Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American physicist of German-Jewish origin, and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb", Oppenheimer lamented the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he was a chief advisor to the newly created Atomic Energy Commission and used that position to lobby for international control of atomic energy and to avert the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. After invoking the ire of many politicians and scientists with his outspoken political opinions during the Red Scare, he had his security clearance revoked in a much-publicized and politicized hearing in 1954. Though stripped of his direct political influence, Oppenheimer continued to lecture, write, and work in physics. A decade later, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of rehabilitation.

Notes

On Oppenheimer's first initial

The meaning of the "J" in J. Robert Oppenheimer has been the source of confusion among many. Historians Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner sum it up best, in their volume Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and recollections (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1980), on page 1:

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"Whether the 'J' in Robert's name stood for Julius or, as Robert himself once said, 'for nothing' may never be fully resolved. His brother Frank surmises that the 'J' was symbolic, a gesture in the direction of naming the eldest son after the father but at the same time a signal that his parents did not want Robert to be a 'junior.'" In Peter Goodchild's J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds (Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1981), it is said that Robert's father, Julius, added the empty initial to give Robert's name additional distinction, but Goodchild's book has no footnotes so the source of this assertion is unclear. Robert's claim that the J. stood "for nothing" is taken from an autobiographical interview conducted by Thomas S. Kuhn on November 18, 1963, which currently resides in the Archive for the History of Quantum Physics. When investigating Oppenheimer in the 1930s and 1940s, the FBI itself was befuddled by the "J", deciding erroneously that it probably stood for Julius or, strangely, Jerome. On the 1910 US Census when he was 5, and living in New York, he was listed as "J. Robert Oppenheimer" (see 1). On the 1920 US Census, when he was 15 and still living in New York, he listed his name as "Robert J. Oppenheimer" (see: 2). In the 1930 US Census, when he was living in California he had switched back to "J. Robert Oppenheimer." He additionally listed his first name as "J." and his middle name as "Robert" on a biographical questionnaire he filled out at Los Alamos in 1945.http://www.lanl.gov/history/road/pdf/J%20Robert%20Oppenheimers%20questionnaire%20form,%20July%204,%2019451.pdf On the other hand, a recent biography of Oppenheimer by the historian David Cassidy claims that his birth certificate has "Julius Robert Oppenheimer" on it, adding further confusion to the issue.

Related Topics:
Thomas S. Kuhn - November 18 - 1963 - Archive for the History of Quantum Physics - 1930s - 1940s - 1910 - US Census - 1 - 1920 - 2 - 1930 - David Cassidy

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