On December 26, 2023, the "From Biography to Film: Why We Should Read Oppenheimer" "Oppenheimer" new book sharing session was launched on the online platform.
Kai Bird, author of the original biography of the same name of Nolan's film "Oppenheimer", and Wang Bing, translator of the Chinese version of "Oppenheimer" and doctor of mental health at Peking University, and Fang Zaiqing, reviewer of "Oppenheimer" and researcher at the Institute of History of Natural Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had a wonderful conversation to explore the real Oppenheimer behind the biography and film.
The release of Nolan's film "Oppenheimer" brought the scientist, who had been dead for more than half a century, back into the public eye, and the talent, conscience, loyalty, and perseverance he displayed in the movie ...... Countless audiences were deeply moved.
The original biography and inspiration for this film, "Oppenheimer: The Triumph and Tragedy of the American "Father of the Atomic Bomb") is the most complete biography of Oppenheimer, written over a period of 25 years. J. Sherwin interviewed nearly 100 of Oppenheimer's close friends, relatives and colleagues, and consulted more than 50,000 documents to win the 2006 Pulitzer Prize.
Oppenheimer
Born Out of Thin Air: Nuclear Physics and the Birth of the Atomic Bomb
The film "Oppenheimer" brilliantly presents the essence of the original work, and the main creators of the film also respect the original book very much.
Nolan said, "I don't think I would have made this film without the original books by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin." He praised "Oppenheimer's biography" as "comprehensive and detailed", and even found Kay Bird before the film was filmed and showed him the entire script.
Cillian Murphy also said to Kay Bird, who was on the set: "Your book is a must-read here. ”
The following is the highlights of the "From Biography to Film: Why We Should Read Oppenheimer" "Oppenheimer" new book sharing session.
1. Why should you read Oppenheimer?
Wang Bing:
How many people have already watched the movie "Oppenheimer"? Friends who have watched the movie have the opportunity to learn the story behind the movie today; friends who have not seen the movie, after today's sharing, may have some special experiences when watching the movie.
On December 30, the "Oppenheimer" movie will be streamed online, and everyone can watch the movie on Tencent Video.
Our topic today is "Why Read Oppenheimer." I think there are at least three things that this book might teach us:
The first point is that the more technology develops, the more it will bring another challenge: whether we will risk self-destruction. The relationship between technology and humans is a particularly pressing topic and is one of the main points of discussion in this book.
The second problem is that Oppenheimer was born in a time of chaos and uncertainty, and each of us today is facing a change unseen in a century. How to find the inner direction in a chaotic time? Oppenheimer's story may give us some inspiration.
Finally, Oppenheimer suffered an unfair trial in 1954, but it wasn't until December 2022 that U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm made a decision to rehabilitate him and reverse the wrong decision in 1954.
Even in 2022, the decision was opposed by some lawyers, but the US Secretary of Energy insisted: "We need to add a page to our history books, and we want everyone to know what society will face when scientists who know the truth are silenced."
I think that's one of the issues that we need to face today.
2, "rich second generation" Oppenheimer
Kay Bird:
Oppenheimer grew up in a very privileged environment.
His father, an immigrant with a Jewish background from Germany, came to New York City and became a successful businessman. His mother was a painter, an artist. She was an early collector of Picasso's paintings.
As a child, Oppenheimer grew up in a ten-room apartment in Manhattan. He had a maid, a cook, a family car driver, and his father later bought him a sailboat to sail in Long Island Bay.
He named the sailboat after the chemical trimethyl. In his youth, he was pampered and encouraged, and was sent to a private school. His life was very privileged.
So the young Robert Oppenheimer grew up in a very privileged environment, and he showed an interest in science very early.
He studied chemistry Xi and later went to Harvard, graduating three years later, and then went to Cambridge, England, where he studied experimental physics Xi, where he failed, for the first time in his life. It is important to understand that he faced failure because in experimental physics he found his hands clumsy, constantly breaking things in the laboratory.
He had an emotional crisis at the age of twenty-one or twelve. He fell into a deep depression, as you can see in the movie. If you've seen the movie, it begins by describing the so-called "Poisoned Apple Incident", which is yet another mysterious incident that happened to the young Oppenheimer.
Wang Bing:
In the biography, Oppenheimer's mother was dying, and Oppenheimer said to his teacher, "I am now the loneliest person in the world." ”
After his mother died, his teacher said, "Your mother loves you very much. Oppenheimer said with a slight resentment, "Maybe she loves me too much." ”
Oppenheimer also said that his mother's comfort nest for him and his upbringing did not prepare him to deal with the cruel adult world.
3. The Poisoned Apple Incident: Oppenheimer's darkest moment
Kay Bird:
Oppenheimer, as we told in Oppenheimer's biography, was a difficult person to get along with, very intelligent, but sometimes troubled. His adolescence was long, but he had the ability to change himself, grow and overcome difficulties. This happened repeatedly throughout his life.
He found out that he was a failure in experimental physics, and then he overcame this by gaining an interest in theoretical physics.
Just when the famous Danish physicist Nils Bohr was just beginning to explore quantum physics, Oppenheimer had a mind that could understand the very difficult concept of quantum. It's a physics that seems ridiculous, but it actually works. Oppenheimer understood how it worked.
He received his Ph.D. in less than a year, completed his doctoral thesis, and became a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.
At first, he was a terrible teacher. He didn't know how to lecture and was clumsy. He spoke softly and softly, and the students could not hear him clearly. But eventually he learned how to teach, and he became very eloquent.
You can see the video of his speech online today, and you can hear his voice, which is a very magnetic soft voice. He was very eloquent, and he made every word very clear. He gives a long speech and doesn't need to pull an outline in advance.
This is a fragile person, but he knows how to have strength and use inner strength to overcome the difficulties he faces. So it's a very human story.
Then when he went to Los Alamos, the same thing happened. He was chosen to be the director of this secret city. It was a very unlikely option, but he went.
Fang Zaiqing:
I don't think Oppenheimer's career choices may have been made by him in some ways.
At first, he wanted to go to Europe, because Europe was ahead of the United States in physics at the time. But there are only two places in Europe that are taller than the United States: Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Göttingen in Germany. The teacher who recommended him was an experimental physicist at Harvard University, so he was recommended to go to Cambridge.
Oppenheimer himself had a shortcoming in terms of experimentation, he didn't know this, and Cambridge put a lot of emphasis on hands-on ability, precisely because he was not good at it, so he experienced a psychological crisis there.
But I think there is also a process of transformation. Because after experiencing a powerful psychological crisis, slowly through psychotherapy, he actually overcame, and when he suffered blows in his later career, he was not on the verge of that kind of collapse. So I think it's a good process of transformation.
One may have such a darkest moment, but one cannot give up. Even in such a serious situation as Oppenheimer, he was able to turn around gorgeously in the end, which should also be a big revelation for us.
Wang Bing:
Since my main business is psychological work, I try to understand the answers of the two teachers from the common emotions of the inner world of human beings.
In fact, Oppenheimer's darkest moment was a twofold question about himself: a question about who I was, and a question about what I was fit in. In fact, this is a bit of an internal and external dilemma, I don't know who I am inside, I don't know how to deal with my life externally, in fact, there will be an existential crisis.
But I think that in his growth, he solved this crisis, on the one hand, because of chance, as Mr. Fang said, he turned from experimental physics to theoretical physics, from nothing to soaring, that is, he found a path that suits him, or the way.
The pain of the other inner world, out of the pain, beyond the pain, is written about his reading in the biography in the book, and he reads "Reminiscences of the Past". Oppenheimer was a talkative and playful guy who never answered questions directly, so we don't know what got him out of the trough of the "poisoned apple incident".
But reading is very important to him, because for a proud intellectual, it is far more important to be able to relieve one's own pain through reading than to turn to others.
So I recommend our book again, and when you read it, you feel that it's not just Oppenheimer, it's a lot of common human emotions.
In the course of reading, the biographer's interpretation is that he finds that a person's suffering may actually be a universal human predicament, thus increasing our acceptance and tolerance of our own suffering. To put it bluntly, it is self-consistent.
I think it may be that reading has had an important impact on us, seeing the lives of others, and thus healing our own lives.
4. Oppenheimer's gorgeous turn
Wang Bing:
One of Oppenheimer's major accomplishments was that he became the director of the Manhattan Project.
In fact, we can see in the book that everyone thought it was impossible at the time, and everyone joked. It is also mentioned in the movie that he can't even run a hamburger stand, how can he run the Manhattan Project. But as a result, he became the "father of the atomic bomb".
How did this transition happen? How did a fragile, introverted person take charge of a science project of thousands of people?
Kay Bird:
Oppenheimer in 1942 had never worked in any management work, except for a few graduate students. So people were surprised that General Groves, the leader of the Manhattan Project, chose Oppenheimer.
But when Groves interviewed Oppenheimer in Berkeley in 1942, he realized that the 38-year-old was very intelligent. Although he did not win the Nobel Prize like many of the scientists they recruited for this secret program, he was very smart and very ambitious.
He had a quality that other scientists lacked - he could talk in plain language about the problems faced in creating the first atomic bomb.
One reason Oppenheimer was able to do this was that at the age of 38 he was not only a theoretical physicist and talented in the field, but he also loved poetry and French literature, the poetry of T.S. Eliot and the novels of Ernest Hemingway.
He was interested in the human condition and philosophy, he became interested in the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, so he taught himself Sanskrit. This is a knowledgeable person with a wide range of interests. So he can communicate fluently with Groves and other scientists about their profession.
And he understands that Groves cares deeply about security and keeps it a secret about what they're trying to make. Oppenheimer, in their first meeting – which is also depicted in the film – suggests that, well, if you want to make this terrible weapon, you need to get all the scientists who are doing this work to come to a room in one place and be able to collaborate, talk and argue freely.
The way to stay safe is to isolate them in some isolated place. He stated that he had an idea of where the place should be. This place is Los Alamos.
It's a wise choice. All the people who worked at Los Alamos who were interviewed by Martin and I said that if someone else had been chosen, the atomic bomb would have been made at some point, but it would have taken much longer.
The ability to build an atomic bomb in two and a half years relied on Oppenheimer's talent, his charisma, and his leadership.
Fang Zaiqing:
It is generally believed that there was a chemistry between Oppenheimer and Groves, as if it happened overnight, but there should have been a process.
Oppenheimer knew about [the Manhattan Project], and he tried very hard to perform, for about three months. First, he organized a summer symposium to bring together relevant scientists in the United States to find the best answer.
In addition, Oppenheimer also found that this should be the best time to realize the value of his life, so he and Groves both saw the need for each other.
Groves felt that Oppenheimer was the best person to accomplish his task, and Oppenheimer also saw Groves help him with his ideals, so the process didn't happen overnight.
Oppenheimer's talent was recognized by people such as Vanneva Bush during the course of organizing the Summer Symposium, which was also an external factor. Of course, the final decision is made by the Groves.
As Kai said earlier, Oppenheimer was able to tell the story of what was needed to make the atomic bomb in a language that Groves could understand. And other scientists, although they have Nobel Prize titles and have a lot of practical experience, but the language they speak is academic language, which Groves does not understand.
He has very poor hands-on skills, but his ability to understand problems is exceptional. He can know your main points through conversation, and in the end he can give a direction that everyone thinks is right. Including those who disobeyed him, after this process, they were completely convinced of him.
He used to hang out, for example, at Berkeley. But at this time, he was able to coordinate all these people who were particularly difficult to manage, because these top scientists were very individual people. I also saw it in the movie, like Taylor, who is also disobedient, and then there are contradictions between scientists.
But as long as Oppenheimer is there, he can keep them at bay and form a nucleus that will allow this matter to go on successfully.
Wang Bing:
Although history does not stand up to assumptions, when we analyze Oppenheimer's career with hindsight, we will find that perhaps many things did not happen purely by chance.
For example, Mr. Fang just mentioned that Oppenheimer can bring out the best in others. In the biography, it is written that Groves and his soldiers said that it was enough to coax these children. For him, scientists are very bad-tempered, difficult children.
But Oppenheimer used his charisma to bring out the best in everyone.
And I remember that Mr. Fang once said that Oppenheimer was not greedy for merit. He's been involved a lot, he's on the spot, but he's got everyone to be treated with full respect.
In Oppenheimer's flamboyant transformation, at least if you read the book, you will find that he used his strengths to the extreme. He can explain the most complex theories in the simplest language, he can work with people, and he can show his personal charisma, including letting everyone play to their strengths.
5、AI的“奥本海默时刻”
Wang Bing:
I just talked about the development of the atomic bomb, and in today's rapid development of technology, artificial intelligence and gene editing may have a follow-up impact that is no less than that of the atomic bomb and atomic energy.
Is it enough for scientists to study science? Is it not responsible for their results and subsequent effects? I would also like to ask Mr. Kay if he is afraid that one day AI will leave biographers without food?
Kay Bird:
It's really a concern (laughs). But I know it's very difficult to learn how Xi be a storyteller.
We are clearly at the forefront of another world-changing scientific revolution. I know people who are developing artificial intelligence, like Sam Altman. Rather, this moment is another "Oppenheimer moment," which means that this is another moment in history when we should stop and think about the consequences of what we are doing.
Again, I don't think we can stop science from moving forward. We can't stop the development of artificial intelligence, but we can learn from what Oppenheimer said after developing the atomic bomb.
We need to think long-term and hard, we need to get expert advice from scientists who are developing AI, how to control it, how to regulate it, how to use it for good benefits?
But how to rule out some of the difficult aspects of AI, for example, I think there should be some way to reach an international agreement that controls potential invasions of the privacy of all our individuals. We need to be able to keep our private information private. We also need to find a way to regulate AI in media.
As well as artificial intelligence generating fake news stories, fake photos, fake citations, which is very worrying.
I think it was really an "Oppenheimer moment". We need more scientists like Oppenheimer who can stand up as public intellectuals and talk about the political and policy implications of science and technology around us.
Scientists should consciously become public intellectuals, and it is a very unfortunate message if you stay on the narrow path of your profession and not become a public intellectual.
We actually need scientists with knowledge who understand technology to educate us, not dictate to us, but to educate us on how to argue about science and its implications. Scientists do need to take responsibility for their research, and they need to explain to us the rational choices we face.
Fang Zaiqing:
I basically agree with him, but I'm optimistic.
I think that the fear of any new technology can only be solved by a new technology.
Wang Bing:
As I listened to the opinions of the two panelists, it occurred to me that one of the most profound feelings I had when I read this biography was that perhaps the greatest threat to humanity was not atomic power, gene editing, or artificial intelligence, but the gap between our intelligence and the power we wield.
Are we wiser than our parents, than the philosophers of 2,000 years ago? No one can be sure. One detail in the book that particularly touched me was that Oppenheimer's teacher wrote to his students saying that he wanted his students to be wiser not wiser.
I thought about it for a long time, what is the difference between wisdom and wisdom? Later, I realized a little bit that wisdom is to find a way to get it, and wisdom is to know what we will eventually lose.