Robert Oppenheimer
| Robert Oppenheimer | |
|---|---|
 Prof. Dr. phil. J. Robert Oppenheimer | |
| Born | Julius Robert Oppenheimer April 22, 1904 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 18, 1967 (aged 62) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
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| Thesis | Zur Quantentheorie kontinuierlicher Spektren (1927) |
| Doctoral advisor | Prof. Dr. Max Born (1882–1970), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen |
| Known for |
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| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | ∞ 1940 Katherine "Kitty" Puening (1910–1972), German-born biologist and botanist; 2 children |
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs during the Manhattan Project, a United States government program to build atomic bombs. The Jewish Oppenheimer was covertly a member of the Communist Party USA, or, at the very least, had various very close contacts with it. He is included among the names deciphered from codenames by the Venona project, an American government effort to decrypt coded messages by intelligence forces of the Soviet Union. A recently revealed document has been argued to confirm that Oppenheimer was a Soviet spy.[1] Leftist Wikipedia makes no mention at all of this new evidence, instead describing it as confirmed that he was not a spy and instead was among the "Victims of McCarthyism".
Life
Oppenheimer was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer into a non-observant Jewish family in New York City on 22 April 1904, to Ella (née Friedman), a painter, and Julius Seligmann Oppenheimer, a successful textile importer. Robert had a younger brother, Frank, who also became a physicist. Their father was born in Hanau in the German Empire, when it was still part of the Hesse-Nassau province of the Kingdom of Prussia, and as a teenager made his way to the United States in 1888, without money, higher education, or even English. He was hired by a textile company and within a decade was an executive there, eventually becoming wealthy. In 1912, the family moved to an apartment on Riverside Drive near West 88th Street, Manhattan, an area known for luxurious mansions and townhouses. Their art collection included works by Pablo Picasso, Édouard Vuillard, and Vincent van Gogh.
- Oppenheimer was born on April 22, 1904. Oppenheimer’s family was part of the Ethical Culture Society, an outgrowth of American Reform Judaism founded and led at the time by Dr. Felix Adler. The progressive society placed an emphasis on social justice, civic responsibility, and secular humanism. Dr. Adler also founded the Ethical Culture School, where Oppenheimer enrolled in September 1911. His academic prowess was apparent very early on, and by the age of 10, Oppenheimer was studying minerals, physics, and chemistry. His correspondence with the New York Mineralogical Club was so advanced that the Society invited him to deliver a lecture—not realizing that Robert was a twelve-year-old boy. He graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in 1921, but fell ill with a near-fatal case of dysentery and was forced to postpone enrolling at Harvard. After being bedridden for months, his parents arranged for him to spend the summer of 1922 in New Mexico, a haven for health-seekers. Robert stayed at a dude ranch 25 miles northeast of Santa Fe with high school teacher Herbert Smith as a companion and mentor. From there, he took five- or six-day horseback trips in the wilderness. This experience restored Oppenheimer’s health and instilled a deep love for the desert high country. Oppenheimer enrolled at Harvard in September 1922. He graduated in three years, excelling in a wide variety of subjects. Although he majored in chemistry, Oppenheimer eventually realized his true passion was the study of physics. In 1925, Oppenheimer began his graduate work in physics at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. J. J. Thomson, who had been awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for detecting the electron, agreed to take on Oppenheimer as a student. At Cavendish, Oppenheimer realized that his talent was for theoretical, not experimental, physics, and he accepted an invitation from Max Born, director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Göttingen, to study with him in Germany. Oppenheimer had the good fortune to be in Europe during a pivotal time in the world of physics, as European physicists were then developing the groundbreaking theory of quantum mechanics. Oppenheimer received his doctorate in 1927 and accepted professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology. At Berkeley, he became good friends with Ernest Lawrence, one of the world’s top experimental physicists and the inventor of the cyclotron. Lawrence named his second son after Robert. After the war Oppenheimer became an advisor of the Atomic Energy Commission, lobbying for international arms control. Beginning in 1947, Oppenheimer directed the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he convened great scientists. “What we don’t understand, we explain to each other.” His security clearance was revoked in 1954 in a hearing during the Second Red Scare. Oppenheimer’s old Communist sympathies were dredged up and his clearance was revoked a mere 32 hours before it was set to expire. Oppenheimer had made political enemies by arguing against the development of the hydrogen bomb, and revoking his clearance stripped him of political power. The scientific community was outraged at the treatment of Oppenheimer, and reviled Edward Teller, who testified against him at the hearing. For more information, please see Oppenheimer Security Hearing. Along with Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Joseph Rotblat he established the World Academy of Art and Science in 1960. He continued lecturing around the world, and was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award in 1963. He died of throat cancer in 1967.[2]
See also
- McCarthyism
- National Socialist Germany's nuclear weapons program
- List of Jewish financial dynasties
- Operation Paperclip
Further reading
External link
- Was Oppenheimer a Soviet Spy? A Roundtable Discussion
- "The Oppenheimer Story", by J. B. Matthews, The American Mercury, October 1954
References
- ↑ Was Oppenheimer a Soviet Spy? A Roundtable Discussion https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/was-oppenheimer-soviet-spy-roundtable-discussion
- ↑ J. Robert Oppenheimer
