J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Oppenheimer" redirects here. For the movie, see Oppenheimer (movie).

J. Robert Oppenheimer, "the father of the atomic bomb" was the first director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, beginning in 1943.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 in New York City – February 18, 1967 in Princeton, New Jersey) was an American physicist of Jewish descent. He is best known as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. In World War II, the project built the first nuclear weapons. That is why Oppenheimer is called "the father of the atomic bomb".

"We knew the world would not be the same", he recalled the moments after the successful testing of the atomic bomb in New Mexico, United States years later. "A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."

The quote from the Hindu scripture became one of Oppenheimer's most famous quotes.

After the war he lost his security clearance and his job due to concern over nuclear espionage out of anti-nuclear movement. He returned to teaching, and died of throat cancer, aged 62.

In 2023, Christopher Nolan directed a movie based on Oppenheimer's life with Irish actor Cillian Murphy playing Oppenheimer.

J. Robert Oppenheimer Media

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  Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' Laboratory in Leiden, Netherlands, July 1927. Oppenheimer is in the middle row, second from the left.

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  University of California Radiation Laboratory staff (including Robert R. Wilson and Nobel prize winners Ernest Lawrence, Edwin McMillan, and Luis Alvarez) on the magnet yoke for the cyclotron, 1938. Oppenheimer is the tall figure holding a pipe in the top row, just right of center.

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  Oppenheimer in 1946 with his ever-present cigarette

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  Oppenheimer's ID photo from the Los Alamos Laboratory

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  Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project, with Oppenheimer in 1942

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  The Trinity test was the first detonation of a nuclear device.

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  Oppenheimer and Groves at the remains of the Trinity test tower. Oppenheimer is wearing his trademark pork pie hat; white overshoes protect against fallout.

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  Oppenheimer with fellow physicist Albert Einstein, c. 1950

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  The GAC in 1947; Oppenheimer is second from the left.

Other websites

• WW2DB: Robert Oppenheimer