When Oppenheimer was put under surveillance because of his alleged communist affiliations, Albert Einstein stood by his side. But he then called Oppenheimer a “fool.”
The spotlight is currently on the American theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, almost 50 years after his death. The reason for this new attention tofather of the atomic bombis the output of Oppenheimer biographical thrillerwritten and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
Known for leading the Manhattan Project, the 1940s American effort that resulted in the creation of the world’s first atomic bombs, dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer had a cordial but complicated relationship with Albert Einstein, as vanity lounge the dish. Einstein is played in the film by Tom Conti, while Oppenheimer is played by Cillian Murphy. The characters share a handful of important scenes together.
“Einstein was certainly ‘great’ because of his extraordinary scientific achievements; Oppenheimer deserved this description because of his accomplishments as a teacher at Berkeley in the 1930s and as director of the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos during World War II. For Einstein as for Oppenheimer, science, and physics in particular, had a special meaning. Both were exceptional physicists and becoming exceptional physicists was a necessary condition for them to become “great” in the Berlin sense,” noted Silvan S Schweber in the introduction to his book Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius.
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According to RadioTimes.com, Oppenheimer and Einstein initially disagreed regarding the field of quantum mechanics and the development of nuclear weapons. They are believed to have had their first encounter when Einstein was on a world tour in 1932 and visiting Caltech (where Oppenheimer was based at the time). They interacted several times before Oppenheimer began work on the Manhattan Project, the report said.
Nonetheless, one of the most talked-about anecdotes about the two physicists is when Oppenheimer came under intense scrutiny because of his former communist affiliations, and Einstein stood by his side. Einstein allegedly chided Oppenheimer for ignoring his advice during this difficult time, calling him a “fool.”
Oppenheimer was called to a security meeting where he was made to account for his past associations with Communists. Einstein urged Oppenheimer not to legitimize what Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, who wrote Oppenheimer’s biography, American Prometheus, called a “kangaroo court.” Instead, he advised Oppenheimer to leave his post, as he himself had done in Germany during the rise of Nazism. Einstein told Oppenheimer that he had “no obligation to submit to the witch hunt” and that if that was the “reward” the United States was offering him for his service in the war, “he should to turn your back “. a report from SFGATE.com mentioned.
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Oppenheimer, however, rejected Einstein’s advice. Upon learning of this, Einstein said, “There’s a narr (fool in Yiddish),” to his assistant, nodding in Oppenheimer’s direction, according to The Guardian. “The problem with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him: the United States government,” he told a friend, according to Bird and Sherwin, mentioned in a report by Vanity Fair. Einstein expressed his support in a more palatable way, however, and told the press, “I admire him not only as a scientist, but also as a great human being. »
Einstein and Oppenheimer may have been friends and fellow travelers, but their personalities were also very divergent. Oppenheimer wasn’t afraid to mistreat people when he needed to (and often when he didn’t), and he had his share of psychological troubles and self-destructive tendencies when he was younger, but he was also a inspiring and dynamic leader, as reported by The Telegraph.
The men also fundamentally disagreed on quantum physics. While Oppenheimer considered quantum physics the bible of modern theoretical physics, Einstein spent much of his life trying to poke holes in it, SFGATE.com said.
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First published on: 2023-07-22 1:47 PM IST
