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J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer; / ˈɒpənhaɪmər / OP-ən-hy-mər; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. He was director of the Manhattan Project 's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II and is often called the "father of the atomic bomb ".
- Overview
- Early life and education
- Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project
- Security hearing and later years
- Oppenheimer’s legacy
J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was designed. The theoretical work of how the atomic bomb would function had to be converted into a practical weapon that could be dropped from an airplane and explode above its target.
What is J. Robert Oppenheimer famous for?
J. Robert Oppenheimer is most famous for being director of the Manhattan Project’s laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was designed. The revoking of his security clearance during the McCarthy era because of accusations of past associations with communists provoked outcry from the scientific community.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22, 1904, New York, New York, U.S.—died February 18, 1967, Princeton, New Jersey) American theoretical physicist and science administrator, noted as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory (1943–45) during development of the atomic bomb and as director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1947–66). Accusations of disloyalty led to a government hearing that resulted in the loss of his security clearance and of his position as adviser to the highest echelons of the U.S. government. The case became a cause célèbre in the world of science because of its implications concerning political and moral issues relating to the role of scientists in government.
Oppenheimer was the son of a German immigrant who had made his fortune by importing textiles in New York City. During his undergraduate studies at Harvard University, Oppenheimer excelled in Latin, Greek, physics, and chemistry, published poetry, and studied Eastern philosophy. After graduating in 1925, he sailed for England to do research at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, which, under the leadership of Lord Ernest Rutherford, had an international reputation for its pioneering studies on atomic structure. At the Cavendish, Oppenheimer had the opportunity to collaborate with the British scientific community in its efforts to advance the cause of atomic research.
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Max Born invited Oppenheimer to University of Göttingen, where he met other prominent physicists, such as Niels Bohr and P.A.M. Dirac, and where, in 1927, he received his doctorate. After short visits at science centres in Leiden and Zürich, he returned to the United States to teach physics at the University of California at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology.
The rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany stirred his first interest in politics. In 1936 he sided with the republic during the Civil War in Spain, where he became acquainted with communist students. Although his father’s death in 1937 left Oppenheimer a fortune that allowed him to subsidize anti-fascist organizations, the tragic suffering inflicted by Joseph Stalin on Russian scientists led him to withdraw his associations with the Communist Party—in fact, he never joined the party—and at the same time reinforced in him a liberal democratic philosophy. In 1939, Oppenheimer began an affair with Katharine Puening, a graduate student in botany at the University of California, Los Angeles. Puening divorced her husband and married Oppenheimer in 1940.
After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, the physicists Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner warned the U.S. government of the danger threatening all of humanity if the Nazis should be the first to make a nuclear bomb. Oppenheimer then began to seek a process for the separation of uranium-235 from natural uranium and to determine the critical mass of uranium required to make such a bomb. In August 1942 the U.S. Army was given the responsibility of organizing the efforts of British and U.S. physicists to seek a way to harness nuclear energy for military purposes, an effort that became known as the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was instructed to establish and administer a laboratory to carry out this assignment. In 1943 he chose the plateau of Los Alamos, near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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For reasons that have not been made clear, Oppenheimer in 1942 initiated discussions with military security agents that culminated with the implication that some of his friends and acquaintances were agents of the Soviet government. This led to the dismissal of a personal friend on the faculty at the University of California. In a 1954 security hearing, he described his contribution to those discussions as “a tissue of lies.”
The joint effort of outstanding scientists at Los Alamos culminated in the first nuclear explosion, on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, after the surrender of Germany. In October of the same year, Oppenheimer resigned his post. In 1947 he became head of the Institute for Advanced Study and served from 1947 until 1952 as chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, which in October 1949 opposed development of the hydrogen bomb.
On December 21, 1953, he was notified of a military security report unfavourable to him and was accused of having associated with communists in the past, of delaying the naming of Soviet agents, and of opposing the building of the hydrogen bomb. The following year, a security hearing declared him not guilty of treason but ruled that he should not h...
In 1963 U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson presented Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award of the Atomic Energy Commission. Oppenheimer retired from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1966 and died of throat cancer the following year. In 2014, 60 years after the proceedings that effectively ended Oppenheimer’s career, the U.S. Department of Energy rel...
- Michel Rouzé
Jul 21, 2023 · Based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2006 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer— currently no. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller...
- Megan Mccluskey
Jan 8, 2024 · Learn about the life and achievements of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the Manhattan Project and became known as the "father of the atomic bomb". Explore his early education, his role in the project, his controversies, his relationships, and his legacy.
- Vintage
- 5 min
- Becky Little
- He studied Sanskrit and read Hindu scripture. Oppenheimer’s most famous quote comes from the 1965 documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb. In it, Oppenheimer recalls seeing the first nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945
- He first fell in love with New Mexico when he was convalescing there as a teen. In 1942, Oppenheimer chose the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico as the site for the Manhattan Project’s secret laboratory.
- He became interested in communism during the Great Depression. The Great Depression helped fuel an interest in workers’ rights and communism in the United States.
- He was blacklisted during the 1950s Red Scare and lost his security clearance. In 1946, the United States formed the Atomic Energy Commission to oversee the country’s nuclear weapons program.
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Learn about the physicist who led the Manhattan Project and became the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Explore his achievements, challenges, and contributions to science and society.
Jun 27, 2023 · Learn how the legendary physicist led the Manhattan Project to develop the world's first nuclear weapon and struggled with its moral implications. Explore his life, achievements, and legacy in this article from National Geographic.
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