The Remarkable Journey of a Physicist: From a Scientist to the ‘Father of the Atomic Bomb’

Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City in 1904.

Christopher Nolan’s much-awaited ‘Oppenheimer‘ hit the theatres today. The film is based on the life of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer (called the “father of atomic bomb”) and highlights the dilemma the advancement in technology posed for the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, the codename of the drive to develop the bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, during the Second World War. The lead role is played by Cillian Murphy, the star of ‘Peaky Blinders‘.

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According to the BBC, Mr Oppenheimer was born in New York City in 1904 to first-generation German Jewish migrants who had become wealthy through the textile trade.

Historians Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin in their 2005 biography ‘American Prometheus‘, which provided the basis for the new movie, said that Mr Oppenheimer was unspoiled and generous despite his luxurious upbringing.

They cited the account of a school friend named Jane Didisheim, who said that “Robert was very frail, very pink-cheeked, very shy, but also very brilliant”.

In his early years, he was interested in philosophy (reading books in Greek and Latin at the age of 9) and obsessed with mineralogy, according to the BBC.

Mr Oppenheimer’s intellectual nature contributed to a degree of solitude, according to Bird and Sherwin’s biography.

He attended Harvard University to study chemistry in 1922, as per Sky News. Although he graduated top of his class three years later, a love of physics drew the young Oppenheimer down a different scientific path.

To pursue his dream, Mr Oppenheimer travelled to Cambridge in the UK and started working at Cavendish Laboratory under Nobel Prize winner JJ Thomson – the man who discovered the electron. This was the beginning of Mr Oppenheimer’s atomic research, said the outlet.

A year later, he was studying at the University of Gottingen, one of the world’s leading centres for theoretical physics. During his time in Germany, Mr Oppenheimer published many papers on quantum theory, then a new field.

He received his doctorate in 1927 and undertook professorships at both the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology.

Mr Oppenheimer and his student wrote a paper in 1939 predicting the existence of black holes. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize three times, but never won one, said Sky News.

He began working on the atomic bomb in 1942, after the US was him the director of the secret Manhattan project. The bomb was tested three years later, on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico and less than a month later, America dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively bringing an end to the Second World War.

Mr Oppenheimer was said to have been distraught that the bomb was used twice, and told then US President Truman that he felt there was “blood on my hands”.

‘Oppenheimer‘ is facing off against ‘Barbie‘ in the biggest clash of Hollywood summer blockbusters, with both opening on the same day in a duel the media has dubbed “Barbenheimer”.