Julius Robert Oppenheimer
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American
physicist and government adviser, who
directed the development of the first
atomic bombs. To scientists, he was not
only the builder of the atomic bomb
and a pioneer in atomic energy, but a master
of many languages, a good
conversationalist and a brilliant mathematician. He
was also a writer, and an
expert in both the history of architecture and the
religions of the world.
Oppenheimer, who was born in New York City on April 22,
1904, and
educated at Harvard University and the Universities of Cambridge
and
Gottingen, grew up in a middle class neighborhood. He was raised by
his mother,
who was an artist who provided a nice apartment with a subdued,
tasteful
atmosphere. His grandfather came from Germany where he was a peasant
farmer and
grain merchant. The Oppenheimer’s family business was importing
fabric for the
clothing industry. As a child in grade school, Oppenheimer
excelled in all
subjects. This continued straight through all of his
schooling. During his years
at Harvard University, Oppenheimer excelled in
Latin, Greek, physics and
chemistry. He also published poetry and studied
Oriental philosophy. After
graduating in 1925, he sailed to England to do
research in the Cavendish
Laboratory at Cambridge University , which,
under the leadership of Lord
Rutherford, had an international reputation
for its pioneering studies on atomic
structure. Oppenheimer was fortunate to
enter physics in 1925 because that is
when modern quantum mechanics came into
being. He was one of the first
scientists to use quantum mechanics for the
exploration of problems which had
been insoluble with the old quantum theory.
While at Cambridge, Oppenheimer had
the opportunity to work with the British
scientific community in its efforts to
advance the cause of atomic research.
Shortly thereafter, Max Born invited him
to Gottingen University, where he
met other prominent physicists, such as Niels
Bohr and Paul Dirac, and
where, in 1927, he received his doctorate. He then
returned to the United
States. After serving with the International Education
Board from 1928 to
1929, Oppenheimer became a professor of physics at the
University of
California at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology
where he
worked from1929 to 1947. There he built up large schools of
theoretical
physics. He was noted for his contributions relating to the
quantum theory, the
theory of relativity, cosmic rays, positrons, and neutron
stars. He was also
able to show that a baffling movement of a deuteron (heavy
hydrogen nucleus),
being loosely bound, surrenders its neutron on entering
the field of a heavy
nucleus. The effect was that the heavy nucleus captures
the stripped neutron,
becomes unstable and then radioactive. This discovery
helped to later develop
the hydrogen bomb, which is thousands of times more
powerful than the atomic
bomb. In his early years of teaching, Oppenheimer
had little success and many
students complained to the head of the physics
department about how quiet he was
and how he overestimated his audience. The
department head, Raymond T. Birge,
knew that Oppenheimer already knew that he
was not getting through to the
students and therefore did not need to be
told. Soon enough he began to interact
with his audience by dropping his pace
of delivery and going to great lengths to
make connections between ideas
clearer. By doing this he attracted a small group
of some of the brightest
students. These students thought of him as a brilliant
lecturer and some
remarked that he was one of their most inspiring professors.
In 1940
Oppenheimer married a woman named Katherine Harrison. They had one son
whom
they named Peter and a daughter whom they named Katherine. They lived in
a
beautiful house on Eagle Hill in the San Francisco Bay area. During a leave
of
absence that lasted from 1943 until 1945, Oppenheimer served as director
of the
atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. After warnings from
Albert
Einstein and Leo Szilard, both respected scientists, that the
world would be in
grave danger if the Nazis were the first to create an
atomic bomb, Oppenheimer
began to seek a process for the separation of
uranium-235 from natural uranium.
He also strove to discover a way to
determine the critical mass of uranium
required to make such a bomb. On July
16, 1945, the joint effort of outstanding
scientists at Los Alamos created
the first nuclear explosion. This took place at
Alamogordo, New Mexico.
That October, Oppenheimer resigned from the project. His
leadership and
organizational skills during the project earned him the
Presidential
Medal of Merit in 1946. In 1947 Oppenheimer became director of
the
Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, serving
there until the
year before his death. He was also chairman of the General
Advisory Committee of
the Atomic Energy Commission, or AEC, from 1947 to 1952
and served thereafter as
an adviser. In 1954, however, he was suspended from
this position on charges
about his past association with Communists.
Oppenheimer had been notified of a
military security report that was
unfavorable of him and that dealt with his
alleged associations with
Communists in the past. One of these alleged
associations was with his wife
and brother who were both known to be Communists.
He also had no close
friends that were not Communists. He had made substantial
sums of money
monthly to the Communist party which further contributed to his
indictment.
There was also evidence that his ties with Communism had survived
the
Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Soviet attack on Finland, that he belonged only
to
Communist organizations apart from professional affiliations. The
people whom he
had recruited into the early wartime Berkeley project were
exclusively
Communists and he had been instrumental in securing recruits
for the Communist
party, but his worst and most incriminating action was
certainly his frequent
contact with Soviet espionage agents. During the war,
Oppenheimer was
responsible for employing many Communists, some of them being
non-technical, at
wartime Los Alamos. He selected one of these individuals to
write the official
Los Alamos history. He was also accused of delaying
the naming of Soviet agents
and of opposing the building of the hydrogen
bomb. A security hearing that
followed declared him not guilty of treason,
but ruled that he should not have
access to military secrets. It was a
powerful case that basically tried to label
Oppenheimer as a Communist.
It is important to remember that all of the
accusations were alleged and came
without proof, but the question still remains
today as to weather Oppenheimer
was simply subject to bad coincidences or if the
accusations really had any
significance. As a result of the trial,
Oppenheimer’s contract as adviser
to the Atomic Energy Commission was
cancelled. This action reflected the
political atmosphere of the time, as well
as the dislike of some politicians
and military figures for Oppenheimer's
opposition to development of the
hydrogen bomb and his support of arms control.
The Federation of American
Scientists stood behind him and protested the trial.
During this time he
wrote his book Science and the Common Understanding. He also
wrote Lectures
on Electrodynamics which wasn’t released until 1970.
Subsequently,
efforts were made to clear Oppenheimer’s name, and in 1963 the
AEC
conferred on him its highest honor, the Enrico Fermi Award. This
prize
carries with it a purse of $50,000. He devoted his final years to study
of the
relationship between science and society. He died in Princeton on
February 18,
1967.