Robert Oppenheimer

Julius Robert Oppenheimer was born on April 22, 1904 in New York city to wealthy parents of Jewish origin. His father Julius Oppenheimer who came to U.S from Germany was successful in the textile import business. His mother Ella Friedman was a painter, who had studied in Paris. The family had a good collection of paintings that included Van Gaugh,Cezanne, and Gauguin.

                As a boy Robert Oppenheimer was interested in science and poetry. His pleasure was in matters of mind than in mixing with other boys. He attended the Ethical Culture School in New York, one of the best in the city.

                From his early childhood, he had developed an interest in mineralogy and started collecting samples. By the time he was 11, his collection and knowledge of the subject was so impressive that he was admitted as a member of the mineralogical club in New York.

                Robert Oppenheimer entered Harvard University in 1922 as a student of  Chemistry, but soon his interest shifted to physics. He graduated from Harvard in 1925, taking only 3 years instead of the normal 4 years. Along with science and Mathematics he studied Philosophy,  Eastern religion and French and English literature.

                After graduation he travelled widely in Europe, meeting and working with prominent Physicists. Initially he worked at Cambridge University and came in contact with Rutherford. It was the time when Quantum Mechanics was formulated, and Oppenheimer was fascinated by the emerging exciting branch of Physics. He moved to Gottingen in Germany to work with Max Born and completed his Ph.D. there in a short span of 2 years. His work with Max Born on the structure of molecules resulted in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

                On his return to US, he became  Asst. Professor in Physics simultaneously at the University of California in Berkeley and at the California Institute of Technology.

                In Berkeley, he created his great school of theoretical physics. A large number of theoretical physicists were trained by Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had very broad academic interests and he made major contributions to theoretical physics. He produced major works in quantum field theory, Nuclear Physics, Spectroscopy and general relativity. His paper in 1930 predicted the existence of positrons and his 1938 paper indicated the existence of black holes. He is also famous for Oppenheimer-Philips process in nuclear fusion and the first prediction of quantum tunnelling. With his students he also made contributions to the theory of neutron stars, and the interactions of cosmic rays.

                When World War II broke out, the western world was worried about the German nuclear energy programme. In 1942 US initiated its own programme for making an atom bomb.  Oppenheimer joined the programme which was given the code name Manhatten Project. Oppenheimer was made the leader of the group responsible for setting up the Los Almos Lab and conducting research for the fast production of atom bomb. He organised the best minds in Physics at Los Almos and effectively led them towards the target. Because of his leadership role in this project, he is often referred to as the “father of atom bomb”.

                The atom bomb was tested in an explosion in a desert in New Mexico on July2, 1945. The demonstration of its destructive power shocked Oppenheimer. He later recalled the lines of Bhagawat Gita going through his mind at that time; “ Now I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds”.

                America dropped atom bombs in Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, in Japan, killing lakhs of people and the world war ended.

Oppenheimer was shattered by the destructive power of the bomb, he himself helped to create. As with many other scientists, his intention in creating the atom bomb was to save the world from the threat of fascism. Once the war was over, he saw no purpose in any country producing nuclear weapons. Instead he saw countries producing nuclear bombs as a threat to world peace and security.

                Oppenheimer resigned the directorship of Los Alamos lab in October 1945. He started advocating for international control of atomic weapons. He also opposed the US producing H-bombs, a device 1000 times more destructive than the atom bomb.

                In 1947 Oppenheimer became the director of the prestigious Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton. Oppenheimer’s opposition to the nuclear arms race, led to his resignation from US Atomic Energy Agency (AEC) in 1952.

                In 1953 senator Joseph McCarthy and others accused Robert Oppenheimer with communist links. He was also accused of working to convince outstanding scientists not to work on the Hydrogen Bomb project.

                Oppenheimer was denied security clearance by AEC. He lost all access to the American nuclear energy programme. Oppenheimer became a ‘pariah’ for the US govt. and the state sponsored scientific establishment.

                After this harrowing experience Oppenheimer took his ideas to the larger scientific community and to the general public, by giving a number of public lectures. He died of cancer on 18 February 1967, at the age of 62. Today he is remembered as a brilliant scientist and an inspiring teacher of science who founded modern theoretical physics in the United States. A lunar crater and an asteroid are named after him.

                In 2022, the Secretary of Energy of the Biden administration nullified the 1954 decision to revoke the security clearance to Oppenheimer, thus correcting a historic wrong. The Hollywood movie “Oppenheimer” directed by Christopher Nolan narrates the complex life of Robert Oppenheimer.