J. Robert Oppenheimer: the man, his science, and the man beyond the science
The HinduAmerican film director Christopher Nolan’s latest work, Oppenheimer, has dominated theatres worldwide, delivering one of the most iconic box office weekends for cinema. Known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” Oppenheimer’s contributions to nuclear physics and science in general not only sparked technological advancements but also raised questions about ethics and science. “I forgot about beryllium and films and decided to try to learn the trade of being a theoretical physicist,” Oppenheimer said, decided, according to Cassidy’s book. Max Born, a theoretical physics professor at Germany’s University of Göttingen, arrived at Cambridge just in time for a public reading of Oppenheimer’s second paper, on the motion of two bodies in quantum mechanics. An article published in Time magazine in November 1948 identified, “Scholarship is less than sense, therefore seek intelligence,” as one of Oppenheimer’s favourite couplets.