Mexico, which he leased and eventually purchased. When he heard the ranch was available for lease, he exclaimed, "Hot dog!"—and later on the name of the ranch became "Perro Caliente," which is the translation of "hot dog" into Spanish.[6] Later, Oppenheimer used to say that "physics and desert country" were his "two great loves", loves that would be combined when he directed the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos in New Mexico.[7]

    He recovered from his tuberculosis and returned to Berkeley, where he prospered as an advisor and collaborator to a generation of physicists who admired him for his intellectual virtuosity and broad interests. Nobel Prize winner Hans Bethe later said about him:


    Probably the most important ingredient Oppenheimer brought to his teaching was his exquisite taste. He always knew what were the important problems, as shown by his choice of subjects. He truly lived with those problems, struggling for a solution, and he communicated his concern to the group.[8]

    He also worked closely with (and became good friends with) Nobel Prize winning experimental physicist Ernest O. Lawrence and his cyclotron pioneers, helping the experimentalists understand the data their machines were producing at the Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory.

    Oppenheimer became known as a founding father of the American school of theoretical physics, and developed a reputation for his erudition in physics, his eclecticism, his quick mind, his interest in languages and Eastern philosophy, and the eloquence and clarity with which he thought. But he was also emotionally troubled throughout his life, and professed to experiencing periods of depression. "I need physics more than friends," he once informed his brother.[9] A tall, thin chain smoker who often neglected to eat during periods of intellectual discomfort and concentration, Oppenheimer was marked by many of his friends as having a self-destructive tendency, and during numerous periods of his life worried his colleagues and associates with his melancholy and insecurity. When he was studying in Cambridge and had taken a vacation to meet up with his friend Francis Ferguson in Paris, a disturbing event had taken place. During a conversation in which Oppenheimer was narrating his frustration with experimental physics to Ferguson, he had suddenly leapt up and tried to strangle him. Although Ferguson easily fended off the attack, the episode had convinced Ferguson of his friend's deep psychological troubles.[10] Oppenheimer developed numerous affectations, seemingly in an attempt to convince those around him—or possibly himself—of his self-worth. He was said to be mesmerizing, hypnotic in private interaction but often frigid in more public settings. His associates fell into two camps: one that saw him as an aloof and impressive genius and an aesthete; another that saw him as a pretentious and insecure poseur. His students almost always fell into the former category, adopting "Oppie's" affectations, from his way of walking to talking and beyond—even trying to replicate his inclination for reading entire texts in their originally transcribed languages.[11]

    Scientific work

    Oppenheimer's intelligence and charisma attracted students from across the country to Berkeley to study theoretical physics.
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    Oppenheimer's intelligence and charisma attracted students from across the country to Berkeley to study theoretical physics.

    Oppenheimer did important research in theoretical astrophysics (especially as it relates to general relativity and nuclear theory), nuclear physics, spectroscopy, and quantum field theory (including its extension into quantum electrodynamics). The formalism of relativistic quantum mechanics also attracted his attention, although because of the then existing well-known problem of the self-energy of the electron, he doubted the validity of quantum electrodynamics at high energies. His best-known contribution, made as a graduate student, is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation mentioned above. He also made important contributions to the theory of cosmic ray showers and did work that eventually led toward descriptions of quantum tunneling. His work on the Oppenheimer-Phillips process, involved in artificial radioactivity under bombardment by deuterons, has served as an important step in nuclear physics. In the late 1930s, he, along with the help of Hartland Snyder, was the first to write papers suggesting the existence of what we today call black holes. In these papers, he demonstrated that there was a size limit (the so called Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) to stars beyond which they would not remain stable as neutron stars, and would undergo gravitational collapse. After the Born-Oppenheimer approximation paper, these papers remain his most cited ones, and they were key in the rejuvenation of astrophysical research in the United States in the 1950s, mainly by John Wheeler. As early as 1930, he also wrote a paper essentially predicting the existence of the positron (which had been postulated by Paul Dirac), a formulation that he however did not carry to its natural outcome, because of his skepticism about the validity of the Dirac equation. As evidenced above, his work predicts many later finds, which include, further, the neutron, meson, and neutron star. Even beyond the immense abstruseness of the topics he was expert in, Oppenheimer's papers were considered difficult to understand. Oppenheimer was very fond of using elegant, if extremely complex, mathematical techniques to demonstrate physical principles though he was sometimes criticized for making mathematical mistakes, presumably out of haste.

    Many people thought that Oppenheimer's discoveries and research were not commensurate with his inherent abilities and talents. They still considered him an outstanding physicist, but they did not place him at the very top rank of theorists who fundamentally challenged the frontiers of knowledge.[12] One reason for this could have been his diverse interests, which kept him from completely focusing on any individual topic for long enough to bring it to full fruition. His close confidant and colleague, Nobel Prize winner Isidor Rabi, later gave his own interpretation:


    Oppenheimer was overeducated in those fields, which lie outside the scientific tradition, such as his interest in religion, in the Hindu religion in particular, which resulted in a feeling of mystery of the universe that surrounded him like a fog. He saw physics clearly, looking toward what had already been done, but at the border he tended to feel there was much more of the mysterious and novel than there actually was...[he turned] away from the hard, crude methods of theoretical physics into a mystical realm of broad intuition.[13]

    In spite of this, some people (such as the Nobel Prize winner physicist Luis Alvarez) have suggested that if he had lived long enough to see his predictions substantiated by experiment, Oppenheimer might have won a Nobel Prize for his work on gravitational collapse, concerning neutron stars and black holes.[14] In retrospect, some physicists and historians consider this to be his most important contribution, though it was not taken up by other scientists in his own lifetime.[15] Interestingly, when the physicist and historian Abraham Pais once asked Oppenheimer about what he considered to be his most important scientific contributions, Oppenheimer cited his work on electrons and positrons, but did not mention anything about his work on gravitational contraction.[16]

    Radical politics

    During the 1920s, Oppenheimer kept himself aloof of worldly matters, and claimed not to have learned of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 until some time after the fact. Only when he became involved with Jean Tatlock, the daughter of a Berkeley literature professor, in 1936, did he show any interest in politics. Like many young intellectuals in the 1930s he became a supporter of social reforms which were later alleged to be communist ideas. After inheriting over $300,000 upon his father's death in 1937, he donated to many progressive efforts which were later branded as "left wing" during the "McCarthy" era. The majority of his allegedly "radical" work consisted of hosting fund-raisers for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and other anti-fascist activity. He never openly joined the Communist Party, though he did pass money to so-called "liberal" causes by way of acquaintances who were alleged to be Party members.[17] Historian Gregg Herken has recently claimed to have evidence that Oppenheimer did interact with the Communist Party during the 1930s and early 1940s.[18]

    Oppenheimer’s brother Frank, Frank’s wife Jackie [19], Oppenheimer’s own wife Kitty (widow of Communist political commissar Joe Dallet, killed in the Spanish Civil War) [20], his mistress, Jean Tatlock, and his landlady were all active members of the Communist Party.[21]

    In addition, several of Oppenheimer’s graduate students at Berkeley, including Joe Weinberg, Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, David Bohm and Philip Morrison were Communist Party members [22]

    Oppenheimer said he was “a member of just about every Communist Front organization on the West Coast,”[23][24] a subscriber to the People’s World,[25] a Communist Party organ, and, he testified, “I was associated with the Communist movement.”[26]

    In 1937-42, in the midst of the Great Purge and Hitler-Stalin pact, Oppenheimer was a member at Berkeley of what he called a "discussion group," which was later identified by fellow members Haakon Chevalier[27][28] and Gordon Griffiths[29] as a “closed” (secret) unit of the Communist Party for Berkeley faculty. If Oppenheimer was not a Communist, he was the only member of this group who was not.[30]

    Surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded that J. Robert Oppenheimer attended a meeting in the home of self-proclaimed Communist Haakon Chevalier with the Communist Party’s California state chairman William Schneiderman and Isaac Folkoff, West Coast liaison between the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence,in Fall 1940, during the Hitler-Stalin pact.[31] Shortly thereafter, the FBI added Openheimer to its Custodial Detention Index, listed as “Nationalistic Tendency: Communist.”[32]

    A 1943 FBI report summarizing recent surveillance reported that Hannah Peters, organizer of the Doctor's Branch of the Professional Section of the Communist Party, told Communist Party National Committee member Steve Nelson, the organizer for Alameda County, "that Dr. OPPIE, believed by the informant to be J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER ... could not be active in the Party at the present time." The report continued, reporting that Alameda County Communist Party Secretary Bernadette Doyle proposed that the Alameda County Communist Party confer with the State Committee of the Communist Party regarding "the two OPPIES, inasmuch as they were regularly registered (as members of the Communist Party) and everyone in the county knew they were Communists. It is believed that the two OPPIES mentioned above had reference to subject J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER and his brother FRANK OPPENHEIMER."[33]

    In a 1944 letter to Soviet Commissar for Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria, NKVD chief Boris Merkulov reported:


    In 1942 one of the leaders of scientific work on uranium in the USA, Professor Oppenheimer while being an unlisted [nglastny] member of the apparatus of [American Communist Party Secretary] Comrade Browder informed us about the beginning of work. On the request of [NKVD San Francisco station chief] Comrade [Grigoriy] Kheifitz,[34] confirmed by Comrade Browder, he provided cooperation in access to research for several of our tested sources including a relative of Comrade Browder.[35]

    Merkulov added:


    Due to complications of the operational situation in the USA, dissolution of the Comintern and explanations of Comrades Zarubin and Kheifitz on the Mironov affair it is expedient to immediately sever contacts of leaders and activists of the American Communist Party with scientists and specialists engaged in work on uranium.[36]

    Many debates over Oppenheimer's Party membership or lack thereof have turned on very fine points; almost all historians agree he had strong socially progressive sympathies during this time, and interacted with Party members, though there is considerable dispute over whether he was officially a member of the Party or not.[37]

    Frank Oppenheimer and some of his graduate students were Party members at different times.[38]

    Marriage and family life

    In November 1940, Oppenheimer married Katherine ("Kitty") Puening Harrison, a radical Berkeley student and former Communist Party member. Harrison had been married twice previously, first to Joe Dallet, a Communist Party and union activist who was killed in the Spanish civil war. She divorced her second husband, a southern California doctor, to marry Oppenheimer.

    By May 1941 they had their first child, Peter. Their second child, Katherine (called Toni), was born in 1944, while Oppenheimer was scientific director of the Manhattan Project.

    During his marriage, Oppenheimer continued his involvement with Jean Tatlock, though it is not clear if they continued their love affair.[39] Later their continued contact became an issue in Oppenheimer's security clearance hearings, due to Tatlock's communist associations.

    The Manhattan Project

    Main article: Manhattan Project
    Oppenheimer's badge photo from Los Alamos.
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    Oppenheimer's badge photo from Los Alamos.

    When World War II started, Oppenheimer became involved in the efforts to develop an atomic bomb, which were already taking up much of the time and facilities of Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. In 1941, Lawrence, Vannevar Bush, Arthur Compton, and James Conant worked to wrest the bomb project from the S-1 Uranium Committee, because they felt it was proceeding too slowly. Oppenheimer was invited to take over work on fast neutron calculations, a task that he threw himself into with full vigor. At this time he renounced what he called his "left-wing wanderings" to concentrate on his responsibilities, though he continued to maintain friendships with many who were quite radical.

    In 1942, the U.S. Army was given jurisdiction over the bomb effort, which was renamed as the Manhattan Engineering District, or Manhattan Project. General Leslie R. Groves was appointed project director, and Groves, in turn, selected Oppenheimer as the project's scientific director. Groves knew Oppenheimer would be viewed as a security risk, but thought that Oppenheimer was the best man to direct a diverse team of scientists and would be unaffected by his past political leanings.

    Los Alamos

    One of Oppenheimer's first acts was to host a summer school for bomb theory at his building in Berkeley. The mix of European physicists and his own students—a group including Robert Serber, Emil Konopinski, Felix Bloch, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller—busied themselves calculating what needed to be done, and in what order, to make the bomb. Teller put forward the remote possibility that the bomb would generate enough heat to ignite the atmosphere. While such an event was soon shown to be impossible by Bethe, Oppenheimer nevertheless was concerned enough to meet up with Arthur Compton in Michigan to discuss the situation. At the time, research for the project was going on at many different universities and laboratories across the country, presenting a problem for both security and cohesion. Oppenheimer and Groves decided that they needed a centralized, secret research laboratory. Scouting for a site, Oppenheimer was drawn to New Mexico, not far from his ranch. On a flat mesa near Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Los Alamos laboratory was hastily built on the site of a private boys' school. There Oppenheimer assembled a group of the top physicists of the time, which he referred to as the "luminaries",[40] including Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Robert R. Wilson, and Victor Weisskopf, as well as Bethe and Teller.

    A group of physicists at a wartime Los Alamos colloquium. In the front row are Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi, and J.M.B. Kellogg (L-R). Oppenheimer is in the second row on the left; to the right in the photograph is Richard Feynman.
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    A group of physicists at a wartime Los Alamos colloquium. In the front row are Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi, and J.M.B. Kellogg (L-R). Oppenheimer is in the second row on the left; to the right in the photograph is Richard Feynman.

    Oppenheimer was noted for his mastery of all scientific aspects of the project and for his efforts to control the inevitable cultural conflicts between scientists and the military. He was an iconic figure to his fellow scientists, as much a figurehead of what they were working towards as a scientific director. Victor Weisskopf put it thus:


    He did not direct from the head office. He was intellectually and even physically present at each decisive step. He was present in the laboratory or in the seminar rooms, when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was conceived. It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us; it created that unique atmosphere of enthusiasm and challenge that pervaded the place throughout its time.[8]

    All the while, Oppenheimer was under investigation by both the FBI and the Manhattan Project's internal security arm for his past left-wing associations. He was also followed by Army security agents during an unannounced trip to California in 1943 to meet his former girlfriend, Jean Tatlock.[41] In August 1943, Oppenheimer told Manhattan Project security agents that three of his students had been solicited for nuclear secrets by a friend of his with Communist connections. When pressed on the issue in later interviews with General Groves and security agents, he identified the friend as Haakon Chevalier, a Berkeley professor of French literature. Oppenheimer would be asked for interviews related to the "Chevalier incident", and he often gave contradictory and equivocating statements, telling Groves that only one person had actually been approached, and that person was his brother Frank. But Groves still thought Oppenheimer too important to the ultimate Allied goals to oust him over this suspicious behavior—he was, Groves reported, "absolutely essential to the project".[42]

    The first nuclear test, which Oppenheimer designated "Trinity".
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    The first nuclear test, which Oppenheimer designated "Trinity".

    Trinity

    Main article: Trinity test
    See also: Bhagavad Gita#Influence of the Bhagavad Gita and Trinity test#The explosion

    The joint work of the scientists at Los Alamos resulted in the first nuclear explosion near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, the site of which Oppenheimer named "Trinity", Oppenheimer later said this name was from one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. According to the historian Gregg Herken, this naming could have been an allusion to Jean Tatlock, who had committed suicide a few months previously, and had in the 1930s introduced Oppenheimer to Donne's work.[43] Oppenheimer later recalled that while witnessing the explosion he thought of a verse from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita:


    If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one...

    Years later he would explain that another verse had also entered his head at that time:

    It is the famous verse, which begins as "Kalo Asmi" and was quoted by Oppenheimer after the successful detonation of the first nuclear weapon. He unfortunately mistranslated it as "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". The correct meaning of the Sanskrit words is "Now I am Time (not death), the destroyer of all."


    We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another.'[44]

    According to his brother, at the time Oppenheimer simply exclaimed, "It worked." News of the successful test was rushed to President Harry S. Truman, who authorized the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Oppenheimer later became an important figure in the debates on the repercussions of this act.

    Postwar activities

    Overnight, Oppenheimer became a national spokesman for science, and emblematic of a new type of technocratic power. Nuclear physics became a powerful force as all governments of the world began to realize the strategic and political power that came with nuclear weapons and their horrific implications. Like many scientists of his generation, he felt that security from atomic bombs would come only from some form of transnational organization (such as the newly formed United Nations), which could institute a program to stifle a nuclear arms race.

    Atomic Energy Commission

    After the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created in 194