Talk:J. Robert Oppenheimer/Archive 1

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Discussions from 2004

With regard to communist affiliation & leters in 2002: (without a specific reference/source this, above statement, is a mean spirited slur and should be taken with some caution)


According to Gregg Herken (Brotherhood of the Bomb, 2002, Holt; footnote page 11) the initial J did not stand for anything (his father's name was Julius)

His security clearance hearing was due to PAST communist ties -- from the 1930s -- NOT on-going ties in the 1950s. As for the original statement about his "lies" -- he did indeed lie to intelligent officers during investigations of him and of Communists at the Radiation Laboratory in the 1940s (his giving a variety of differing answers to simple questions is easy evidence of that -- he MUST have lied in at least one of his responses because they were entirely inconsistent, whichever one of them was correct). However he was on trial not for misleading the FBI or Army security in the 1940s, but for whether or not he wasa security risk in the 1950s. After WWII, Oppenheimer dropped most of his Communist sympathies and certainly his support.

And yes, Oppenheimer himself said that the J "stood for nothing" in his interview with Thomas Kuhn in 1962. Refer to Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner, _Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections_ (Harvard: Cambridge, 1980), 1, for the most authoratative discussion of this. --Fastfission 04:36, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, as you can see by the goings on at Wernher von Braun Wiki is not hero worship. --GeneralPatton 01:24, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's not hero worship. My problems with the line:
Nuclear weapons, which he developed, caused hundreds of thousands of casualties in Japan, and resulted in a 50-year Cold War arms race between the superpowers, which in turn almost caused the extermination of mankind from the planet.
do not stem from me terribly disagreeing with it. They are: 1) it is a definition of nuclear weapons, which the "nuclear weapons" page does well enough anyway for it not really needing to be said in this article at all, MUCH LESS the first paragraph, which is generally a quick summary about the article subject (who is Oppenheimer). 2) It's a very NPOV and un-nuanced way to talk about nuclear weapons anyway.
NPOV way to talk about nuclear weapons? I really see no NPOV, The sentence is just fact, no judgment.--GeneralPatton 01:43, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you were to reword something about the escalating arms race, the perils it caused people, and the casaulties of Hiroshima, and work that into the article body: GREAT! That's all perfectly valid, but tacked on top it just looks like the result of woolymindedness.

Well, he did practically invent the Nuclear Weapons, and that has to be one of the greatest inventions of all time. It certainly was ground shattering for the time, I feel it needs to be included in the introduction.--GeneralPatton 01:43, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
3) It's all misleading in that it attachs a lot of credit to Oppenheimer himself for the Cold War and arms race -- despite his vigorous lobbying AGAINST such a thing after the weapon was completed and used.
Well, it mentions his lobbying, and i don't see any connection with him to the cold war, besides that he did in fact develop the nukes.--GeneralPatton 01:43, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'm not trying to do hero worship, I'm trying to do a good encyclopedic entry. There's a difference there, and if you'd like to work Oppenheimer's flaws or sins or what have you into the article in an intelligent way, I won't stand in your way. But as it stands, this line is crap. --Fastfission 01:33, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Im not interested in his flaws and sins, Wikipedia is not about POV, we just present the facts here.--GeneralPatton 01:43, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As with von Braun, we should not let the scientific admiration whitewash some of the facts, even if they do not sound cozy at first. Really, Wiki is not about Hero worship nor hate for that mater. It's all about just the facts.-GeneralPatton 01:57, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not convinced the 'resulted in a 50-year Cold War arms race between the superpowers' part is entirely accurate. The arms race went way beyond nuclear warheads. It would likely have happened similarly without the manhattan project having developed them. This bit 'which in turn almost caused the extermination of mankind from the planet' is also incorrect as it implies mankind is no longer in danger of nuclear extermination...which is very much not the case. -- Audin 03:29, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Suggestions noted, how about now? --GeneralPatton 03:47, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Are you deliberately misinterpretting me? I'm not trying to "whitewash" anything -- it's completely inappropriate to the article to have it in the first sentence. Frankly I think your von Braun edit is crap too to be honest -- von Braun has nothing to do with Oppenheimer. In that situation too, if you want to talk about ethical ambiguity, GREAT, but it's not what the first paragraph should look like. You are not writing "facts," you are putting a one-sided, unnuanced, and poorly written slip-slop of equivocation onto the front of an otherwise good article. If you want to include information about the arms race, about the deaths at Hiroshima, GREAT! Do it! But do it intelligently. Don't crap up the article. I'm not trying to whitewash Oppenheimer -- I know more about his failures and problematic aspects than you or probably anyone else on this site does. I don't give a damn if you want to talk about the consequences of his actions -- but do it IN THE ARTICLE and do it INTELLIGENTLY. --Fastfission 16:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Let me remind you that Wiki policy is to avoid profanity, and I feel the word “crap” is one. And personally, I was against that edit on von Braun, but since there were users who insisted on it, I compromised and agreed, and I feel it is fair if we did the same, more NPOV approach on Oppenheimer.--GeneralPatton 17:38, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If I could roll my eyes further skyward, I would. You obviously do not know what NPOV means, much less nuance. --Fastfission 17:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I really feel there is no need for this kind of emotions involved; this is merely a scholarly exchange of opinions. I’d appreciate if you’d tone down the rhetoric and arbitrary scorn.--GeneralPatton 18:00, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And another thing: in the note, that text I keep putting in quotes is A QUOTE. I even cited its source. Please stop removing its quotation marks. --Fastfission 16:42, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I added some more detail about the arms race, deaths at Hiroshima, and Oppenheimer's feelings about it all in the Postwar section. Hopefully this will satisfy you. Putting anything about what a nuclear weapon in on the first paragraph would be like putting the sentence, "Electrons are also responsible for death by electrocution" in the first paragraph for J.J. Thomson -- it's not false, but its not very encyclopedic. --Fastfission 17:10, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fastfission, that is just silly! It's called a nuclear weapon with a reson you know. You want to tell me the Nuclear bomb wasn’t developed primarily as a weapon?--GeneralPatton 17:32, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You're either purposely missing my point or you really have no idea what NPOV means. I'm going to remove the sentence one last time, you will see ALL of the information it concerns has been put into the article already in a nuanced and intelligent way, if you continue to revert it I will have to request for arbitration. This is just nonsense and you are crapping up an otherwise pretty good article with information that you obviously know very little about. --Fastfission 17:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Fastfission, I recognize that you have invested a lot of hard work and effort into your vision of the article, and that you feel passionate about it, but this IS an open source project where we try to present a straightforward, NPOV’d, objective and comprehensive view of things. I do agree on arbitration.--GeneralPatton 17:46, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have listed both Robert Oppenheimer under Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Again, I feel that defining (in a very narrow way a "nuclear weapon" in the first paragraph of the article is not necessary and a form of NPOV. Furthermore, all of the two sentences' relevant information is in the body of the article itself. Also, the phrase on nuclear proliferation is misleading and doesn't at all represent Oppenheimer's views on the subject. In the meantime, I'm going to stop playing with this for awhile and hopefully someone else with some sense will come along. --Fastfission 17:58, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I also want to just add that Oppenheimer did not "develop" nuclear weapons -- he headed the lab of the project that developed them. If you are going to add such a ridiculous lead-in to an Oppenheimer article, for the sake of accuracy you'd also have to add it to a whole host of others who had major roles in the [:Category:Manhattan Project|Manhattan Project]]. It's maddening that you won't even engage with what I'm saying about this, which is of course why I put it up for comment. I think what's needed is for you to justify WHY this particular phrasing needs to be put in the first paragraph of the article, which is typically reserved only for a summary. Your added text is a summary for "nuclear weapon," at best, and not a NPOV one either, not a summary for Oppenheimer. Arg. Okay, I'm not playing with this any more, it's frustrating me too much to watch someone add what I consider some really lousy and prominent editing to an entry that was previously one of the better and most accurate Oppenheimer entries on the internet, especially when I am highly suspicious that the editor in question really has any but the most cursory knowledge about this particular subject. --Fastfission 21:52, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Request for comment

The question is whether or not the intro paragraph should be:

J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was a Jewish-American physicist and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer later lobbied for international control of atomic energy before having his security clearance stripped for alleged past Communist sympathies at a public hearing.

or

J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was a Jewish-American physicist and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer later lobbied for international control of atomic energy before having his security clearance stripped for alleged past Communist sympathies at a public hearing. Nuclear weapons, which he developed, caused immense civilian casualties in Japan, and soon were a decisive factor in an ever escalating 50-year Cold War arms race between the superpowers, that at times came close to endangering the existence mankind. Nuclear nonproliferation, which Oppenheimer championed, is still a major global issue.

--Fastfission 18:00, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fastfission, I want to thank you for wisely engaging in arbitration and not going into a revert war. Im always for civilized dialogue and I appreciate when the other party agrees on that. I just want add that my primary argument is that Nuclear weapons were a groundbreaking development of civilizational importance, and should be mentioned.--GeneralPatton 18:03, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

They are mentioned in my copy. Twice. ... the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb,". Your edits do not highlight anything about them being "groundbreaking," they state that nuclear weapons caused casualties in Japan, that there was a Cold War, and that nuclear proliferation is a global issue. Who doesn't know these things, and more importantly, the ones relating to Robert Oppenheimer, who is the subject of this entry, are already covered in the article itself. Additionally, where they appear in the article, they do so in context and in a manner which relates specifically to the subject of this entry, whereas your additions are overly general and completely out of context. It's maddeningly frustrating to go back and forth with you because you don't seem to realize what's NPOV about this at all when it's so obvious. --Fastfission 21:58, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The last two sentences of the second lead section are clearly POV by giving the impression that the author is condemning Oppenheimer. Thus it is not acceptable per our NPOV policy. Those two sentences are also about nuclear weapons, not Oppenheimer, and are therefore off-topic. That is why we have a separate article for nuclear weapons. --mav 07:28, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with mav favoring the version without the extra bit about the impact of the bomb. -- ke4roh 11:53, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'm quite satisfied with mav's revision. I feel it’s a better summary of great man’s life than both mine and Fastfission’s. I think we have a compromise here. --GeneralPatton 13:13, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Compromise

Ok, does everyone agree on this?

J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was a Jewish-American physicist and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer lamented their killing power after they were used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he was an adviser 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. Following an FBI investigation during the Red Scare, he had his security clearance stripped for alleged past Communist sympathies. After this Oppenheimer continued to lecture, write, and work on physics. A decade later President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award.

I also want to thank mav for his work--GeneralPatton 00:35, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No prob. I like lead sections. :) --mav 04:59, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think that's just fine, thank you. I feel much better about this now. --Fastfission 17:22, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oppenheimer & Einstein caption

Oppenheimer eventually took over Einstein's position at the Institute for Advanced Study.
-=- OR -=-
Oppenheimer reduced Albert Einstein's E=mc² to practice.

I like both of these captions, though the one at top explains one angle of the relationship between Oppenheimer and Einstein, and the bottom one explains another angle of that relationship while highlighting the significance of the image today (at the expense of some accuracy). Do you have suggestions for an accurate caption? Some general-purpose caption tips that might prove inspirational are at Wikipedia:Captions. 

-- ke4roh 17:08, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the bottom one is not very accurate. While E=mc² does apply to the explosion in an atomic bomb, it also applies to the chemical reactions which occur in the burning of a match as well, if I recall correctly. The second caption implies that it was Oppenheimer who first applied the principle, which in reality had very little to do specifically with an atomic weapon, and furthermore implies Einstein's theories had anything much to do with atomic weapons (which they don't). Einstein's entire relevance to the bomb project was that he signed the Szilard note in 1939; neither Special nor General Relativity have anything important to do with nuclear fission, at least as it was known in the 1940s. I don't really care what the caption is, to be honest, as long as it doesn't give the reader the wrong impression (in this case, that Oppenheimer's bomb vindicated or was the first application of Einstein's theories; or that Einstien's theories had much to do with atomic weapons). --Fastfission 21:37, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"War criminal"

A few things:

  • I moved the section about Nagasaki from "Postwar Activites" to "Manhattan Project," where chronologically it belongs.
  • I also tried to tone down its hardcore POV. As such I've actually added more material, trying to flesh out the nuances of the decisions made (for better or worse), and removed the obviously POV emotional appeals when talking about the children who died, etc.
  • Removed the line about the "war criminal" -- I've never seen anybody accuse Oppenheimer of being a war criminal, if someone wants to cite that, then maybe we can put that back in.

--Fastfission 12:30, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Check out Japanese websites, the Japanese increasingly view Nagasaki and Hiroshima as war atrocity. Also see this. [1]

Two days later, Szilard met with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head scientist in the Manhattan Project. "I told Oppenheimer that I thought it would be a very serious mistake to use the bomb against the cities of Japan. Oppenheimer didn't share my view." "'Well, said Oppenheimer, 'don't you think that if we tell the Russians what we intend to do and then use the bomb in Japan, the Russians will understand it?'. 'They'll understand it only too well,' Szilard replied, no doubt with Byrnes's intentions in mind."

I dare not think what would happen if you tried to whitewash the Holocaust article like this, "emotional appeals", that's not funny, there was nothing untrue about that statemant.

Please don't make this article into some kind of hagiography. Oppenheimer was not that liked even in the scientific community because of his constant self-promotion, that's why Teller and Co. got rid of him. Even Kissinger article mentions that some view him as a "war criminal", and here it also never said he IS a war criminal, just that some view him as a "war criminal". And I didn't even mention the theory that it was him who leaked the Bomb to the Soviets. GeneralPatton 17:05, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • God, enough with the hagiography comments, if you look at my edits you'll see there is nothing hagiographical about it, just not one-sided POV.
I don't understand what the quote you posted (Szilard) has to do with what you changed it to originally at all -- in fact if you actually read the changes I made, you'll see that I put in that Szilard was against the using of the bomb against the Japanese and that Oppenheimer was completely for it, and why (reasons which, frankly, I think are not very rigorous). What does this have to do with him being a war criminal? At best it is a statement about his advocacy for using the bomb on a civilian center, which if you look at what I added is exactly what it says!!
As for your knowledge about Oppenheimer in the scientific community, it's obvious that you aren't very well read on the subject. It was Teller who was de-facto expelled from the scientific community, and the people who did Oppenheimer in (including Teller) were the military and political community (i.e. Strauss), not the scientific community, who with the exception of Teller were almost unanimously behind Oppenheimer. See Edward Teller if you want more details, or better yet, try reading any of the books cited at the end of this article, they're all great resources.
Find me one even partially legitimate claim that Oppenheimer was a war criminal, and I'll let you keep it in there (and by "partially legitimate", I will even include barely-mainstream newspaper or magazine editorials). Otherwise, please don't bother editing a page on a subject you obviously haven't actually done any reading in, it's frustrating to those of us who take Wikipedia seriously.
Do me a favor and either request for comment or remove the NPOV, my patience is really getting tried with your nonsense and your inability to argue a point. I apologize for being so blunt but this is the second time you've tried to replace nuance with uninformed NPOV and this will be the second time I'll likely have to call in someone else to comment on it for another opinion, and a second time that they'll conclude that I was correct. --Fastfission 02:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is now Friday, you put up the NPOV on Monday, you have not bothered to discuss it, you are the only one who thinks it is NPOV, you have not requested the current article for comment, I am removing the NPOV notice. If you'd like to discuss changes you'd like to make along the lines of what you wrote before, we can still do this, but it's silly to have a NPOV notice simply because you can't substantiate the claim that "some people consider him a war criminal." --Fastfission 02:19, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Look, I’ve just been busy in real-life for the past few days, so I hope you understand. GeneralPatton 11:57, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I understand, but let's talk about changes you want to make that you know will rile me before you make them, then maybe we can come to compromises without worrying about NPOV or anything like that. I watch this article like a hawk because I have spent considerable time studying Oppenheimer in both primary and secondary literature, so I get ruffled when I see statements added which I think are without nuance and really don't have much basis in any of the respected historical literature. I'm not interested in hagiography, especially not of him, who I find at best flawed and at worst extraordinarily hypocritical (the first thing he did when they came after him was to name all the names, point fingers at all of his friends as Communists, again and again, trying to save his own butt. If they had not revoked his clearance, he would currently be seen as a traitor to the physics community and not a martyr). --Fastfission 16:20, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Featured article candidate

I’m quite satisfied with the way the article has been taking shape, I suggest nominating it for a featured article status. GeneralPatton 21:24, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reverts, etc.

The reason I think our anonymous IP friend's text is not worth inclusion is partially that it is very poorly written (and I don't feel like editing it up) and loaded with peacock terms and other non-encyclopedic junk. I also think that including all of the stupid little anecdotes about how he left his date (first grad student) up in the hills is more trouble than it is worth: there was considerable argument among JRO's colleagues as to whether it was because of his absentmindness or because of his maliciousness, and I think to take the time to portray it correctly would use more space than it is worth for such an uninspiring incident (the details of which are somewhat foggy). It's an editorial decision, not necessarily a disputation of factual accuracy. I have to admit I also find the debate over whether or not JRO could have gotten a Nobel Prize to be somewhat dull and ahistorical. The only reason anybody wonders such a thing is because so many of his colleagues got them. But JRO never really accomplished anything Nobel-worthy and it takes considerable speculation to think of work he did that might be even marginally worthy (such as his work on black holes, which was really much less triumphant than it has been portrayed here). I make no judgments about his qualities as a thinker or scientist but it seems to me that the only time he took long enough to apply himself to a topic was when the government sat on his head (the Manhattan Project). Anyway, the point is that the information added doesn't, to me, really improve the article. If someone wants to take the time to write it up a bit better than I could probably live with it, it is not something I am taking a hard line on. Also, the "Hamlet of physics" nonsense doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article, and its an inappropriate allusion at best (the only literary figure to compare him to that might make any sense would be Faustus but even that pushes it in my opinion). --Fastfission 18:40, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, first of all, how do you, or anyone else for that matter, decide if certain anecdotes about any scientist are 'stupid' or not? There are many things which endear a scientist to his colleagues, and it's these little things that can also matter to a reader who is reading about him. This actually again brings us to the biased-unbiased entry dichotomy. If things really could be classified as stupid, 'peacock terms' etc., then any biography of any scientist is this way, from someone's perspective. However, they are all given fair representation, aren't they? People like to read anecdotes about Einstein. So why not about Oppenheimer? Also, this particular incident was hardly 'foggy' in its details. It appeared in the local newspaper (I forgot the name) and was described by Jeremy Bernstein in his biography of Oppie. As you may be knowing, Bernstein is quite a well-known physicist, who had also worked under Oppie at the Institute for Advanced Study. Regarding his Nobel Prize, many people do think that he would have gotten it for the work which he did with Snyder and some other students. Now these are opinions. However, people having them also include people such as Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez. And how do you, or I decide if his work was prize worthy or not? The fact that he was actually nominated three times means that there was definitely some sense to considering his work of that calibre. I don't understand how you can afford to ignore a fact like that. Even if we leave aside the part that he did not actually get the prize, there have been many discussions of why he did not do work that could have got him the prize. These have been discussed in many places, for example in Michelmore's and Cassidy's biographies of him. These reasons have to do a lot with his complex personality, and it is because of this reason that I put in the piece about the prize. The prize is simply an instrument to discuss his personality, which then is exemplified by Isidor rabi's comment. This comment is quite well-known and has appeared in many biographies. Again, you seem to have misunderstood the man's purpose if you are saying that he worked single-mindedly on the Manhattan project because 'the government sat on his head'. Oppenheimer was a man who was deeply interested in the Hindu religion and the Bhagavad Gita. As someone who is acquainted with both of these ( I am a Hindu), I can vouch for his appreciation of these things, and also how they spurred them to pursue his purpose in life without thinking about the fruits of his labours. If you want to know more about this, you can read James Hajiya's article, 'The Gita of Robert Oppenheimer' which is available on the internet as an article published in the journal of the American Philosophical Society. His decision to work on the bomb and his complex feelings about it are intimately connected to his knowledge of the Gita and his general outlook on life which was partly inspired by it. His views also were influenced by his Ethical Culture education, which had its own philosophy, which you did not discuss. Even describing him as the 'Hamlet of the atomic age' (as against 'Hamlet of physics' which you stated) is correct because he was, more than any other person, a man who was tormented by his actions, and whose life had the inevitability of the Greek tragedies.

Fastfission, Wikipedia is a FREE encyclopedia, which also means that it supports freedom of speech. Unless there is something about someone which is particuarly slanderous or glorifying, or factually incorrect, you cannot take it out of a post. Please note that I also felt that there were several things which you wrote which were 'poorly written' (as you described my entry) or incomplete. However, I respected this freedom of speech, and never deleted those pieces. All I did was add a few paragraphs. Since this is a free encyclopedia, it is not a platform where you can showcase your personal style of writing articles. You have to allow others to contribute. And if you are talking about opinions, then all of us, certainly including you, have them. The real question is whether we are willing to tolerate the opinions of others, especially if they are factually correct to a great extent. Like I said, we can play this game of deleting and adding over and over again, but it's not going to make sense. Unless there's something blatantly wrong in my posting, I, or anyone else in my place, will not appreciate unnecessary deletion of comments. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. Let the people have the freedom to decide what they like and what they don't. I think this quality of tolerance would certainly have been appreciated by J. Robert Oppenheimer. --Ashujo 19 Dec, 2004

First of all, this is not really about "freedom of speech," it is about editing. Please read up on Wikipedia's policies before asserting your right to insert anything you want and not have it deleted or edited. As for the individual issues, briefly:

  • Not every anecdote should go into an encyclopedia article: the question is which ones are worthwhile, which ones really add to our understanding. There are many different versions of the anecdote you posted and I don't find it to be enlightening, that's all.
  • Nobel Prize: Nomination is not necessarily noteworthy (hundreds are nominated, few many win!), most scientific and scholarly consensus is that Oppenheimer just never did anything of Nobel quality (like most scientists, even brilliant ones, do not). Anyway if you think this is an important thing to add, we can maybe find a better way to talk about it, and briefly, at that.
  • "Hamlet of the atomic age" is overdramatic and not very useful. I see it to be a poor allusion at best, at worst it ascribes to the "Oppenheimer as martyr" point of view (which I happen to also think is a bit tenuous, but that's neither here nor there). In any event, I don't think it adds anything.

There is a longer response on your user page. Rather than just reinserting the text, why don't you try to re-edit it a bit and see if you can't come up with something that is bit more encyclopedic. If you can weave these things into the narrative in a NPOV way, and make sure that it is clear that each of these things play useful roles in adding to our understanding, then I would be more than happy to let them be in. As it was, they didn't do this, in my opinion, which is one of the reasons I reverted them in the first place (the other reason is that your IP is similar/the same to someone else I had reverted on other articles for similar use of excessive anecdotes and peacock terms; if you are not the same person, I apologize). --Fastfission 21:24, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Soviet asset?

There is a discussion at the Cold War International History Project about a recently discovered Soviet document from 1944 that claims nuclear secrets were given by Oppenheimer to the Soviets. The document itself is presented there. It ought to be mentioned in this article with a link, but this is not my field so I'll let someone else do it. --Zero 11:19, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Schechter documents are fairly controversial as to their interpretation (most historians take Herken's view, as represented in that article, where it seems more likely that Kheifets lied quite a bit to his superiors so he wouldn't get recalled and sent the gulag--which eventually happened anyway--than it does that Oppenheimer was a Soviet agent). No serious historians think that Oppenheimer was actually a spy (unreliable, perhaps, and he certainly had friends with dubious qualities). But maybe we can work something in on it in a responsible way... --Fastfission 21:12, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Baruch plan

I removed the line at the end about the Baruch plan:

However, in recent years, because of the present renewed concern about nuclear proliferation, the Baruch plan is being seen in a new light for the international control of atomic energy.

First, this isn't clear at all about what "new light" it is purportedly being seen it (the entire point was international control of atomic energy from the get-go, so that can't be a "new" interpretation of it). Second, all scholarly works I've read about the Baruch plan says that Oppenheimer didn't like it, as though it was tenuously based on the conclusions of the Lilienthal-Acheson Report (which Oppenheimer did contribute heavily to and I suspect you're getting the Baruch plan confused with), it added provisions which made it clear that its intention was simply to stall the Soviet atomic program and was seen as a transparent bid for a U.S. nuclear monopoly. As such, it was no surprise to anyone that the Soviets rejected it (Oppenheimer disliked Baruch very much on a personal level, something which comes out of the taped phone conversations in his FBI file), and if I recall many scientists and policymakers at the time thought it was a purposeful attempt to scuttle any attempts at the international control of atomic energy. But I'm willing to listen to it another way if you think this line ought to be added to the end of the article. I'm thinking it shouldn't: it isn't very clear as to what it means, I don't think it reflects scholarly assessments of the Baruch plan, and it assumes that Oppenheimer had a strong role in the Baruch plan, which is a somewhat misleading assumption. --Fastfission 18:15, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tatlock reference

I removed: "in honor of his old girlfriend Tatlock, who had committed suicide some months before". In the many references that I have read, there is no mention of him coming up with the name in honour of Jean Tatlock. But you give me a reference, I will be happy to let it be.--Ashujo, 9 Feb, 2005

Almost every work which discusses the name of the "Trinity" test says that it was probably a reference to Donne which was itself probably a reference to Tatlock. Even that extremely poor Fat Man and Little Boy movie picks up on this. Herken in particular certainly does. I'll dig up a page number when I get home. I'll also dig up the page number on his equations often being incorrect (he apparently often made mathematical mistakes in his work in the 1920s and 1930s, which he was criticized for by his contemporaries), which is from the Schweber book. I didn't write the "palliative" part (I actually thought you did in one of your un-logged-in sessions, but I guess not). Given that the Rhodes book is some 800 pages long, if you could give an indication to what general section you are thinking about, it might be a bit more useful. --Fastfission 21:36, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Another thing. In "But he was also troubled throughout his life, and professed to experiencing periods of depression so profound that only hard work was a "palliative." I think you are getting this statement about work being a "palliative" confused with Lawrence's statement to his brother in a letter. Take a look at Rhodes.-Ashujo

OK. We can fix the "palliative" part. And I will dig up the Rhodes book page number. As far as I remember, Rhodes never said that "Trinity" was an allusion to Tatlock, just to Donne. And I am perfectly aware of his work in the 1920s and 30s that contained 'mistakes'. See Bernstein or Cassidy (I will tell you which one of them) in which it is said that he used to publish papers which had calculations off by a factor of pi or something similar. That was only because it was rather hastily written. How does one decide whether such a thing is 'incorrect' or 'incomplete'? I would choose the latter, because obviously Oppenheimer would not have made those mistakes on purpose.---Ashujo, 9 Feb, 2005

Sorry, but 'thusly' sounds like archaic English-Ashujo

"Mistakes", by their definition, are not done on purpose. They are also, by their definition, "incorrect." To say that Oppenheimer's work was "incomplete" implies that he didn't finish it, or he didn't take it to its logical conclusions. Saying that it was often "incorrect" implies that it was often found to not work. The latter case seems to be the situation. But rather than quibble over this, I'm just going to change it to the most specific: "though he was sometimes criticized for making mathematical mistakes, presumably out of haste." I'm not trying to be unsympathetic but "incomplete" is certainly the wrong word choice. Also, I don't know if Rhodes says Tatlock, but I'm almost certain than Herken does. The whole thing was listed under a "possibly" qualifier anyhow, but we can add another "perhaps" in there if it would please you. --Fastfission 22:47, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sure. That sounds OK for now.--Ashujo 9 Feb, 2005

OK, the Rhodes reference is on page 151 of 'The making of the atomic bomb'. Maybe you or me can find a way to work Oppenheimer's opinions about 'the virtue of discipline' as a way to ward off depression and as a driving force for life, stated in an eloquent letter to Frank, into the body of the text. By the way, I checked the idea behind 'Trinity' and at least Rhodes does not say it had anything to do with Tatlock. Rhodes is a very meticulous researcher, and I would trust that he would have put in this detail if it had existed.--Ashujo

Remember though that Rhodes wrote his book in 1986, though, well before a good deal of information had come out, including the FBI files, I'm fairly sure. (I know Rhodes is meticulous, I have spoken with him many times over e-mail and once over the phone. He's a very nice guy, at that). Here's the citation from Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, page 129:
For reasons that Oppenheimer decided to keep obscure, he had named the test site Trinity—a secret tribute to Jean Tatlock, who had committed suicide at her San Francisco apartment the previous January.

Herken also notes on page 29:

Oppenheimer's students believed that Jean Tatlock had a humanizing influence upon their mentor. ("I need physics more than friends," Robert once wrote to Frank during his bachelor days.) Jean introduced Oppie to the romantic poetry of John Donne.
I think it's entire plausible that it was a Tatlock reference, I think it at least deserves being mentioned as a possibility. It would make sense that he would be veiled about it in explaining it to people—his visit to Tatlock in California in 1943 is generally interpreted (based on FBI records) to have been as the end point of some sort of affair. Also, perhaps we can use the "friends more than physics" quote rather than the palliative, ja? I think it conveys the same sort of thing we are trying for. --Fastfission 00:36, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Now where does Herken come up with the source for this statement? If it's just Herken's opinion, then it could very well be an interpretation of Herken rather than a fact. It is quite likely that he linked Trinity to Donne (a true fact as enunciated by Oppie himself) and thence to Tatlock (which could be an interpretation, not a fact). If it was a Tatlock reference, I am not aware of there being any authentic source for it, at least nowhere in the seven or eight biographies and books about Oppenheimer that I have read (Rhodes, Schweber, Michelmore, Cassidy, Goodchild, Bernstein being the main ones) . Did it specifically come out of the FBI files? (I have also communicated with Rhodes over email and have met him once and had a nice chat. He IS a very nice guy.) And Herken himself seems to be unsure here. From what you have quoted, it seems that first he says "For reasons that Oppenheimer decided to keep obscure" and then he says "...a secret tribute to Jean Tatlock" a somewhat contradictory phrasing, which confirms my suspicion that the Tatlock reference is probably an interpretation of Herken's. On the other hand, the Donne reference is an authentic one, as quoted by Oppie himself in a communication with Groves in 1962 (Rhodes, p. 571). So I don't think you should put in the Tatlock reference, whereas the Donne reference seems to be just fine.--Ashujo 10 Feb, 2005

I suspect it to be Herken's speculation (he footnotes it but the references are obscure to me), but given the rest of his argument about Oppenheimer, I think it is probably a good guess (he makes a number of such guesses in the book that I think are quite insightful, and most scholars who I've seen talk with Herken seem to find them to be as well). The FBI files contain a good deal of info about how stricken Oppenheimer was after learning of Tatlock's death, which is what Herken connects up with the Trinity reference, noting that Tatlock had introduced Oppenheimer to Donne. It sounds as likely as anything to me, and gives some more details about his enigmatic test name, even if it is just speculation (albeit informed speculation, and from a well-respected academic historian). I don't think it takes away from anything to have it in, nor do I think it misleads, nor do I think it slanders. Let's keep it.
And hey—don't just list titles and think that means anything. They are not homologous books (different types of narratives), and some of them don't even include discussions of the Trinity naming at all. If you want to look up something and quote it here, that would be useful. Listing names does not. Let's try to stay productive here. --Fastfission 04:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's not a question of merely listing references. The fact is that only one person, Herken, seems to think it was inspired by Tatlock. I would suggest you give a reference right where you made the statement. Casual readers could possibly view this exactly the way people would want to romanticize about Oppenheimer; the name of the first atomic bomb explosion inspired by a fond, dead lover is exactly the kind of gossip people would like to indulge in. It just may give rise to excessively romantic notions and more unfounded rumours. By the way, where did you get the information from the FBI files?--Ashujo 11 Feb, 2005

Herken's the only person who has recently done any new work on Oppenheimer (significantly engaging new sources), and I'd stand by most of it. Most of the scholars I've talked with seem to think Herken is generally dead-on when it comes to making good guesses in this regard. It also is completely plausible. Tatlock was very much into Donne, Oppenheimer was very much into Tatlock (they were engaged twice), and she died in a rather tragic way shortly before he would have been naming the first atomic weapons test. Of course, he wouldn't say, "I named it after my dead lover, who had a few times seem to have had affairs with"—his marriage was strained enough for him to have not said something like that in the 1950s. The FBI files are on microfilm and can be viewed at a number of libraries. I looked at quite a lot of them (there are 900 pages or so total) on the copy held by UC Berkeley. --Fastfission 22:58, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

He later held Albert Einstein's old position of senior professor of theoretical physics, an association which came to annoy Oppenheimer, as he felt overshadowed by the legacy of the famous physicist. Where did you get this? I don't recall reading it. (Would be nice if you could give me a reference other than Herken)--Ashujo Feb 11, 2005

This is actually from a talk on Oppenheimer at Harvard about a month ago from a respected scholar (who wrote one of the books on the reference section but I'm not going to name by name until he publishes it in a final form). He'll be publishing it as part of the Einstein 2005 World of Physics whatnot that is going on in Germany. So I don't have a specific reference to it, but it's fairly concrete stuff, lots of letters and other evidence that Oppenheimer resented Einstein's legacy (and didn't seem to like Einstein that much as a person, either, but I thought I would leave that out) hanging over him. I figured it was worth putting in there since we didn't have too much else on the Oppenheimer-Einstein connection. --Fastfission 22:58, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Modifications

I modified some of the text about Oppenheimer and the Nobel Prize, moved it to the earlier section about his work, put in a few words about Haakon Chevalier in the part about the Manhattan Project, and added a few words in the last section about Oppenheimer's legacy.--Ashujo Feb 11, 2005

Looks good. I fixed up the Chevalier stuff based on my understanding of it, and I think "fabricated" is a little strong (I don't know if anybody knows how much of that is true or not, or why Oppenheimer told so many different versions of it). --Fastfission 23:00, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Luis Alvarez quote is in Rhodes (p. 454). Another thing is that Oppenheimer did actually fabricate the story involving Chevalier. In fact he himself admitted during his hearing that he had 'been an idiot' in doing this. Chevalier confirms this in his book Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship. I can get the exact reference. However, if you still think 'fabricated' is a strong word (although I think it is the apt word), you are free to substitute it with a synonymous word, but one that does not lose the meaning of the term.--Ashujo Feb 12, 2005

Obviously Chevalier's version of this cannot be held as official. Oppenheimer did say he had been an idiot but it was not because the entire event was fabricated, if I recall from the trial transcripts, but because he had changed his version of the story many times. When he first told the MED people about it, he had said that three students had been approached, then he said that he had been approached, then he said that only one student had been approached, etc. He later told Groves that the only person who had been approached was Frank Oppenheimer, though Frank later denied knowing anything about this. This information is in Herken, which again, seems to be the only source which has so far included the FBI file information, (which is of course not gospel, but gives better insight than the speculation). Fabricated seems to imply he made the whole thing up, which nobody except for Chevalier seems to believe, and obviously he's somewhat of an interested party here, being the one accused of being a Russian spy. In any event, it is worth choosing words which indicate the ambiguity of the situation—did Oppenheimer lie when he talked to the agents, or when he was at the hearing? How would anybody know? etc. This ambiguity of truth was largely why he was judged as so "unreliable" afterwards. Whatever your personal opinion on this, I would advise not to base it uncritically on Chevalier's autobiography, for reasons that I expect are obvious.
Also, I dont' doubt Luis Alvarez said that, the question is how relevant it is to say "people like Luis Alvarez." Grammatically that's problematic (do you mean experimental physicists with Nordic backgrounds but hispanic names?), but beyond this, if one is going to attribute a name it is better to use a full quote if possible and remove any pretentions to generalizeability. If you are trying to say that it was somewhat generalizable (multiple people thought this), and you want to list Alvarez as one of these people, you have to put a barrier between the generalizable and the specific. Does that make sense? It would have to read, "many have speculated that he could have won, etc. Physicist Luis Alvarez, for example, said that, "XYZ"." It's a bad thing to mix them up, from a standpoint of good writing and the standpoint of logical consitency. --Fastfission 21:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Let me tell you what. I will get references for the Chevalier incident. Then I will combine the information from all and write a coherent paragraph. Let us see if we can work it in.--Ashujo Feb 13, 2005

The problem with saying "Oppenheimer was one of the most brilliant men of the century" or something akin to that is not a factual one. Most people would admit to that. The problem is one of encyclopaedic value. Ideally then, we would have to append this line to the biography of most brilliant people in the century. So don't think your opinion is being disrespected by me, Fastfission, or anyone else. It's just that this statement a general statement which does not look good in an encyclopaedic article.--Ashujo March 28, 2005

Well, it could be both. It would not be hard to argue that Oppenheimer is not really of the same league in terms of his influence on physics as was Einstein or Feynman. In any event, it hardly matters as it is not an appropriate line for this page. Also, please mark the copyright status of any images you upload before trying to add them to the page. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for more information on that. I don't think the image you uploaded is in the public domain, it looks like it is from a wire service. --Fastfission 22:29, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Put in the source--Ashujo 22:29, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Photo

What reason do you have to think that picture is legally in the public domain? I am almost certain that it is not-- it looks tremendously like something produced by a wire service. Most photographs of Oppenheimer are NOT in the public domain -- they are copyrighted and owned by their copyright holders (just because other websites have ignored this does not mean we should do so on Wikipedia, and generally we try not to). All of the photos I've added of him are very carefully chosen from ones I know are in the public domain (produced by Los Alamos, which makes them PD in the USA). You can't just choose any photo and put it on here, and I don't read the native language of the source page you posted so I can't tell if it says it is the public domain, however I would still be suspicious of it as I'm fairly sure I've seen that photograph around with a copyright notice on it. Actually, I can read the native language, now that I look at it again (I didn't realize it was just in German, the URL threw me off), and I don't see anything to indicate it is in the public domain. At least one of the other images on the page (the one of JRO and Groves at the Trinity site) which is not public domain (it was taken by either an AP or a UPI photographer some time after the attacks on Hiroshima and is not free of copyright, unlike the bomb photos on the page which were produced by LANL and are thus in the public domain). It is certainly not old enough to be in the public domain from its age alone (1940s).
Aside from this -- why do you think it should be the first photograph on the page? I do not think it is very good quality (there are lots of noticeble compression artifacts) and not nearly as clear as the one it replaced, but I'm willing to discuss this. But most important is the copyright question. --Fastfission 20:29, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK. I have another better one which I will soon put up.--Ashujo 20:29, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, make sure it is PD (produced by Los Alamos) and good quality (no JPEG artifacts). What do you have against the current photograph, might I inquire? I'm not wedded to it but I think it works well as a main photograph (it doesn't have any huge political implications or any overriding moral implications and it is very clear). --Fastfission 00:39, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I just thought it looks unnecessary emphasizing [Oppenheimer's Jewish descent] in the opening line. What you have added looks OK-- Ashujo 19:28, April 5, 2005 (UTC)

Radical Politics

The expression "Radical" is not NPOV. He just considered himself a himself "fellow traveler" of the communist party.

Oppenheimer at his 1954 security clearance hearings denied being a member of the Communist Party, but identified himself as a fellow traveler, which he defined as someone who agrees with many of the goals of Communism, but without being willing to blindly follow orders from any Communist party apparatus.

I think this title should be renamed to "Involvement in Politics".

Radical Politics - "progressive" isn't left wing?

"After inheriting over $300,000 (equivalent to about $4.3 million in 2006 dollars) upon his father's death in 1937, he donated to many progressive efforts which were later branded as "left-wing" during the McCarthy era."

This sentence is pretty stupid - when has progressivism ever been right-wing or centrist? Krazychris81 (talk) 03:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Cluttering of Icons

I wasn't sure how to send this message to the right place, but it seems that the icon for spoken article is forced on top of the donations phrase in the top right hand of the article. This should probably be ammended.

First forename

does the "J." in his name not stand for anything? somebody clear this up, pronto.


• Oppenheimer himself said that the first initial “J” didn't stand for anything, but his birth certificate says that his name was Julius Robert Oppenheimer, named after his father Julius.

  • While Oppenheimer did indeed say that the "J" did not sand for anything he certainly knew better. The reason why he said otherwise was because in Jewish tradition a child is not to be named after a living relative. Julius Robert Oppenheimer was really his real name. This is a irrefutable fact and I believe that this addition should be made.

Is there a reason that the first line of the article, and the caption under the picture, have the order of the first and middle name reversed? I suggest this to be corrected.DAID (talk) 03:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Picture

  • That's quite a nice picture of Oppie. I think it conforms more to the general public conception of him.--Ashujo April 15, 09.58 UTC
    • But I'm reasonably sure it is not public domain. I can double-check that though. It was obviously taken by a professional photographer in the post-Los Alamos years, and so is likely anything but fair-use, which is not ideal if we have a public domain photograph that could easily substitute. --Fastfission 15:44, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • What about the profile picture from Bethe's memoirs (NAP)?--Ashujo 16:26, April 15, 2005
    • My guess is probably not. Almost all pictures of Oppenheimer from his non-Los Alamos years are held by copyrights of some sort (either by institutions, image archives, or news media). His earlier years and Los Alamos years are a bit easier, since they were taken by two national labs (and thus inelligible for copyright). And none of it is old enough to be inellible because of age. (If you find this restrictive -- I do too! But unfortunately this is how photographs are regulated under US Copyright law, which is ridiculously restrictive for historical figures. If you want to be really shocked, check out how much corbis.com charges for image use of any sort! If Wikipedia was publishing for profit, we would just buy a license and chalk it up to normal cost of business) --Fastfission 22:24, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's ugly. There are alot of better images of Dr. Oppenheimer on the web, you just have to look for them.

  • We are only using images which are in accordance with our copyright policy. Find a good image which is definitely in the public domain and we'll be happy to consider it. --Fastfission 01:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Infobox?

I think that infobox is beyond ugly, and contains no more information than is already immediately viewable (name, birth and death dates, etc.). Many biographical articles do not have infoboxes, so I do not think it is a requirement in any sense. What do others think? Compare: infobox vs. no infobox. Lets have an informal poll/discussion about this before making such a drastic aesthetic change. --Fastfission 14:25, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am death...

The original was misquoted as 'I am death, the destroyer of worlds.' It ought to be 'I am become death...' at least that's how I've usually seen it translated. A trifling edit.

  • I was going to say the same thing...

166.20.114.10 13:47, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I've seen it as "I am become Shiva" etc

Yggdrasilsroot 14:46, 22 April 2005

    • It is usually "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," though sometimes is quoted as "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." The most authoritative source on this is this paper, I believe. --Fastfission 14:51, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • "i am become" is not proper english, it would be "i have become", in fact the only example i have ever seen of "i am become" is in reference to this quote from the Hindu scripture or more commonly attributed to Oppenheimer himself
"I am become" is archaic, but not incorrect, English. "Come" "Rise" "to be born" take the verb "to be" in the past perfect in older English (as in French, Italian, and some other languages), as in, "he is risen", "Christ is born", and the like. As far as tone, it seems not inappropriate to translate a sacred text in a dead language (Sanskrit) somewhat archaically. 96.224.24.219 (talk) 18:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Can a translation contain incorrect English? That's a question ah? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Longinus876 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is a reliable source: http://rpp.missouri.edu/disciplines/D35.shtml , but they say that "I become death" quote was after the "thousand suns" one. I'm not sure if it is correct to put them together like that on the first paragraph. Schnarr (talk) 04:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Is it possible to lock this page to avoid the constant vandalism? Particularly while it is featured article... Gblaz


Rehabilitation

A decade later, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of rehabilitation.

'I do not think that word means what you think it means.' I don't think the word rehabilitation is appropriate here. Maybe reconciliation?

Rehabilitation was used for people who had been branded as Communists in one way or another. In JRO's case, it was the administration saying, "This person is no longer off limits, they are recognized by the government". (the awarding of the Fermi award to JRO, by the way, provoked a lot of controversy over the purpose of the award, as a number of congressmen thought it was just going to old Manhattan Project veterans and questioned whether it was worth the money) --Fastfission 14:46, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chevalier incident needs clarification

IN one section we have:

In August 1943, Oppenheimer told Manhattan Project security agents that three of his students had been solicited for nuclear secrets by a friend of his with Communist connections. When pressed on the issue in later interviews with General Groves and security agents, he identified the friend as Haakon Chevalier, a Berkeley professor of French literature. Oppenheimer would be asked for interviews related to the "Chevalier incident," and he often gave contradictory and equivocating statements, telling Groves that only one person had been actually been approached, and that that person was his brother Frank.

Later in the section about having his clearance revoked, it states he admitted to making it all up. However it is rather unclear when this happened, did he state this in the 1950s, or during the original investigation? And what is the story here, in retrospect, did Chevalier (the the "other two") get approached or not? After all, this was going on during the project.

Maury 11:11, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Part of it is I think that it is somewhat confused in general. But as I understand it, the timeline (for those who want to work on it), is:
  • 1943, JRO tells MED security that 3 of his students were solicited, won't elaborate who was solicited or by whom
  • Later, grilled by Groves on this, says that it was Chevalier who solicited his students, says he won't reveal who was solicited
  • Later still, tells Groves in private that Frank was solicited
  • At his hearing in 1954, says he made the whole thing up
The one thing I can't quite remember how it fits into everything is that I believe Chevalier is also supposed to have solicited Oppenheimer -- I can't remember exactly how that works though. If I get a chance I will try to look this all up again; it is a very confusing set of purposely contradicting stories in the first place, though, but some coherency should be able to found in its explanation... --Fastfission 14:42, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Positron paper

The added text is:

About the same time, he also wrote a paper essentially predicting the existence of the positron (which was predicted by Paul Dirac), a formulation that he however did not carry to its natural outcome, because of his skepticism about the validity of the Dirac equation.
  • The preceding sentence sets the same time as the laste 30's. Do we wish to claim that JRO predicted the positron half-a-dozen years after it had been observed?
  • Even if valid, the two uses of predict should be distinguished; present text suggests Oppenheimer deserved Dirac's reputation. Such a claim should be made explicitly, and explained. Septentrionalis 22:15, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You are right. I changed it to 1930- Ashujo

Oppie

I was just wondering: am I mistaken or hadn't he been called "Oppie" by his friends? Even if the former case applies, I still think he should be called "Oppie" because

1. it is cute and

2. (1) implies more familiarity to Oppenheimer for the general audience.

The text already contains a reference to his "Oppie" nickname. Use your browser's search function. And don't change the captions to silly things. --Fastfission 04:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Silly? I don't find it "silly". I think it is important for any Oppie beginner to get a grip of his personal facts before he/she starts learning Oppie's professional works. That'll facilitate the beginner's interest in Oppie. You don't think my suggestion is important? That's why you are normal -- and you'll be so for the rest of ur life :) -- Orz
His nickname is not a "personal fact" of such gravity that it belongs in the first sentence of the article. --Fastfission 20:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There you go, I put in a paragraph which explicitly states when and why he got his nickname. --Fastfission 20:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Fastfission, I really appreciate the rare information. --Orz

CPUSA

Oppenheimer, so it seems, was a member of the CPUSA until 1941. Anyone interested in helping me write that portion. Nobs 02:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What's your source for that information? The article now says that he never joined. Thanks, -Willmcw 05:59, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
At best he has been called an "unofficial member" (whatever that means) of a faculty committee which had some ties to CPUSA people, but that is still pretty speculative and a source of considerable disagreement among Oppenheimer scholars. See, i.e. Gregg Herken's little page on the subject here and his notes here, but this is still pretty much in flux as far as historical conclusions go and should not be in the article until it has settled down a bit (a number of prominent historians disagree pretty sharply with Herken), or at least proceed with some careful gloves on. --Fastfission 20:31, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The evidence is Oppenheimer was a member of the CPUSA til 1941 (joined about 1936, I beleive) To be clear, there is no suggestion he was involved in the CPUSA's "secret apparatus" which went underground about about 1932 and conducted infiltration and espionage. This is no attempt to smear the man, only setting the record straight. Nobs01 21:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Letter from Boris Merkulov to Lavrenty Beria [2] Nobs01 22:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please take a look at the pages I linked above, they cover this in detail (specifically here). Nobody trusts anything which came from Kheifitz in part because he knew his neck was on the line if he didn't report that he was recruiting people. Eventually his luck ran out and he was recalled and sent to the gulag (again). The professional historians on the subject don't take the internal NKVD memos at face value for a variety of reasons. The question as to whether Oppenheimer was officially or unofficially a Communist has not been satisified in any straightforward way. He certainly did not officially and openly join CPUSA at any point, though his younger brother Frank did as did his wife Katherine/Kitty. --Fastfission 22:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
To clarify the issue, one needs to look at the money. In those days Communist party members paid dues to the party. It seems this is tried to be explained away as "donations" or some sort of humanitarian gesture (imagine that, someone being a "humanitarian benefactor" of the Communist Party). In the final analysis, we have him paying dues, and the gubmint suspending his security clearance. And it appears the gubmint likewise tried to CY their A by being a party to the myth that "he never joined", so as to avert another scandel. Nobs01 00:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Listen, whatever your "personal impressions" are on this, this is a topic of active debate among full-time academic historians who have each written lengthy books on Oppenheimer. There is no consensus on this and it has been a controversy for a number of decades. The fact that he provided funds for a number of left-wing groups, some of which were later found out to have CPUSA affiliations, does not mean he was "paying dues". The reasons he got his clearance revoked are many and did not have to do with the AEC commissioners having any evidence, besides his inconclusive FBI file, that he was a member of the party. It is telling that, despite their damnest attempts and hundreds of pages of data, the FBI could never conclusively link Oppenheimer with the CPUSA. --Fastfission 01:26, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Listen, instead of debating here, why don't those who are interested look at the two latest books about Oppie, that by Cassidy, and the one by Bird and Sherwin. Despite hundreds of files and pages collected on him by the FBI, they could never find any conclusive evidence that he was an actual member of the CP. We don't need to reiterate the Greek philosphers' philosophy of perpetually theorizing about the number of horse's teeth, instead of simply resolving the matter by looking him in the mouth :-) --Ashujo 01:26, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Clearly (a) he held views consistent with Communist doctrine (athiesm, radical non-democratic takeover of institutions etc.) (b) he supported Communist institutions with his own hard cold cash. No one denies his sympathy for the cause, in fact its worn as a badge of honor.
My personal impression again is I'm satisfied with the contortions people bend themselves into in order to justifing views, then deny the people who hold them actually are sincere. Thank you. Nobs01 19:33, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Um, alright, you can have your "personal impression" all you want (though I think it is pretty under-informed on the particulars to this one), but just don't insert it into the article. I agree with Ashujo on this one. --Fastfission 02:26, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The External from the AEC is fine. And the denials speak loud enough.Nobs01 02:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
For the record let me insert Haynes & Klehr reading on the subject (paraphrased from Venona pp. 327-330):
"he had been an ardent Popular Front liberal and ally...gave generous contributions often deliverd to Isaac Folkoff...Oppie did not know just the secrets of some parts of the project; as director, he knew all the secrets, and just as soon as they came into being...up to the time he reported the Chevalier approach, he may have overlooked the conduct of others... a passivity motivated by personal and political ties to those persons.". Sins of ommission or neglect, it appears. (Although another theory states the Chevalier approach may not have been an attempt at recruitment, but part of the big shake up after Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943, and agents had to be reassigned new case officers). thx. Nobs01 21:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Again, you're not really responding to the questions up for debate. Furthermore, you've gone from asserting you had proof of party membership to now saying that he just donated money to leftist groups and resting on the "denials" to prove your point. I don't think you know much about this character and the specifics of his dealings either way, and I'm not sure why you feel compelled to keep up this silly exchange. --Fastfission 22:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, presently I am reviewing 349 persons (some named, some yet unidentified) in Venona transcripts. Oppie has not been the focus of review, and I suspect it may be 18 to 24 months before I can focus on his case. I am curious however, about the explainations and denials, particularly among living biographers familiar with the case. It seems the guy was extremely sympathetic to this anti-democratic cause, and no one denies that. I'm just confused if this is hero-worship of a dead guy or what. Nobs01 00:05, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
He was a rich guy who dated a Communist girl and cared about lofty ideals for a few years of his life during the 1930s and 1940s. Hardly a surprising case in that respect. Unlike his brother he was smart enough not to openly join the party. The question of whether he was a party member or not was a key question investigated at length by the FBI (who couldn't provide any evidence of such) and his previous affiliations led to his big security hearing which eventually left him stripped of clearances and all of that. If you read the article you can see why people have spent considerable time trying to research this. I'm certainly not hero-worshipping the guy, you're just drawing conclusions that don't reflect a lot of knowledge on the subject and you don't seem to care about nuance in the slightest. --Fastfission 05:55, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Robert Oppenheimer contributed 150 dollars a month to the Communist Party [Jerrold L. Schecter and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002) FBI document attesting to that in Appendix 1].

Oppenheimer is mentioned in a KGB/NKVD communication:

In 1942 one of the leaders of scientific work on uranium in the USA, Professor R. Oppenheimer while being an unlisted [nglastny] member of the apparatus of Comrade Browder informed us about the beginning of work. On the request of Kheifetz, confirmed by Comrade Browder, he provided cooperation in access to research for several of our tested sources including a relative of Comrade Browder…Due to complications…it is expedient to immediately sever contacts of leaders and activist of the American Communist Party with scientists and specialists engaged in work on uranium. Sacred Secrets p. 50.
This is the same stuff I cited up above -- see the Herken pages I linked to. The Schecter stuff is not regarded highly by historians, and the mention in the communication is via Khefetz who was known to lie about such things to avoid being recalled for the gulag. What is lacking is any substantiating evidence. We know he gave money to what were later discovered to be popular front groups (things like "Railway Workers Against Fascism" and so forth). That does not make him a CPUSA member in and of itself. --Fastfission 30 June 2005 17:33 (UTC)
I've yet to examine the FBI document in Appendix 1 of their book, nor the "KGB/NKVD" material cited; if valid, it cannot be attributed to the Schecters'. I place it here for reference to anyone who wishes to examine the material. Nobs01 30 June 2005 17:52 (UTC)
Well, the problem is the interpretation of the material, of course. You can of course reference anything you wish but it would be good to note what interpretations are taken by the mainstream historical community (that is, that Khefits was an unreliable source and none of what he reported has been substantiated in any source not originating with him). --Fastfission 02:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Testimony of Paul Crouch, September 15, 1953 before the Senate PSI, [3] pgs. 1833-1841 (in the full text link, this reference occurs just after discussion of the murder of Laura Law in 1940), declassified January 2003, lends credence to the thesis the gubmint covered up Oppie's involvement as an "unlisted" member, excerpted:

Mr. Crouch. I was called as an expert witness in rebuttal, but was not permitted to describe my knowledge of him as a member of the party, or to describe the closed meetings of the Communist party I had attended. And my wife [Sylvia Crouch], who was under subpoena in the trial, was not called at all, and I was advised informally to the effect that it was impossible for us to give our testimony without bringing in the name of an internationally famous scientist who was also a member of the Communist party, who had been present at the meetings with Scientist X.
The Chairman. Who in the Justice Department told you you could not be used to testify about your knowledge of Scientist X, his Communist activities?
Mr. Crouch. Mr. Cunningham, of the Justice Department, and Mr. Hitz, assistant United States attorney, advised me that I would not be questioned because our testimony would bring in his name.
The Chairman. Bring in the name of Robert Oppenheimer?
Mr. Crouch. Yes, sir. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The Chairman. Both you and your wife, I understand, then, were available; the Justice Department knew you had attended Communist party meetings with Scientist X, and one of the issues was whether or not he was a Communist?
Mr. Crouch. Yes, sir. Nobs01 23:09, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Nobs, that doesn't support your theory at all, because Scientist X was not Oppenheimer -- it was Joseph Weinberg, one of Oppenheimer's many left-leaning students. If I could hazard an opinion, you'd do better at interpretting documents if you knew a bit more of the basic background historical work which had been done on it. For more information on Weinberg and "Scientist X", see Herken's book, Brotherhood of the Bomb. --Fastfission 00:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
The above extract does not state Oppenheimer is Scientist X; it alludes to the testimony of Crouch regarding Scientist X, that would include answering questions about Dr. Oppenehimer. nobs 03:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
From the first paragraph, "an internationally famous scientist who was also a member of the Communist party, who had been present at the meetings with Scientist X", should clarify that "an internationally famous scientist" and Scientist X are two different persons. nobs 02:36, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

defense screen

Question for people knowledgeable on Oppoie's bio: In the early 1950s Oppenheimer appears to have taken a position in opposition of the development of delivery vehicles for the H-bomb, advocating that funding for research should not go it missile development and building a modern Air Force, but rather be channeled into a "screen of defense", or "missile defense", which may be a proto-plans for SDI. Anyone care to comment. Nobs01 20:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

  • My understanding of JRO's general defense position was lots of "small" atomic bombs rather than focusing on unnecessarily large ones. I don't know much about any missile defense plans but in the 1950s that would have been far to early for anything resembling later missile defense and SDI plans (they didn't have the technology at all -- the most advanced early warning and response system by the late 1950s and early 1960s, SAGE, was lightyears behind the tech needed for missile defense), so I'd want to know the details on what he or anyone else meant by "missile defense" before assuming I knew what that meant. --Fastfission 02:30, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
It essentially was a policy discussion regarding U.S. Defense spending priorities (pre-Sputnik). The U.S Air Force was created separate from the Army Air Corp in 1947; during the Korean War, the debate was on building a modern jet powered Air Force and rocket delivery systems for the H-bomb. A more "pacifist" position, if you will, was that the huge ammounts of money needed should be channeled into more sophisticated defensive systems rather than offensive fire power. Oppenheimer, an influential spokesman. seems to have taken the position which could be characterized as a Maginot Line type mentallity (despite the fact that (a) the Soviet Union had nukes (b) the U.S. was already at war. Unfortunately, Oppie lost much influence in a national discussion like this cause of his de-certification. It is an interesting line of investiggation to pursue however, given some of the critics of a strategic defense screen today. Politics as usual, it seems. Nobs01 18:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Role Playing

Can anyone verify the rumor that Oppenheimer fancied himself as a thin, chain-smoking, intense Sherlock Holmes with brother Frank as a bumbling, simple Watson?

  • Frank: But, Holmes, you haven't touched your food!
  • Robert: You and your flesh-pots. This spherical implosion is definitely a three-pipe problem.

Lestrade 01:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

That's humorous but no, I've never heard that. --Fastfission 17:34, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Where did you get that from Lestrade?- Ashujo

"Other interests"? section

This section was recently added. I don't think it adds much and the text already describes him as being cultured. I'm not sure a list of Oppenheimer's favorite books really helps us in an encyclopedia entry about him. The bits about him studying Sanskrit and the quoting of the Gita are already in the article in their appropriate places. Other thoughts? --Fastfission 16:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, it definitely detracts from the article.--ragesoss 03:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppenheimer Volkoff Mass Limit of Neutron Stars

Let's not forget that Oppenheimer and his student George Volkoff determined (roughly) the limit on how massive a neutron star could be, before it would collapse into a black hole, just as Chandrasekhar set the limit for white dwarfs. The fact that this isn't a more prominent topic on Oppenheimer's Wiki page is suprising. See page on Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff Limit.

Done :-) -Ashujo

Fermi Award given by Johnson

The Fermi award was given by Lyndon B Johnson, not by Kennedy as the main page currently states. I see from an earlier comment on this page that it used to read that it was given by Johnson so I don't know why it was changed. I'm a novice Wiki-er so I don't want to edit a featured article, but here is a link to a photo of Johnson presenting the award: http://dsd.lbl.gov/ImgLib/COLLECTIONS/BERKELEY-LAB/SEABORG-ARCHIVE/index/96B05399.html History channel FTW.

Kennedy was the one who awarded Oppenheimer the Fermi Award, but it was Johnson who physically when through with the award ceremony, as Kennedy had been assassinated about a week before. This is what the wiki page currently states, as well as the Berkeley page you have linked from, and it is correct. --Fastfission 09:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Fermi or Teller?

I always thought it was Fermi, not Edward Teller as reported here, who suggested that the Bomb might ignite all the oxygen in the atmosphere. Can anyone confirm this? ---- iaingleslie 07-sep-06

  • It was Teller who first suggested it, at the summer conference in Berkeley. See, i.e. Hoddeson, et al, Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945, p. 45: "At one point, a frightening idea came up. Teller asked, if the fission bomb could ignite deuterium, could it not ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere?" --Fastfission 14:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Teller suggested it first at the Berkeley conference. However, during the preparations for the Trinity test, Fermi purportedly took side bets on the possibility of the atmosphere getting ignited. Admittedly, he was doing this in jest. For the best explanation of why this is not possible, see Hans Bethe's article on it reprinted in his book 'The Road from Los Alamos' ----Ashujo 14:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Poisoned apple

The reason I think we should keep out the poisoned apple incident is because even after much investigation, it remains ambiguous. Oppenheimer may have actually kept the fruit on the future Nobel laureate Blackett's table, but this almost certainly is not true to my knowledge. His telling of the incident was more likely some kind of symbolism, that may have stemmed from his jealousy of Blackett's prowess as an experimentalist. Or it could have been a downright delusion and a figment of his imagination. In any case, details about the incident are speculative enough not to warrant inclusion, because otherwise one may have to engage in a long digression on the matter in case it is included, which would not make sense for a general encyclopedic article on Oppenheimer. All those who are trying to pen a few lines about the poisoned apple may want to keep this extremely speculative nature of the incident in mind. ----Ashujo 14:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. Unfortunately Malcolm Gladwell seems to have made a big deal about this incident in the New Yorker recently[4] trying to illustrate a completely unrelated point (and making no effort to actually correctly recount the facts of the situation) which is, I assume, why it keeps showing up here. I don't think most of those who are trying to add it are aware of its speculative nature, I doubt they have read about it in a reputable source (i.e. Bird & Sherwin's biography, or the good coverage it gets in the Letters of Robert Oppenheimer book). At the best it is a strange incident which might give some indication of how psychologically confused Oppenheimer was at this stage in his life (frankly, how many of us would be of totally sound mind beginning graduate study in physics abroad at the age of 18?) and even then it is speculative. --Fastfission 23:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Gladwell is otherwise a fine writer, and it's quite surprising how he has not consulted some good sources to look up this incident before writing the article. And the main theme of the article itself has a pretty tenuous connection with the incident per se. As you indicated, Gladwell could have not included this incident at all and still gotten his message across. I doubt if he even has taken a look at Bird & Sherwin, which communicates the ambiguity of the incident quite well. Sad.--Ashujo 18.14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The latest edit about the apple was downright hilarious.--Ashujo 18.14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

As usual, a direct confession is thrown out. We want to believe that Oppenheimer was confused, deluded, stressed, etc., etc. But, it seems to me that a clear assertion by a man of strong intellect should be taken seriously. He tried to kill Blackett. That is clear following his own admission.72.73.196.13 18:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)SgtColumbo

That damned "J"

OK, I made a bunch of style/cleanup edits, but the thing that really bugs me most about the articles is that huge "note" about the initial J. That J gets more inches of text than Oppenheimer's relationship with Teller, or even with his wife. I'd like to reduce that whole note to a single sentence, like "the meaning of Oppenheimer's initial J is unknown." But I expect someone would get really fussy about such a drastic cut. Any support? Any alterantive ideas how to reduce the emphasis in the article on a meaningless letter? -- The Photon 04:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

  • What if we converted the note to a footnote? That would make it take up a lot less space and would also indicate that it is part of the marginalia rather than the content. --Fastfission 13:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Humorous quote mentioning Oppenheimer

In the episode It's Only a Paper World by Pinky and the Brain, Brain tells Pinky to: “Please make like Oppenheimer's theory of nuclear fission and - SPLIT”. This is after Pinky has been distracting Brain during his Conqueror's block. Unsure about policy on TV quotes so I'll refrain from uploading a clip rather I'll just link to one.--Steve 21:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that's trivial enough not to need including, though it is sort of humorous, I guess (it is usually "make like a banana and split"; Oppenheimer didn't have a "theory of nuclear fission" though that's clearly beyond the point). --Fastfission 19:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Cultural depictions of Robert Oppenheimer

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 15:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think that such pages really only serve a purpose when the topic of cultural depictions is something which can be spoken about in a synthetic sense rather than just a list (see, for example, Nuclear weapons in popular culture, which is a coherent topic on which people have written). I don't see much advantage to "a list of references to Oppenheimer in misc. media" — that's not really what an encyclopedia should have in it, in my mind. At its best it is a way for editors who know very little about a topic to feel they have something to contribute, at its worst it is a sort of pop-culture pedantry which serves no real purpose. --Fastfission 19:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppenheimer as Dr. Robert Stadler in "Atlas Shrugged"?

Recently browsed this article and the article on Edward Teller. Noticed that both the Teller article itself and the discussion on Teller mention the possibility that he was one of the inspirations for the character of Dr. Strangelove (presumably, the non-Nazi, non-Seig-Heil-ing portion of Dr. S's personality.)

Accordingly, would like to know whether anyone with more RS credentials than this editor (none) considers Robert Oppenheimer to be the inspiration for the character of Dr. Robert Stadler in the Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged. Rand, a staunch anti-Communist, would have disliked Oppenheimer's leftist leanings and Communist links, and, like Oppenheimer, Dr. Stadler, the head of the "State Science Institute", invents a weapon of mass destruction, then is shocked to find it used by an authoritarian government as a means of coercion.

From the current version of the Oppenheimer article:

"... he symbolized for many the folly of scientists thinking they could control how others would use their research."

From "Atlas Shrugged" (hardback p. 1066), in the speech berating the nation for its intellectual and moral bankruptcy:

"Some of you might plead the excuse of your ignorance... But the damned and the guiltiest among you are the men who had the capacity to know, yet chose to blank out reality, the men who were willing to sell their intelligence into cynical servitude to force... who scorn money and sell their souls in exchange for a laboratory supplied by loot. .... [S]ince they scorn the use of their science for the purpose and profit of life, they deliver their science to the service of death, to the only practical purpose it can ever have for looters: to inventing weapons of coercion and destruction. They, the intellects who seek escape from moral values, they are the damned on this earth, theirs is the guilt beyond forgiveness. Do you hear me, Dr. Robert Stadler?"

(emphasis from original; © 1957 Ayn Rand; brief excerpt from original for the purpose of scholarly discussion permitted under Fair Use.)

Perhaps the fact that the first name of both is "Robert" was not a coincidence.

Anyway, to reiterate, not attempting OR here, but rather wondering if anyone has knowledge of authoritative sources remarking on this possibility.

And, again, wouldn't even have mentioned it were it not that the possible Teller/Strangelove connection was regarded as a significant addition to the life of Edward Teller. Thanks, Unimaginative Username 03:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Legacy section

The section Legacy presents several views of Oppenheimer using phrases like "many have asked...", "some scientists and historians have speculated...", "he symbolized for many...", etc. Current Wikipedia standards recommend that these kinds of statements should have sources cited. I will try to work on cleaning up the section, but any help tracking down references for the various claims would be very helpful. -- The Photon 04:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Senior Professor of Physics"

Ok, it is confirmed that Oppenheimer was professor of physics at IAS. I actually found this referenced in the Time online archive after editing it out of the article. But I didn't put it back in because I think it's trivia, and doesn't tell us anything new about Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was director at IAS until 1966, and he died in 1967. Isn't it more important to say that he was director? If we want to make the link to Einstein, isn't it more important to say his time as director overlapped with Einstein's tenure at the Institute (the picture implies this, but the text doesn't say it)?

Also the Time reference doesn't say he was "senior professor", and the IAS website doesn't indicate that any such position as "senior professor" exists there (today), though Rhodes (the current cite) does use exactly that phrase. Was "senior professor" an actual title, or just a rhetorical device of Rhodes? Time says O. held the same chair as Einstein had held. Neither the Time reference nor Rhodes (the current cite) say when he took that chair or became senior professor.

Anyway, I don't intend to start a revert-war -- but please consider what is more important to include in the article: That O. was director of the Institute, or that in the last year or so of his life, when he made little contribution to physics, his pay happened to be taken from the same endowment that had paid Einstein? Further, which fact should introduce the section on his time at IAS, and which would be more appropriate in the Final Years section?

--The Photon 04:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if Rhodes uses it as a rhetorical device, but 'Senior Professor' definitely was a formal term used in British Universities, and so it is likely that this was a common, if unofficial, title at the IAS. --Ashujo 04:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

About citations

Citations are of course necessary, but it does not make sense to ask for citations for every statement. I think that one should ask for citations somewhere in an entire paragraph which talks about a common theme, or else about a particularly important or controversial statement. In any case, I have added some citations.

--Ashujo 04:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and thanks for your help on the citations. I put those tags there because I don't know whether a particular paragraph is all based on a single source, or combines information from several sources. So I tried to place the {{cite-needed}} to indicate the parts of the statements that most need support from citations. If the actual citations can be placed differently to better indicate what material comes from what source, please do move them around. This is in response to Fastfission's request I not change the article to pull in citations without giving him and other editors time to place the citations to the material they've contributed.
As a side note, do you have a page number for the book reference you added? -- The Photon 17:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do have page numbers. I will put them in by tomorrow.-- Ashujo 13.58, 31 October (UTC)

Memory

According to my memory I've placed a link to a highly interesting article on Oppenheimer and the Baghavadgita here. The person who has deleted it should please tell me why. Austerlitz 88.72.21.240 09:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That's the link I've been talking about, I found it. So: why has it been deleted from the mainpage? Austerlitz 88.72.21.240 09:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article is quite interesting, but citing it once should be enough-- Ashujo November 6, 2005

Yeah. It's in the article twice — once in the footnotes and once in the references. I don't think it needs to also be there as an external link. --Fastfission 04:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Kitty a communist?

out of curiousity, why is it that there only seemed to be a problem that Oppenheimer was communicating with Jean Tatlock? concidering that his wife, Katherine Harrison, was a former communist.

(In November 1940, he married Katherine ("Kitty") Puening Harrison, a radical Berkeley student and former Communist Party member)

Seems odd that the gov't didn't have a problem with Kitty (to my knowledge) even though they found Oppenheimer's connection to Tatlock a security risk.

Any clarification would be great.

-Nic


The explanation that's usually given is that security agents did question and keep a watch on Kitty at Los Alamos, but they decided that her ambition to see her husband become highly successful and influential was too great for her to let any of her communist background interfere in matters. In fact, the same facts were concluded about Oppenheimer himself; that he was too dedicated to making the project a success to let any of his background interfere (not to mention the fact that he was not really a communist in the conventional sense of the term but rather a soul searcher who was interested intellectually in many aspects of communist philosophy)-- Ashujo November 6, 2005 21:15

Chemist's war

Hi Ashujo,

It may be said that WW1 was a chemist's war, and poison gas was surely the greatest horror to come out of that war. But

1. There were other technical advances that contributed to the militarization of science, or to the technicalization of warfare; for example in aeronautics, where technology advanced from pilots firing their pistols at each other to wing-mounted engine-syncronized machine guns, along with other improvements in engines, bombing technology, etc. and I would also guess in medicine, etc. World War 1 is also well widely known as the first air war, for example.
2. Mentioning it doesn't further the point being made. The point is that the use of science in warfare was unprecedented. As an aside, or to show we have considered the alternatives, we mention that technology also was used in world war 1, but it was much less. The fact that chemistry was the dominant science of the time doesn't make it any less scientific or technological, so why mention it?

It's certainly "okay" to say it. But the article is already long. The standard shouldn't be to include anything that's "okay". It should be to include everything that's necessary, and as little extraneous or distracting material as possible.

--The Photon 03:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The other major chemical contributions are in places like nitrates for explosives and synthetic fuels. But in any case most of the "chemist's war" was also a European war and about developments by the UK, France, and Germany. In the US it wasn't even really a chemist's war to any great degree. (It was more of a "manufacturing" war. But now we're really nitpicking.) I don't think we need to mention the chemists. --Fastfission 04:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
You can also add tanks to the list of technologies developed during the first war. And the mention of a "manufacturing war" is important, because it relates to the development of the "military-industrial complex" that was the major funding source for Big Science. Anyway, my point is that all of that is probably more relevant in an article like Big Science than in this one. -- The Photon 04:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind taking out the chemist's war part. The US did get into the chemical weapons program later, and WW1 was primarily a European war at the beginning and in general compared to WW2. If we really had to pin down WW1 as belonging to a particular breed of scientists, it would have to be chemists. But I agree that it's not necessary and would shorten the article. Let me remove it. --Ashujo Novelber 7, 2005 11.55

Red Scare

"He is also known as one of the most improbable victims of the Red scare, for having been "ludicrously" penalized for his earlier left-wing associations by removal of his security clearance, after having been so closely involved with nuclear weapons development."
  • This strikes me as misleading. He was not improbable at all — he had the same sorts of 1930s political ties that tripped up other victims of the Red Scare, and as the article explains though these may have been the means by which his security clearance was stripped they were not the only reason it was (more and more books have come out lately showing that pretty close to the #1 reason on the list was making an enemy of Lewis Strauss, which perhaps the article ought to have a little more on). I'm not sure this sentence does much work. The "ludicriously" in the original article is pretty clearly related to a somewhat different turn of phrase (and even then it is somewhat silly — Oppenheimer "knew all the secrets" but only about certain weapons and at certain points in time. More ludicrious is the fact that his security clearance would have expired in a few days anyway). But anyway I thought I would check here to see if there is a good reason to keep this sentence... --Fastfission 04:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The most well-known victims of the red scare were actors and other entertainers. Robert Oppenheimer was known as "the father of" the weapon that everyone thought was responsible for winning the war. He already knew so many secrets that it made little sense to take away his clearance, but not lock him up for life (if you really believed he was a security risk). That's what I had in mind when I wrote "improbable." But definitely if you can think of a clearer wording, please change it. -- The Photon 04:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The sentence is more misleading than it is clarifying, and is based on your own somewhat idiosyncratic beliefs about what is "probable" (the question was never whether or not he would release the secrets he already had; the question was whether he should be in contact with future secrets). I don't think we need to have it there. As for the Red Scare, a large number of physicists and chemists were also swept into it as well; they are less well-known than the actors and entertainers, but they were certainly out there. --Fastfission 00:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Oppenheimer cannot be labeled as a consistent pacifist. His kind of pacifism is more subtle, and not like that of Mahatma Gandhi, who embraced pacifism and non-violence for its own sake as a universal philosophy. But after WW2, much of Oppenheimer's actions were related to trying to secure world peace through international control of atomic energy. In those terms, I believe he was definitely a pacifist. Of course, he also understood the strategic futility in developing nuclear weapons after a certain extent. He probably understood that merely being a 'conventional' pacifist would not be the most effective way to change policy, which after all was the main goal. He was a pacifist, but he was also politically knowledgable and prescient (but unfortunately not very politically savvy and shrewd) I also agree that we could put in a somewhat detailed section about Lewis Strauss and Oppenheimer; as Fastfission noted, it has become exceedingly clear that Strauss was the primary mover and shaker in getting Oppenheimer's clearance revoked and trying to get his name maligned. Priscilla McMillan's book gives a clear account of this. In the case of Oppenheimer, much of his background was such that it was benign by itself, but by clever political maneuvering, it could possibly be used against him, and Lewis Strauss knew exactly how to do that. Such is politics, where circumstantial evidence is often used to implicate someone, and Strauss did that. Logic does not apply in such quarters.--Ashujo Novelber 7, 2005 12.03

On the question about emphasizing Strauss' influence, we actually cover that fairly well in the Security hearings section, although it might be reasonable to increase the emphasis. In general, I think there's some biographical content in the Legacy section that probably ought to be pushed back up into the earlier parts of the article. Rather than add discussion of Strauss under Legacy, I'd clean up the earlier section and refer back to it later.
--The Photon 02:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Pacifisim

I retroactively rearranged my earlier statements to bring together the question of whether Oppenheimer is a pacifist. This discussion began with Ashujo's comment on Nov. 7 in the section above.The Photon 03:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Did Oppenheimer himself claim to be a pacifist?
In my dictionary (Webster's New Collegiate 1960-something) pacifism is "Opposition to war or military force for any purpose; esp., an attitude of mind opposing all war and advocating settlement of international disputes entirely by arbitration." The Wikipedia definition in Pacifism is broader, but I wouldn't consider that normative — Encyclopedias are about ideas, not words.
From his quote about Guernica, etc., its clear Oppenheimer felt that military action was justified at least in self-defense. Also in the post-war years his advocacy for increasing fission bomb stockpiles, and developing tactical nuclear weapons instead of the H-bomb is clearly not a pacifist position.
However, if people widely believe Oppenheimer was a pacifist, that's certainly valid material for the Legacy section. As with anything where we might say "it's widely believed..." or "many say...", we should try to demonstrate it through sources per WP:Avoid weasel words.
--The Photon 02:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the dictionary definition of pacifist does not apply to Oppenheimer, or to many other people who were called or who called themselves pacifists for that matter. Linus Pauling was also a well-known pacifist, and he also supported aggression for self-defense. So was James Bryant Conant. As far as Oppenheimer's advocacy for fission weapons is concerned, it could also be interpreted as being done for deterence, which is after all a form of keeping the peace. If I am a pacifist and I realise that the threat of violence may be the only way to prevent a cycle of violence initiated by the other side, then I would support the display of the threat of violence. So yes, Oppenheimer was not a dictionary pacifist, but then that also opens the question of how many more such people's monikers as pacifists we should strike out from Wikipedia. I do agree that putting in a general statement saying "Oppenheimer was a pacifist" wrongly simplifies and falisfies the true matter, as do most of the adjectives that you can use for Oppenheimer; nothing was simple with him! So I am open to not including that adjective for him in the entry. --Ashujo November 8, 2005 19.57 (UTC)

I don't know enough about Pauling to know whether he was truly a pacifist or not. But according to our article, he refused to work on the Manhattan Project and campaigned against nuclear weapons testing. Those are both more to the side of pacifism than Oppenheimer's actions.
I would characterize Oppenheimer's attitude as conflicted, which I've used in the article. Maybe there are some other descriptive terms that are apropriate. Maybe the quote in which he told Truman he felt he had "blood on my hands" could be used to show this aspect of his personality. --The Photon 03:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Advocating international control didn't make one a pacifist at all — wanting to avoid war, and nuclear war in particular, does not make one a pacifist. A pacifist believes that war should never be fought, that violence should be rejected as a way of forcing change. I've never read anything written by Oppenheimer that suggested he held these beliefs. If you call Oppenheimer a pacifist you have to also call Edward Teller a pacifist — both thought nuclear war was something which should be avoided at all costs, though they had different strategies on how to avoid it.
I don't know where one draws the line between "conflicted" and "self-contradicting", but I think Oppenheimer is somewhere in between there. He's terribly inconsistent in his beliefs and actions; while I think it is tempting to see this in a romantic light I think it is also quite possible he lacked the steadfast convinctions which allowed others to maintain more stable paths. --Fastfission 00:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Most people would say that Linus Pauling was a pacifist, but he certainly advocated armed aggression as a means of fighting oppression, certainly something that involves a "change". And Oppenheimer was inconsistent in some of his beliefs and opinions; I personally would not call him "terribly" so. Conflicted probably describes him the best. Personally, I would never equate Oppenheimer with Teller of course (not that you are) . But this is really hairsplitting, because under the dictionary definition of pacifist, probably only Mahatma Gandhi was a pacifist. And he was severely criticised for some aspects of his pacifism (such as his opinion that the Jews in Germany should have committed mass suicide). I think we can be glad that Oppenheimer was not a pacifist!--Ashujo

Oppenheimer's favourite books

I don't think a complete listing of all ten of Oppenheimer's favourite books is very pertinent in the paragraph. At most, I think we should state that the Gita was among Oppenheimer's ten favourite books, but the listing of all the books looks sort of out of place there. If this list really needs to be included, why don't we include it as a footnote? --Ashujo 11.59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

We don't need to list the books. This is an encyclopedia article, not a trivia book. --Fastfission 00:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

We can say it was one of the most influential books in his life. --Ashujo

Primary documents

Ethnicity in lead sentence

I removed this per wp:mosbio. --Tom 15:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Even smart people have dumb moments

"If you're in a small boat in a pool, and you throw a stone that was resting in the bottom of the boat into the water, will the water level rise, stay the same, or fall? Try this and other conundrums related to buoyancy. (Careful: This one stumped even the great physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.)" from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lasalle/

Image and Style

Why is there no mention of Oppenheimer's attempt to imitate Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes? The chain–smoking, the curved–stem pipe, the thinness, the gimlet glance, the self–starvation, the focused obsession with work, the porkpie hat were all homage to Basil.Lestrade 15:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)lestrade

[citation needed] --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, I would note that Rathbone didn't play Holmes until 1939. Oppenheimer's own habits were long in place before then, by the late 1920s/early 1930s, at least chain smoking, self-starvation, gimlet glance, thinness, focused obsession with work, etc. Don't know about the hat, though! --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Picky eater

Did Oppenheimer eat only for the aesthetic pleasure? Did he merely want to experience the taste of the food? This is similar to the way a wine–taster samples the wine's taste and then spits out the wine, having no interest in imbibing. If so, he would be noted for ordering food that has exotic or spicy taste, without having his stomach affected by indigestion. This may have been the case. As a heavy smoker, the taste buds on his tongue were probably destroyed and could only detect the taste of strong food.Lestrade 23:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Oppenheimer in Popular Media

An anonymous editor wrote,

As a point of interest, the person standing next to him at the time, a colleague, Ken Bainbridge, leaned over to Oppenheimer and whispered to him "Now we are all sons of bitches." source: script of the new TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"episode 3 Jan 21 2008 on Fox The quote above of Oppenheimer's was uttered verbatim in the show, so I am assuming this was also actually said[citation needed].

The portrayal of any person or event in the popular media cannot be taken as fact.Fconaway (talk) 09:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the quip is fictional. It is mentioned for example in Bainbridge's biography at the National Academy of Sciences http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/kbainbridge.html Ashujo March 25, 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 02:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The quip is true (there is even extensive back-and-forth about it in the Bainbridge papers, at Harvard—Oppenheimer didn't remember it, Bainbridge explained to him that he really had meant it, and what he had meant by it: that they were all going to be thought of as SOBs, not that they necessarily were SOBs in his mind), but using the television show as the specific citation is silly. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

William S. Burroughs wrote about Oppenheimer many, many times, partly because Burroughs spent much of his youth in St. Alamos and also he considered the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be one of the most deplorable acts mankind has ever committed. Of particular interest is the work, "Soul Killer" where he discusses theories Oppenheimer expressed regarding souls as electromagnetic waves that could be destroyed via an atomic blast. Any discussion of Oppenheimer in popular media would do good to mention Burrough's critical literary works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.219.133.241 (talk) 15:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

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