J. Robert Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904 - 1967) an American physicist, directed the laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was designed and built, became known as the father of the atomic bomb.
Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the son of wealthy parents, grew up in tasteful luxury. The family's Manhattan apartment was decorated with paintings by Gauguin and his ilk, and they summered at their Long Island estate. In 1921, he graduated at the top of his class from the Ethical Culture School, whose curriculum appealed to many secular Jews, including Oppenheimer's parents. Although he had expected to enter Harvard University that fall, illness delayed his matriculation by a year. An avid amateur mineralogist, he contracted dysentery while prospecting in Europe. His parents arranged for him to recuperate in the company of a tutor, in New Mexico, where he grew to love the surroundings. At Harvard, he was granted advanced standing and worked with experimental physicist Percy Williams Bridgman. He took classes from a broad curriculum.
He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1925, after only three years. During the following academic year he went to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England.
In autumn 1926, Oppenheimer moved to Göttingen, Germany, at the invitation of Max Born, head of the physics department at the university and earned his doctorate degree in 1927. Collaborating with Born, Oppenheimer also made a significant and lasting contribution by working out the quantum theory of molecules. After a year as a National Research Council Fellow (1927–1928) at Harvard, Oppenheimer received offers to teach at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, and at the University of California at Berkeley. Oppenheimer accepted both, and over the next 13 years he helped transform California into a powerhouse of theoretical physics.
In addition to building a powerful research group around him, Oppenheimer made other important contributions to theoretical physics while in California. In 1930, he demonstrated that the equations describing the atom's energy helped formulate the 1946 recommendation that the United Nations establish an atomic energy commission to oversee international use of fissionable material. President Truman, however, rejected the committee's recommendation as unworkable. Although as chairman of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), he recommended that the United States not develop an instrument of indiscriminate destruction like the hydrogen bomb, President Truman authorized a program to develop the H-bomb.
Toward the end of 1953, Oppenheimer was accused of being a security risk to the United States and, in December 1953, his security clearance was suspended. Oppenheimer was given the option to resign from the GAC or have a hearing. Oppenheimer refused to resign and demanded a hearing. During the 1954 hearings many scientists and public officials affirmed Oppenheimer's loyalty. Nonetheless, on May 27, 1954, the security board refused to reinstate Oppenheimer's security clearance, even as it acknowledged his loyalty. Although the AEC immediately terminated its contract with him, nine years later it honored him with its Enrico Fermi Award.
In addition to continuing to direct the Institute for Advanced Study, Oppenheimer wrote a number of books over the next years, including Science and the Common Understanding (1954), The Open Mind (1955), and The Flying Trapeze: Three Crises for Physicists (1964).
In 1994, a retired KGB (Soviet secret police) general claimed in his autobiography that Oppenheimer had transmitted atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Because the memoir is filled with errors, the scientific community in general continues to believe that Oppenheimer never knowingly betrayed his country.