Who was Robert Oppenheimer, the man who developed the atomic bomb and turned to the Bhagavad Gita for solace?

New Delhi: Ahead of the release of legendary filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated film ‘Oppenheimer’ starring Cillian Murphy in the lead, social media is abuzz with J Robert Oppenheimer. Nolan, who is known for his brilliant storytelling skills and exploration of themes like space and time in his films, is releasing his latest directorial venture at a time when nuclear tensions are rising around the world.

So, who was Oppenheimer?

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

early life

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

Oppenheimer went to Harvard University in 1922 to study chemistry. However, after three years, he was deeply attracted towards physics and thus his career took a different scientific path. Oppenheimer later traveled to Cambridge to graduate in physics, where he began training under Nobel laureate JJ Thomson – the man who discovered the electron – at the Cavendish Laboratory.

A year later, Oppenheimer was invited by Max Born, director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, in the midst of his nuclear research, where he had the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas with future world-renowned scientists. ,

While in Germany, Oppenheimer published several papers on quantum theory. His work on the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wave functions, considered an important contribution to quantum molecular theory, was widely appreciated by the scientific community.

Oppenheimer earned his doctorate in 1927 and held professorships at both the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. Oppenheimer spent his 13 years doing important research in a number 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. It, along with the Born–Oppenheimer approximation, remain two of his most cited papers. He was nominated for the 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 nuclear weapons.

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 military began building a series of laboratories there. The Manhattan Project, which was funded with American taxpayers’ money, saw Oppenheimer and his team develop their first atomic bomb in just under three years.

trinity test

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

After a 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 brought to mind the words of a sacred Hindu text:

bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki

Less than a month later, the US military dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending World War II. Oppenheimer is said to have been distraught by the loss of life and large-scale destruction of the two Japanese cities following the dropping of the atomic bombs.

A few days later, he expressed his displeasure to President Truman, during which he told Truman that he felt he had “blood on his hands”. President Truman was not very pleased with Oppenheimer’s moral stance and told White House officials that he never wanted to see 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 Consultative 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 America to effectively counter the growing Soviet threat.

Oppenheimer was criticized for having communist sympathies and was removed as head of the AEC in 1954 and stripped of all security clearance. Later, in 1963, Oppenheimer was awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize—a move seen as an apologetic gesture by the American political leadership to recognize the famous nuclear scientist. Oppenheimer died of throat cancer on 18 February 1967 in Princeton, New Jersey.