THE OPPENHEIMER EFFECT

THE MAN

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist and director of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory alongside being a professor of quantum mechanics and the distant star of Christopher Nolan's aptly named biopic “OPPENHEIMER”. It is fair to say with a £33 million opening day the interest in the life of the man dubbed the “Father Of The Atomic Bomb” has reached some what of a crescendo.

Personally, after watching the film in its full 3 hours of glory the life of the man Himself, His story and themes masterfully woven from start to finish brought me to a wider conclusion of ideas regarding particular aspects of the film. Apart from the presentation of outspoken stoicism, commitment to the cause and an unexpected amount of female attention for a “Scientist”.

In this brief piece of questionably formed writing I will outline the idea that I have quite self importantly named the “Oppenheimer Effect”, this is formed around the idea of the feelings that emerge from being the beginning of something uncontrollable, or the existential fear of what's to come next.

THE IDEA

The film portrays many ideas directly, such as moral dilemma's and more apparent things such as corruption alongside dis-honesty. With this being said what I personally took from the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, alongside many others was the idea of the uncontrollability and sequences that you have started which will continue long after you are here, with a healthy dose of dread to go with it. To try and explain it simply is the burden someone may feel after starting a sequence of events which ends in a negative outcome for someone else, which is of course relative and can affect anyone.

For example, J. Robert Oppenheimer or “Oppy” as referred to in the film, expresses and feels the effects of the sequences that he creates. This is revealed in the final scene of the film manifested in the conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein which explains this idea better than I could ever do myself, this idea spreads from small to unbelievably large shown by the reactions of Oppenheimer and His subsequent depressive episodes revealed by the film as well as the book American Prometheus.

The inevitable uncontrollability of your actions and the affects it in tales onto others lives, this is the, Oppenheimer effect.