Oppenheimer atomic bomb

Teacher, physicist, and administrator, J. Robert Oppenheimer was Director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos from March, 1943, to October, 1945. During those years he directed a force of nearly 6000 scientific and military employees under conditions which were seldom free from intense mental strain. Certainly he knows as much about the potential of atomic energy as any living American, and his urge for peace, his belief that we must be governed by open-mindedness in our international responsibility for the atomic bomb, are characteristic of what Secretary Stimson termed his “genius and leadership.” A few weeks ago the president of a college in the prairie states came to see me. Clearly, when he tried to look into the future, he did not like what he saw: the grim prospects for the maintenance of peace, for the preservation of freedom, for the flourishing and growth of the humane values of our civilization. He seemed to have in mind that it might be well for people, even in his small college, to try to take some part in turning these prospects to a happier end; but what he said came rather as a shock. He said, “I wonder if you can help me. I have a very peculiar problem. You see, out there most of the students, and the teachers too, come from the farm. They are used to planting seed, and then waiting for it to grow, and then harvesting it. They believe in time and in nature. It is rather hard to get them to take things into their own hands.” Perhaps, as much as anything,...

Much has been written about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer—the substance of his life, his intellect, his patrician manner, his leadership of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, his political affiliations and postwar military/security entanglements, and his early death from cancer, amount to a highly compelling story. Born Julius Robert Oppenheimer on April 22, 1904, in New York City, Oppenheimer grew up in a Manhattan apartment adorned with paintings by van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin. His father, Julius Oppenheimer, was a German immigrant who worked in his family's textile importing business. His mother, Ella Friedman, was a painter whose family had been in New York for generations. His younger brother, Frank, would also become a physicist. In 1921, Oppenheimer graduated from the Ethical Culture School of New York at the top of his class. At Harvard, Oppenheimer studied mathematics and science, philosophy and Eastern religion, and French and English literature. He 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, Higgins University Professor of Physics at Harvard, Oppenheimer was introduced to experimental physics, which quickly caught his attention. He graduated summa cum laude in 1925 and afterwards went to Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory as research assistant to J. J. Thomson. Uninspired by routine laboratory work, he went to the U...

The Manhattan Project brought forth a new revolution in arms technology, rerouting military policy around the globe. The scientists working on this project had one goal: developing an atomic super weapon that would help the U.S. secure victory over the Axis powers during World War II. This project came as the result of Albert Einstein learning that Germany was developing atomic weapons. Einstein relayed this critical information in a letter—known as the Einstein Letter—to President Franklin Roosevelt, and soon thereafter, the development of the atom bomb was elevated to the highest priority national security project. The secret atomic weapons development project, dubbed the Manhattan Project, was launched in December 1941. Several hundred scientists were called to a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico to aid the United States in developing the atomic bomb, with the below individuals having the most notable roles in the project. J. Robert Oppenheimer Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist that is widely renowned as the father of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was born in 1904, and his profound intelligence could be observed in his early academic achievements, like being invited to lecture at the New York Mineralogical Club at the age of 12 and graduating from Harvard with a degree in chemistry in just three years. Following his graduation, Oppenheimer pursued graduate study in physics under Max Born, a highly distinguished theoretical physics professor from German...

The Oppenheimer security hearing was a 1954 proceeding by the Doubts about Oppenheimer's loyalty dated back to the 1930s, when he was a member of numerous The proceedings were initiated after Oppenheimer refused to voluntarily give up his security clearance while working as an atomic weapons consultant for the government, under a contract due to expire at the end of June 1954. Several of his colleagues testified at the hearings. As a result of the two to one decision of the hearing's three judges, he was stripped of his security clearance one day before his consultant contract was due to expire. The panel found that he was loyal and discreet with atomic secrets, but did not recommend that his security clearance be reinstated. The loss of his security clearance ended Oppenheimer's role in government and policy. He became an academic exile, cut off from his former career and the world he had helped to create. The reputations of those who had testified against Oppenheimer were tarnished as well, and Oppenheimer's reputation was later partly rehabilitated by Presidents On December 16, 2022, Background [ ] Robert Oppenheimer [ ] Before As a theoretical physicist, Oppenheimer had considerable achievements. In a 1930 paper on the Still, Oppenheimer was not well known before the war, and certainly not as renowned as his friend and colleague The end of the war in the wake of the Chevalier incident [ ] Many of Oppenheimer's associates in the years before World War II were In January...