Who Was Robert Oppenheimer, The Man Who Developed Atom Bomb And Turned To Bhagavad Gita For Solace?

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the release of legendary film director Christopher Nolan’s much-awaited movie ‘Oppenheimer’ starring Cillian Murphy in the lead role, there is a lot of buzz about J Robert Oppenheimer on social media. Nolan, who is known for his brilliant story-telling skills and for exploring themes like space and time in his movies, is releasing his latest directorial venture at a time when nuclear tensions loom worldwide.

So, Who Was Oppenheimer?

 

Known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who led a team of scientists during World War II who were tasked with creating a weapon that would alter the course of the war. As wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the birthplace of the Manhattan Project, the team led by Oppenheimer developed the “atomic bomb” - a scientific invention that changed the world forever and continues to shape the geopolitical landscape in the 21st century.

Early Life

Born to German Jewish immigrants on 22nd April 1904 in New York, Oppenheimer was a natural scientist. When he was just 12 years old, he was invited by the New York Mineralogical Club to deliver a lecture at the time. The club was impressed with his deep knowledge of minerals at a young age.

Oppenheimer went to Harvard University to study chemistry in 1922. However, three years later, he was much drawn towards physics and thus his career took a different scientific path. Oppenheimer later travelled to Cambridge to do his graduation in physics where he began training under Nobel Prize winner J J Thomson - the man who detected the electron – at the Cavendish Laboratory.

 A year later, Oppenheimer, in the midst of his atomic research, was invited by Max Born, the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Göttingen, Germany where he got an opportunity to exchange views and opinions with future world-renowned scientists.

While in Germany, Oppenheimer published many papers on quantum theory. His work on Born-Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wave functions, which was regarded as a significant contribution to the quantum molecular theory, was widely appreciated by the scientific community.

Oppenheimer received his doctorate in 1927 and undertook professorships at both the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology. Oppenheimer spent his 13 years conducting important research in a multitude of scientific fields including nuclear physics, quantum field theory, and astrophysics.

He and one of his students, Hartland Snyder, produced a paper in 1939 that predicted the existence of black holes. This, along with the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, remains two of his most cited papers. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize three times, however, he never actually managed to win it.

With the rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany, Oppenheimer like many others was of the view that Germany would soon develop the world's first nuclear weapon. As war broke out across Europe in September 1939, Oppenheimer collaborated with like-minded Americans who were equally eager to develop a nuclear weapon.

Manhattan Project

 

In 1942, Oppenheimer was invited by General Leslie Groves to lead the 'Manhattan Project,' the top-secret US project to develop the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer selected a secret location in Los Alamos, New Mexico where the US Army began constructing a series of laboratories there. The Manhattan Project, which was funded by American taxpayers’ money, saw Oppenheimer and his team developing their first atomic bomb within just three years. 

Trinity Test

 

The world's first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto. The code name for the test was "Trinity."

After the bright flash of light, Oppenheimer breathed a huge sigh of relief and said: “I guess it worked.” He later famously recalled that the history-defining moment had brought to mind words from a sacred Hindu text:

 

The Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

 

Less than a month later, the American military dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which effectively brought an end to the Second World War. Back then, Oppenheimer is said to have been distraught with the loss of lives and the huge scale of destruction in the two Japanese cities after the atomic bomb was dropped.

A few days later, he expressed his displeasure with President Truman during which he told the latter that he felt there was “blood on hands”. President Truman was not very pleased with Oppenheimer’s moralistic stance and told the White House officials that he never wanted to meet him again.

After the end of World War II, Oppenheimer became a household name and graced the covers of both Life and Time magazines. In 1947, he was appointed chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). However, during his lifetime, Oppenheimer strongly opposed the development of the more powerful hydrogen bomb – a stance that angered those who wanted to America to effectively counter the growing Soviet threat.

Oppenheimer was criticised for having Communist sympathies and was removed as the head of the AEC in 1954 and stripped of all security clearances. Later, in 1963, Oppenheimer was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award – a move that was seen as an apologetic gesture by the US political leadership to recognise the famed nuclear scientist. Oppenheimer died on 18th February 1967 due to throat cancer in Princeton, New Jersey.