Oppenheimer: The True Story You Need To Know

Oppenheimer is adapted from the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, who led the development of the world's first atomic bomb.

Ending All Wars: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb can be considered as a background knowledge supplement to the movie Oppenheimer. This documentary can give you a better understanding of Oppenheimer, the characters, and the background knowledge of the movie. Christopher Nolan also appears in the film, evaluating Oppenheimer:

It is difficult to find a person in history who is in such a complex situation, facing various unsolvable problems, and has to rely entirely on himself to judge.

Perhaps this is the commonality of all the figures that have influenced the course of history. Only when looking back at history does one realize that one's actions at the time affected the fate of all humanity.

Genius

In 1904, Robert Oppenheimer was born into a wealthy German-Jewish family in New York, USA. His father, Julius Seligman Oppenheimer, was a German-Jewish immigrant who became the president of a textile company through hard work. His mother, Ella Friedman, was a painter who owned her own gallery and collected authentic works by Picasso and Van Gogh. However, she passed away when Oppenheimer was only nine years old. Oppenheimer also had a younger brother, Frank Oppenheimer, who was also a physicist. Oppenheimer's mother, who had an artistic temperament, was somewhat neurotic in his education. She did not allow Oppenheimer to go out and play with peers, which contributed to his introverted personality when he grew up and was not good at dealing with people.

Overall, Oppenheimer's growth experience was a complete sample of a genius. In 1925, the 21-year-old Oppenheimer graduated early from Harvard University. He was tall and handsome, with a melancholy temperament and never without a cigarette, bearing a striking resemblance to the rock singer Bob Dylan.

Later, Oppenheimer went to study experimental physics at the University of Cambridge in England. However, the academic genius finally hit a snag. Although Oppenheimer was exceptionally intelligent, his hands-on skills were not very good, and he was not good at doing experiments. Experimental physics was obviously his weakness. The sudden setback was a huge blow to Oppenheimer, who had always been a top student. It was when he turned to theoretical physics and began studying quantum mechanics that he discovered his true area of expertise.

Oppenheimer transferred to the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he studied under the theoretical physicist Max Born. He encountered some of the world's top physicists in Germany, including Werner Heisenberg, who would later lead Germany's atomic bomb project.

Experiment

At the end of 1941, after the Pearl Harbor incident, the United States entered World War II and declared war on Nazi Germany. Germany had already begun researching nuclear weapons. Some American scientists proposed that the United States should manufacture an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany, including Einstein, who personally wrote a letter to Roosevelt. The madness of Nazi Germany overcame the scientists' ethical and moral concerns, and they focused on researching atomic bombs. Whoever builds an atomic bomb first will not only win World War II but will also rule the world.

In the summer of 1942, the US Army officially launched the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The project brought together the best nuclear scientists in the Western world (excluding Nazi Germany). The project leader was General Groves (played by Matt Damon in Oppenheimer), who, however, did not understand physics. Groves needed someone with a certain reputation in the scientific community to manage these top scientists in the world. He believed that Oppenheimer was the best candidate.

In 1943, following Oppenheimer's advice, General Groves created the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Oppenheimer named the nuclear test site Trinity, which comes from John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV. It also commemorated Gene Tattlock, who committed suicide because he introduced Donne's work to Oppenheimer.

After Roosevelt died and Hitler committed suicide in 1945, the Nazi threat was no longer there, but atomic bomb research could not be abandoned. After Hitler's death, the target became Japan. There was no doubt that Japan would be defeated, but defeat and surrender are two different things.

Oppenheimer assumed that in a world with atomic weapons, wars would stop because, in the face of such a powerful weapon, anyone could only choose to surrender.

Change

At 5:30 a.m. on July 15th, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb exploded in the desert area of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Afterward, Oppenheimer recalled that when he witnessed the destructive power of the nuclear explosion, he remembered the line from the Hindu classic, the Bhagavad Gita: "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds." "We knew the world would not be the same. Some people laughed, some people cried, but most people were silent." As a physicist, Oppenheimer not only felt the excitement of the successful experiment but also saw the terrifying prospect of human destruction.

Japan is the only country in the world that has suffered atomic bombing. Oppenheimer played a conflicting role in this, sympathizing with the Japanese civilians who were about to be killed or injured while also having to fulfill his duty. On August 6th and 9th, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombs had power exceeding 20,000 tons of TNT, and on August 15th, the Japanese emperor announced an unconditional surrender, ending the Second World War. Oppenheimer always hoped this would be the last time humankind uses nuclear weapons.

After that, Oppenheimer stopped doing physics research and commenting on any nuclear weapons-related issues. Especially Oppenheimer, who suffered from moral agony for the rest of his life. On the other hand, Oppenheimer also became a star in America, thanks to his identity as the father of the atomic bomb, and his career reached its peak, enjoying endless glory.

However, Oppenheimer opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, which is more powerful than the atomic bomb. The number of casualties caused by a hydrogen bomb is equivalent to the death toll of the entire World War II. Oppenheimer called it a genocide weapon that would certainly be used to attack civilian targets and harm millions of people. In November 1945, he left Los Alamos to become the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey.

However, Oppenheimer made too many enemies. From 1949 to 1953, he was involved in one controversy and a power struggle after another. The hearings held in April and May 1954 were about Oppenheimer's ties to the Communist Party and his contacts with scientists who were disloyal to the United States during the Manhattan Project. As a result, Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked, and he was suspended by the Atomic Energy Commission. This meant that he was deprived of political power and could no longer influence official policies. Nolan's movie is based on that hearing.

After that, Oppenheimer stopped doing physics research and stopped commenting on any issues related to nuclear weapons. Being stripped of political influence meant that scientists themselves could not control how others used their research results. Oppenheimer, addicted to smoking throughout his life, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer at the end of 1965. On February 18th, 1967, Oppenheimer passed away in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 62. At the end of 2022, the Department of Energy revoked the decision of the Safety Hearing.

The atomic bomb is the legacy that Oppenheimer left to the world. It ended the countless deaths and injuries of World War II, but the opposite problem emerged: how to control these destructive weapons. However, no matter how the atomic bomb is disposed of, the world has changed forever when that mushroom cloud rises and can never go back. As Oppenheimer said, "If another world war breaks out, this civilization may be destroyed. We must ask ourselves if we are doing everything possible to prevent it."