Oppenheimer, the man beyond atomic bomb

In the lockdown, like so many people all over the world, I decided to learn something new. I started learning Bhagwad Geeta (श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता) online, courtesy of Geeta Parivar, who offer free classes for all. While I was learning chapter 11 verse 32, I realised it was the same verse quoted by J Robert Oppenheimer in the context of the atomic bomb explosion on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here’s the link, Oppenheimer Bhagavad-Gita Quote

I had heard about the Manhattan Project; it was very interesting I thought. Oppenheimer was recruited on the Manhattan Project. In spite of being the one who invented the atomic bomb, he was haunted by the explosions because of the wasted innocent lives, and he spent the rest of his life convincing the powers that be that no further research and development was necessary to make the world a safer place. Undoubtedly the invention of the atomic weapon was a significant scientific achievement but the devastation it led to was traumatic to the team. That got me researching and here’s what I found. I am sure you will be interested in reading about the brilliant but complex scientist.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and one of the key figures in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. He is often referred to as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’.

He is considered one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. He made many important contributions to the field of theoretical physics, particularly in the areas of quantum mechanics and nuclear physics.

Growing up and Education

J. Robert Oppenheimer was born on 22 April 1904, in New York City, in a wealthy German-Jewish family. His father, Julius Oppenheimer, was a successful textile importer, and his mother, Ella Friedman, was an artist and writer. They arrived in the US with no money and couldn’t speak a word of English. Julius started working in his uncle’s factory and was a rich man by the time he was 30. Robert grew up in a privileged environment, and his family placed a high value on education and intellectual pursuits but at the same time his family were admirers of liberal arts. Their art collection included works by Pablo Picasso and Edouard Vuillard, and at least three original paintings by Vincent van Gogh. He was the eldest of four children and had two younger brothers, Frank and Joseph, and a younger sister, Jean.

Robert was a delicate child but brilliant with no friends of his own age. He was overprotected as a child and had no street smarts. He was a loner, lived in his own world, more comfortable with his teachers than fellow pupils. He excelled at school and secured a place at Harvard and studied Physics, Chemistry, Maths, English and French literature, Hindu, western, Chinese philosophy. He even found time to write stories and poems. It was an intellectual heaven but a social disaster. Loneliness began to take its toll. Inability to connect with people led to bouts of melancholy and deep deep depression. Throughout his life, Oppenheimer was plagued by periods of depression, and he once told his brother he needed physics more than friends. In 1925 he started a graduate degree at Christ’s College, Cambridge in the famous Cavendish laboratory. An ambitious student who had always had easy success academically, he expected to excel but he was wrong. He sank into despair. He was doubting his ability to do science. Almost overwhelmed with his recurrent depression he was at a point of bumping himself off.

Next year he left Cambridge and moved to a German university of Goettingen, a hotbed of theoretical physics and home to some of the greatest physicists of his time. He found a chance to shine in a discipline which was revolutionising science, quantum physics. QP is the basic physics behind the electrons and atoms. It turns out that the classical ideas about Newtonian mechanics do not apply at the atomic scale, you need a new kind of physics. So, there were opportunities for young, talented students. Oppenheimer was entranced by the strangeness of the quantum world, where certainty disappeared, and probability ruled. He found his work exhilarating. He really flourished there, he annoyed everyone by talking too much and pretending he knew everything, said his contemporaries. Having found his niche, he excelled in Goettingen publishing 16 papers in 3 years. By the time he decided to come home he had a newfound focus and confidence as well as international reputation.

In 1929 he returned to the US and found teaching posts at Caltech and Berkeley. He was always interested in Hindu philosophy so much so that he learned about the Bhagavad Geeta, one of the most important Hindu texts, during his time here. He was particularly interested in the text’s depiction of the human struggle for knowledge and understanding, and he referred to the Geeta in several of his speeches and writings. In fact, his interest in the Geeta and other Eastern philosophical ideas was so great that it led him to study Sanskrit, the language in which the Geeta was originally written.

Career

After returning to the United States in 1929 he began a long and distinguished career in academia and government service. His first teaching post was at Caltech. He struggled to adjust to teaching. He used to smoke and teach simultaneously. He spoke rapidly, so students found it difficult to understand. But he soon managed to transform his teaching style and became a charismatic and effective teacher, but he still struggled with friendships. He was very impatient with young people and was all over them, they didn’t like him. They had to deal with a kind of arrogance and contempt. He himself called his behaviour beastliness.

As the 1930s progressed with the great depression with massive unemployment and riots, he remained remarkably unconcerned. He didn’t have a telephone, no newspaper or radio, so he learnt of the market crash much later. He was immersed in science but had no interest in politics or society.

Jean Tatlock was his long awaited first love, 22-year-old medical student, she was a passionate activist with interests ranging from Spanish civil war to racial discrimination. She was a member of the communist party and introduced him to the world of politics. He never joined the party, the FBI tried 39 years to prove he did but never could. He became deeply attached to Jean, but she was moody and volatile, after 3 years she left him. He eventually found another woman to love, Kitty Harisson was 29 and also a former member of the communist party. She was married but pursued him relentlessly. It was a tumultuous relationship with lots of bickering and fights. In 1940 he became her 4th husband, months later their 1st child was born. As they built a family, they started to distance themselves from the communist party. He was more interested in physics than politics and his career progressed nicely. In 1939 he published a paper with his student Hartland Snyder about how stars collapse and end up as black holes which was not understood before. Not long after the paper a German journal published an article which would change his life. The article proved that splitting atoms was possible. It was named nuclear fission. He wrote that it may well be possible that the miniscule cube of Uranium Deuteride might very well blow itself to hell. He wasn’t the only one to think so. The race for a nuclear bomb had begun. Every country that had the capability to do so began trying to build it including Russia and Germany. The greatest threat came from Germany because 9 months after the discovery of fission World War II began, when America joined the war 2 years later the military feared that Germany was way ahead building a nuclear weapon and they urgently needed to catch up.

In Oct 1942 on a train to New York Oppenheimer was sharing a cabin with Korea army officer, general Leslie Groves who was given the command of the US efforts to build the bomb codenamed the Manhattan project. Groves concluded Oppenheimer was ambitious and skilled enough to undertake one of the most complex challenges ever. Thus, during World War II, J. Robert Oppenheimer was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, which was a top-secret government program aimed at developing the first atomic bomb. He was appointed as the scientific director of the project, and he played a key role in its development. He was responsible for overseeing the work of hundreds of scientists and engineers, and he made many important contributions to the project himself, particularly in the areas of theoretical physics and bomb design. It was a great undertaking, unparalleled opportunity, it could affect the outcome of the war. Since the beginning his appointment was in doubt for different reasons. The army refused to authorise his security clearance due to his communist association even if the Soviet Union was an ally because he was considered a possible spy.

A remote desert in New Mexico Los Alamos was selected as a location. He led a team of scientists and was instrumental in bringing together some of the most brilliant minds of his time. He was deeply involved in the technical and scientific aspects of the project, and he worked tirelessly to overcome the many technical and logistical challenges that arose during its development. Before departure for the top secret work, he had dinner with his old left wing friend Haakon Chevalier, a professor of French at Berkeley. He was an active communist party member. Oppenheimer trusted him but during dinner he made a fateful suggestion. He said a British engineer, George Eltenton wanted inside info of his work to pass onto the Soviets. Oppenheimer rejected it off hand as it would be treason. He didn’t take it seriously. In time though the short conversation came back to haunt him. He didn’t associate communist party with espionage, he said but undertaking a secret war project related to the atomic bomb with communist association was dangerous.

He arrived in Los Alamos in April 1943, he was about to embark on a challenging task on which many questioned his suitability. The whole town was being constructed and he was managing science. It was a difficult task to get a linear accelerator on a mountain top and set up a lab under the cloud of secrecy. Intelligence was watching everything and everyone, especially one with a questionable past. His phone was tapped, mail opened, and office wired. His driver and bodyguard was an undercover agent. He was viewed as a security risk and thought he knew everything went on in the lab he didn’t have a security clearance. In Spite of annoyance from the security team he did his best. In August he decided to come clean about his discussion with Chevallier to the intelligence services. He was trying to provide useful information without exposing his old friend or casting more doubt on his own loyalty by inventing a mysterious third party. But that conversation was recorded. He made it more complicated each time he lied.

The magnitude of the task in The Manhattan project was huge but he thrived under pressure. He proved he was up to the job. He had a certain charm, charisma and flair that impressed and inspired the young scientist. He conveyed the intellectual essence of what they were doing. He got the work done. It was the only time in his life when he wasn’t plagued with self-doubt while serving his country. But by the summer of 1944 he was affected by the tension, he lost weight and nearly broke down, but he worked relentlessly. They had to invent new technologies in a short space of time. He seriously considered leaving the project but was persuaded to stay on because of the urgency of the work. As the team was battling towards the goal the war reached a bloody end. In May 1945 the Germans surrendered. The race for the bomb seemed to be over and the question was should they continue? He decided to go on to achieve technical success. He began to think creating a bomb could sufficiently scare people and actually prevent another war. But actual combat use wasn’t far off. On May 31st 1945 the government agreed on the target for the bomb. He didn’t oppose it but was worried if it would work. 6 weeks later in Mexico on July 16 it was tested. It was called the Trinity Test. The first atomic bomb was exploded at 5:30 AM on July 16, 1945, at a site on the Alamogordo air base 193 km south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It worked. He became morose after the test. Years later he explained, he had thought of a verse from Geeta at that time. Two days before the Trinity test, Oppenheimer expressed his hopes and fears in a quotation from Bhartṛhari’s Śatakatraya (भर्तृहरि शतकत्रय)

In battle, in the forest, at the precipice in the mountains,

On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,

In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,

The good deeds a man has done before defend him.

On 6th August Hiroshima the city with a population of 350000 was bombed. The technical success was exhilarating but he was traumatised by the human cost. 3 days later Nagasaki was obliterated. He was morose. He knew they had unleashed a new weapon capable of killing millions of people. He wasn’t happy about the second bombing in Nagasaki, it was unnecessary from a military point of view.

Post war life

The Manhattan Project did not become public knowledge until after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In November 1945, Oppenheimer left Los Alamos to return to Caltech, but soon found that his heart was no longer in teaching. In 1947, he accepted an offer from Lewis Strauss to take up the directorship of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He held this position till 1966. At Princeton, Oppenheimer continued to make important contributions to the fields of physics and astrophysics. He worked on theoretical aspects of quantum mechanics, the properties of neutron stars, and the origins of cosmic rays. Here he mingled with some of the greatest physicists in history. But he seemed to have left physics behind. His productivity was hampered. His dream of getting back to science was lost.

After the war he became a top advisor on atomic weapons for the US government. He was deeply involved in the effort to devise means for the international control of the nuclear industry involving everything from atomic energy to weapons. This was unrealistic. Opposed from all sides, his foray into politics went nowhere. It was a brilliantly radical but premature idea. The US nuclear program continued but he was increasingly worried about US nuclear policy and of the Soviets threat. The US government created the atomic energy commission, and he was offered a senior role. He was involved in creating new atomic weapons to offset the Soviet threat. Oppenheimer and the committee were approached for approval of Hydrogen bomb (H bomb), but they denied it, siting it would be a weapon of genocide not just warfare. But president Truman overruled that decision fearing the Soviets would get there first. Two years later the world’s 1st H bomb was tested on a Pacific Island. He wasn’t opposed to building nuclear weapons, just huge unnecessary weapons. He was loyal to his government, but his lack of enthusiasm was misinterpreted.

Despite his reputation and service to his country, his communist associations were really suspicious. He was asked to appear before committees to clear his name twice. It was suggested that he was undermining the nation’s atomic weapons program and opposed the development of the H bomb on direct orders from Moscow. It was also suggested that Russian spies had stolen secrets from Los Alamos under his watch. These fears were confirmed when the Russians tested their H bomb in 1953. A former colleague in the atomic energy commission William Borden was convinced he was one of the spies to pass on the secret. He levelled damning accusations at him concluding he was a Soviet agent to J Edgar Hoover. On 21 Dec 1953 his security clearance was suspended. He was stunned. In 1954 the hearing began in a makeshift court in Washington DC accused of being a risk to national security. The hearing lasted almost a month, picking over every detail of his life challenging his loyalty, questioning his judgement and exposing his secrets. In his defence he decided to tell his own story. But it was the worst kind of kangaroo court. The FBI bugged him all the time to know his further moves and prosecution was ready to break the law to break and finish him. He was devastated. Soon after the trial he turned 50 his influence over government was over. He lived for 13 years but wasn’t the same man, he symbolised the folly of scientists who believed they could control the use of their research, and the dilemmas of moral responsibility presented by science in the nuclear age. The hearings were motivated by politics and personal enmities, and also reflected a stark divide in the nuclear weapons community.

He continued to direct the institute for advanced study, gave lectures about science. Oppenheimer was increasingly concerned about the potential danger that scientific inventions could pose to humanity. He joined with Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Joseph Rotblat and other eminent scientists and academics to establish what would eventually become the World Academy of Art and Science. Deprived of political power, Oppenheimer continued to lecture, write and work on physics. He toured Europe and Japan, giving talks about the history of science, the role of science in society, and the nature of the universe. In his speeches and public writings, Oppenheimer continually stressed the difficulty of managing the power of knowledge and freedom of exchange of scientific ideas was more and more hampered by political concerns. In 1962, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in Britain. In 1963 president lyndon Johnson awarded him the Fermi award, for contributions to theoretical physics as a teacher and originator of ideas, and for leadership of the Los Alamos Laboratory and the atomic energy program during critical years, one of the highest scientific honours, ironically it was sponsored by the atomic energy commission.

Oppenheimer was a chain smoker who was diagnosed with throat cancer in late 1965. After inconclusive surgery, he underwent unsuccessful radiation treatment and chemotherapy late in 1966.He fell into a coma on 15 February 1967, and died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on 18 February aged 62. A memorial service was held a week later on the campus of Princeton University. As a scientist he is remembered as is remembered by his students and colleagues as being a brilliant researcher and engaging teacher. His scientific attentions often changed rapidly, he never worked long enough on any one topic to merit the Nobel Prize even though he was capable enough is an understatement, I am sure. His research on Black Holes may have got him many honours but he didn’t live long enough.

All in all, it feels like a modern tragedy. He was an intelligent, proud, arrogant, sometimes ignorant and brilliant polymath whose interests stretched from physics to poetry. He was a national hero and spent a decade advising the government. Having created the bomb, he spent much of his subsequent career trying to warn his masters of its dangers in doing so he made some powerful enemies. His country asked him to do something, and he did it brilliantly and they repaid him by breaking him. All his strengths and shortcomings were turned against him in his trial, resulting in a spectacular fall in prestige. He never recovered from it completely. In 1954 he was stripped of his security clearance due to apparent ties to communist party and his name was cleared nearly 70 years later by US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm.

I enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s movie on Oppenheimer. You might want to watch it too.