Before you watch Oppenheimer, you really have to know him

Time Contributor | Cocteau

The B-29 bomber, known as the "Super Flying Fortress", was the main bomber of the US military in the Pacific theater in World War II.

It has a long range and a large bomb load, and without landing on the Japanese mainland, the US military can rely on it to carry out strategic bombing of the Japanese mainland.

B-29 bomber

On August 6, 1945, B-29 bombers flew over the Japanese military-industrial city of Hiroshima and dropped an atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy" over the ground 9,000 meters above the ground.

On August 9, the second atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," was dropped in almost the same way in the port city of Nagasaki, marking the victory and defeat in the Pacific theater of World War II. Six days later, the Japanese militarist government surrendered unconditionally.

With the explosion of the two atomic bombs, Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the research on it, was the representative of the scientists in the minds of Americans in the 40s and 50s, and became the focus of public opinion and attention.

Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb", America's top physicist, who is known as the modern Prometheus by later generations, and his team personally rewrote human history, but he also opposed the overexploitation of nuclear weapons, and was attacked by conservatives.

Despite all the controversy, he is both the embodiment of modern science, the most controversial genius of the 20th century, and a fragile and melancholy ordinary person.

Rich family, withdrawn genius

Oppenheimer was born into a wealthy family, and his father was a "stereotyped" Jew, energetic and business-minded.

Immigrating to the United States from Europe for less than a decade, he became the president of a textile company from scratch, which provided the foundation for Oppenheimer's good education as a teenager.

Born in New York in 1904, Oppenheimer demonstrated extraordinary learning ability from an early age, skipping grades at Alquin Preparatory School, and if it were not for an accidental illness and a year off, he could have entered Harvard University at a young age.

Oppenheimer as a child

Oppenheimer's college life was a multi-tasked and extremely busy one. He majored in chemistry, but also studied history, literature, mathematics, physics, and philosophy.

In the process of crazy learning, Oppenheimer was gradually attracted to Percy Bridgman, a professor who had won the Nobel Prize in physicism, and soon focused more research on thermodynamic physics.

Although he entered school late, Oppenheimer graduated early. In just three years, he graduated with honors from Harvard early and went on to study in Europe.

When he first arrived in Europe, Oppenheimer encountered the Waterloo of his life.

He was not accepted by conservative Britons, and after successive rejections, Oppenheimer could only accept physicist Patrick Blackett, who was a few years older than him, as his mentor, and the proud Oppenheimer by nature did not get along with him happily - he did not want to be bored in the laboratory every day, but wanted to focus on the study of physical problems.

Just like every genius has some excesses, Oppenheimer put an apple with harmful chemicals on the surface on the mentor's table, but fortunately Blackett did not eat it, Oppenheimer narrowly escaped the charge of poisoning, but inevitably suffered a heavy punishment from school probation (but due to the influence of parents was eventually dealt with lightly).

Oppenheimer at school

This extreme move was a flash of mental anguish that accompanied his life, and Oppenheimer suffered from depression.

It was probably the first major setback in his life, when friends around him noticed his mental problems and wanted to make him happy, but he added his fists and feet, and he himself later recalled that he seriously considered suicide during that time.

Although a genius, he struggled to establish a stable, intrinsic connection with those around him, a pain that accompanied him throughout his life, and although science changed mankind, it could not completely save sensitive souls.

After leaving Cambridge, Oppenheimer went to the University of Göttingen, the most important institution in the physics world, to study abroad, met a group of later physics scholars, and successfully obtained a doctorate, accumulating enough knowledge and contacts for him to change the world in the future.

The atomic bomb, standing in the middle of history and storms

In 1938, German scientists were the first to discover the phenomenon of nuclear fission, while the Soviet Union, Japan, France, and Britain were all following the research of nuclear weapons, but the US government did not pay attention to it.

Once Nazi Germany was the first to develop nuclear weapons, the consequences would be unimaginable. In order to persuade President Roosevelt Jr. to develop the atomic bomb before Nazi Germany, Einstein led a group of scientists on a tour of Washington, D.C., lobbying among senior government officials.

Finally, in 1939, the president signed the documents for the development of the atomic bomb.

So the question is, which scientist is leading such a large, complex, interdisciplinary and highly classified project, the Manhattan Project?

Oppenheimer and Einstein

Returning to the United States from Europe, Oppenheimer was a smooth ride in academia, and he even taught at California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Berkeley and many other famous American universities at the same time, and made a lot of achievements in cutting-edge fields such as quantum mechanics, chemical bonds, astronomy, nuclear physics, etc., it can be said that Oppenheimer is the best candidate for this position, except that conservatives criticize him for being too close to communism.

The Manhattan Project was an unprecedented interdisciplinary project, and program director Leslie Richard Groves stood-for-tat from conservatives and insisted on him as director of the atomic bomb laboratory. At the same time, the FBI also installed a wiretapping device on Oppenheimer's phone...

In 1942, Oppenheimer, who took over the burden, led a group of scientists to establish the famous Los Alamos Laboratory on a flat-topped mountain near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

With the development of the project, Oppenheimer's high will and organizational ability also became prominent, he was not only able to understand every scientific aspect of the plan, but also mediated between scientists and the military, trying his best to provide a comfortable scientific research environment and working atmosphere for more than 3,000 scientific researchers, and providing a double guarantee for the implementation of the Manhattan Project.

The famous Trinity Experiment

In 1945, in the Alamogordo area of New Mexico, the first artificial nuclear explosion in human history was successfully detonated, which is the famous Trinity test.

While witnessing the nuclear explosion, Oppenheimer left behind the famous verse from the ancient Indian Vedic text, Bhagavan Tam: Now I am the Grim Reaper, the destroyer of the world.

Subsequently, as the world knows, the destructive power of the "little boy" and the "fat man" led to the rapid surrender of Japanese militarism, directly and indirectly resulting in the death of about 190,000 people.

Oppenheimer and his team wrote to Washington that the second drop was unnecessary, saying that "our scientists' hands were stained with blood", which also laid the groundwork for the ups and downs of Oppenheimer's second half of life.

Unfair treatment

Historically, many scientists have been obsessed with science and immersed in experiments, but they lack humanistic care and a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of society.

Oppenheimer, on the other hand, not only cared about society and politics, but also harbored an uneasiness and, if necessary, stood up to express his position, which made him once again a thorn in the side of conservatives.

After the war, Oppenheimer became an icon of American society, and his emaciated face could even be seen on the cover of Time magazine.

Oppenheimer was not content to be the "Grim Reaper", but roamed the international community to ensure that the world under nuclear deterrence did not fall into madness, especially when he realized the mutual suspicion between the United States and the Soviet Union, and an undercurrent of a nuclear arms race.

On the cover of Time magazine

Oppenheimer advocated the establishment of an International Atomic Energy Development Agency, which the Soviet Union saw as an attempt to maintain its nuclear monopoly; He opposed the development of a more deterrent nuclear weapon, a hydrogen bomb, but President Truman vetoed it. In a world transformed by nuclear weapons, Oppenheimer's opinions fell on deaf ears, much to his dismay.

More trouble is yet to come. As early as the 30s, while teaching at a university, Oppenheimer showed a clear interest in communist tendencies.

His close associates: his wife, brother, and even lover were members of the Communist Party of America, which did not cause any obvious trouble during the period of ideological laxity, but in fact from the time he took over the Manhattan Project, there was constant surveillance of his hands, including phone tapping, letter censorship, and so on.

After the end of World War II, the ideological Cold War replaced the hot war, and McCarthyism was in vogue in the 50s. Circumstances can make a person, but they can also ruin a person.

In June 1949, under the influence of political opponents, Oppenheimer had to go to the infamous House Committee of Inquiry into Non-American Activities to prove his loyalty to his country.

It was also from this time that Oppenheimer was involved in one game after another, struggle, exhausted.

In late 1953, then-U.S. President Dwight Dwight Dwight Eisenhower revoked Oppenheimer's security clearance, losing access to classified documents and plaguing him with multiple charges.

Instead of giving in to injustice, Oppenheimer chose to bravely stand at the hearing, denying that he and his colleagues had passed intelligence to secret Soviet channels while the Manhattan Project was underway, and that he had committed any treason.

Many researchers and members of society sided with Oppenheimer, sympathizing with him for becoming a victim of McCarthyism and the military's struggle for power.

Perhaps discouraged by struggle, or involuntarily deprived of political rights, Oppenheimer's later years were spent traveling around the world and teaching and writing.

It was not until the late '50s as McCarthyism was gradually dismissed and Oppenheimer's former ally approached the center of power, and he symbolically returned to the mainstream until his death on February 18, 1967.

The ups and downs of Oppenheimer's life are often the subject of artworks, and the upcoming Nolan-directed film Oppenheimer is based on Kay Bird and Martin Bird. J. Sherwin's biography of Oppenheimer, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize, is considered the most authoritative and readable book on Oppenheimer's life.