Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center

Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center | Ray Monk

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Ray Monk
Professor, University of Southampton
May 15, 2013
In this lecture, Ray Monk, author of Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center, Random House, 2013, will tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Institute's third Director (1947--66), in the context of the momentous developments in which he played a leading part. It will describe the community in which he was brought up, his development as a physicist, his involvement in left-wing politics in the 1930s, and his unlikely choice as director of the laboratory in Los Alamos that produced the world's first atomic bomb. It will also describe his attempts after the war to secure international control over atomic energy, his opposition to the hydrogen bomb, and the security hearing of 1954 that stripped him of his security clearance. As the lecture will show, however, by the time he died in 1967 his reputation-as a scientist, a statesman, and a loyal U.S. citizen-had been truly re-established.
Video can also be found here: video.ias.edu

Пікірлер: 33

@medievalmusiclover Жыл бұрын

So wonderful and interesting information. Excellent job. Well organized lecture. Thank U for sharing!

@mikeFolco 8 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the upload, interesting stuff.

@MistressGlowWorm 8 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the upload. Wonderful history.

@subversivelysurreal3645 3 жыл бұрын

Van Allen Belts :it’s on CSPAN Book TV. (…in case you’re interested in other interesting discussions.)

@desaivinod1 3 жыл бұрын

I am impressed by his knowledge on Bhagavad-Gita and he extracted knowledge of atom and power of atom bomb from Bhagavad-Gita. He knew Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit by heart at twenty nine. He used to gift copy of Bhagavad-Gita who used to visit him. He used to keep a copy of Bhagavad-Gita on his table

@gpcrawford8353 4 жыл бұрын

British composer Gustav Holst (more famous for The Planet suite) also learned Sanskrit and had an avid interest in Eastern mysticism indeed put verses of the Rig Vada to music. BTW Max Born is the grandfather of Olivia Newton John she of Grease fame.

@us-Bahn Жыл бұрын

Very interesting presentation. I can believe that the initial purpose of the bomb was to beat Heisenberg to the punch. The secondary reason, to scare Stalin, came to the fore once Germany’s surrender looked inevitable.

@DaytonaStation 2 жыл бұрын

David Bohm was my first physics prof. in London Birkbeck College

@nealrutgerskid 4 жыл бұрын

Currently reading his book.

@timchapman5567 11 ай бұрын

Me too, having read the Bird-Sherman biography and seen the Nolan movie. See also Richard Rhodes's two indispensable books. The subject matter could not be more important.

@samkohen4589 11 ай бұрын

Max Born was the grandfather of Olivia Newton John

@desaivinod1 Жыл бұрын

I agree that Robert Oppenheimer was deeply influenced by Bhagavad-Gita which he knew in Sanskrit by heart at an young age of twenty nine. There are 125 verses in science in Bhagavad-Gita from atom to universe. I think I know from Bhagavad-Gita which influenced Robert Oppenheimer….

@hieronymusbosch693 6 жыл бұрын

Thank you.

@DaytonaStation 2 жыл бұрын

Olivia Newton John, ( Grease, Saturday Night Fever etc.) is Max Born's Grand daughter

@jasminlugo5369 6 жыл бұрын

Your Italian best friend, Enrico Fermi, was the mentor and your right hand.

@elplanetarojo9482 6 жыл бұрын

Best friend? Fermi was more than a friend for him. He was like a brother.

@kdub1242 8 жыл бұрын

It's a trivial error, but it was Teller (rather than Wigner) who went with Szilard to Einstein's house with the famous letter.

@johnsnowkumar359 11 ай бұрын

Oppenheimer was a poster boy of the nuclear program of the United States jump-started in about 1942. Suddenly President Roosevelt was interested. A car with a dead battery can be jump started with the good battery of another car with a jumper cable. The American atom bomb program was jump started in about 1942 when two academic scientists from a country near Holland (The duo could from any country in the area) went to Washington DC in about 1942 from across the Atlantic Ocean and showed up at the White House along with about 50 papers of the Soviet atom bomb. Suddenly the President was interested. He never showed the design papers and air blast calculations of the Soviet atom to the office staff. Vice president Truman just heard that two men had brought design papers of a destructive bomb designed by the Soviet scientists, sent to the White House by dissident scientists in the Soviet Union with the help of the courier duo. He was not informed till the day after President Roosevelt died that the President had secretly hired a team of U. S born scientists in 1942 to re design and to re build the Soviet atom bomb based on soviet design papers of their atom bomb of 1942. The Soviet atom bomb was designed by a Soviet team led by Egor Kurchatov between 1936 and 1942. During a visit to the White House in about 1942, Robert Oppenheimer said he needed 3 months notice in early 1942 approximately. The White House official along with the President wanted Oppenheimer to quit his job and to enlist himself in the re-design and re-manufacture of the Soviet atom bomb designed by the Soviet team of dissident nuclear scientists within the Soviet Union. President Roosevelt asked the two academic scientists in about 1942 why there so many papers on nuclear air blast calculations in the smuggled papers on the Soviet atom bomb. the bundle had about 50 pages approximately. The two visiting academic scientists rightly guessed that these air blast calculations were a delaying tactics by the dissident scientists of the Soviet Union to delay the manufacture of he Soviet atom bomb. which made up to 70 percent of the papers handed over to the white House. The Soviet papers of the atom bomb also had a warning note that if Hitler had an atom bomb, that Hitler would surely nuke London or Moscow or Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). President Roosevelt made it very clear that he wants an American with a German last name to be the poster boy of the nuclear program of the US. Kurchatov himself was a dissident scientist. Egor looked more like a beach boy surfing a surf board in a beach anywhere in the USA, as a young man. Egor as a young man also looked like a slim fraternity boy in any college in the US. Average fraternity man in any college across the US used to be fat. About a decade or two ago, college fraternities in the US made it a requirement that all new fraternity members be slim or muscular and not fat any more. Later, Egor also started looking like a mad scientist as he aged. Oppenheimer was hesitant to join the nuclear program, as he someone told him as a child that he had a German last name. *** In 1942, two theoretical physics from a country near Holland or Denmark showed up at the White House along with detailed blueprints of the Soviet atom bomb along with air blast calculations. President Roosevelt was suddenly highly interested. Two academic scientists from Holland or some other small country near Holland or Denmark visited the White House along with blueprints of the Soviet atom bomb, and offered to become project managers of the American nuclear program. President Roosevelt told Oppenheimer that he needed an American with a German last name as the project manager. Why? If Berlin is nukes, then he can say that a German American had nuked Berlin. If the President finds out that Hitler may use the atom bomb against the US, then President Roosevelt may be obliged to order the use of atom bombs against Berlin. So President Roosevelt wanted a scientist with a German last name to lead the American nuclear program.

@SG-to4sd 11 ай бұрын

Reference source ? This adds another layer to the Truman - Stalin Potsdam event & the proven Soviet spies at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer was a sacrificial easy divergent target based on your investigation.

@walterbishop3668 7 жыл бұрын

I wish he talked about eisntein

@sbkarajan Жыл бұрын

Oppenheimer never said that he or the scientists at Los Alamos/Oak Rudge or Manhattan Project developed the bomb. He never even said it was the US who developed the bomb. Even the Szilard Petition never say it was the undersigned scientists who developed the bomb. When Truman told Stalin of the bomb after the Trinity test, he said that the US now had the bombs.

@sbkarajan Жыл бұрын

Manhattan project started in Aug 1942 with no men, no land, no laboratory. Oppenheimer moved to Los Alamos in March 1943, so did Richard Feynman. There, scientists had nothing to do until the lab construction was finished in Nov 1943. Feynman spent killing his time by messing with censorship folks and learning to pick locks. Therefore, essentially, inventing the bombs started in Nov 1943, and by July 1945, the US had 4 nukes. So, it took 1 year and 8 months?