Quotes from Kai Bird

Oppenheimer's work with Snyder is, in retrospect, remarkably complete and an accurate mathematical description of the collapse of a black hole

He was, in fact, an immensely human figure, as talented as he was complex, at once brilliant and naïve, a passionate advocate for social justice and a tireless government adviser whose commitment to harnessing a runaway nuclear arms race earned him powerful bureaucratic enemies. As his friend Rabi said, in addition to being "very wise, he was very foolish.

denial of the views and ideas of other people, cannot be the basis of any kind of agreement.

After receiving his first briefing on nuclear weapons in September 1953, Khrushchev later recalled, "I couldn't sleep for several days. Then I became convinced that we could never possibly use these weapons.

but at times it seemed that, as Thorpe puts it, "Oppenheimer offered to weep for the world, but not help to change it.

Though "present at the creation" of this militarization of science, Oppenheimer had walked away from Los Alamos, and Einstein respected him for attempting to use his influence to put the brakes on the arms race.

Unable to initiate a relationship, he remained aloof, hoping, as the poem says, that the young woman would make the first move: "You must come and talk to me . . ." He feels "a faint half hope and half regret." Such a mix of powerful emotions is not, of course, unusual for a young man coming of age. But Robert had to be told that he was not alone.

Oppenheimer argued that concealing information about the bomb increased the danger of misunderstandings

Later that day, Eisenhower noted in his diary that in the "brief time" he had to read over the "so-called 'new' charges" he had quickly realized that "they consist of nothing more than the receipt of a letter from a man named Borden. . . ." He then correctly assessed its contents: "This letter presents little new evidence. . . .

By the age of twelve, he was using the family typewriter to correspond with a number of well-known local geologists about the rock formations he had studied in Central Park. Not aware of his youth, one of these correspondents nominated Robert for membership in the New York Mineralogical Club, and soon thereafter a letter arrived inviting him to deliver a lecture before the club.

He wanted to be on good terms with the Washington generals," Dyson observed, "and to be a savior of humanity at the same time.

Eisenhower understood that Oppenheimer might well be the victim of scurrilous charges. But having ordered an investigation, he was not about to stop the process. Such a move would leave him vulnerable to a charge from McCarthy that the White House was shielding a potential security risk. So, the president sent a formal note to the attorney general, ordering him "to place a blank wall" between Oppenheimer and classified material

Scientists accustomed to working with limited resources and virtually no deadlines now had to adjust to a world of unlimited resources and exacting deadlines.

since the security hearing, he nevertheless no longer seemed to have the capacity or motivation to fight against the "cruelty" of indifference. In that sense, Rabi had been right: "They

I do so want you to be able to enjoy life in its best and fullest sense, and you will help me take care of you? To take care of someone whom one really loves has an indescribable sweetness of which a whole lifetime cannot rob me. Good-night, dearest.

but his main influence came from his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us.

He had come to loathe these Air Force men with their commitment to building more and more bombs for the purpose of killing more and more millions of people. To his mind, they were so dangerous, so morally obtuse, that he almost welcomed them as political enemies. A few weeks later, Finletter and his people told the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that it was an open question "whether [Oppenheimer] was a subversive.

Japan. "One can only imagine," Blackett wrote, "the hurry with which the two bombs—the only two existing—were whisked across the Pacific to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just in time, but only just, to insure that the Japanese Government surrendered to American forces alone.

His answer, given to me with tears in his eyes: 'Damn it, I happen to love this country.

Adler insisted that the answer to anti-Semitism was the global spread of intellectual culture.

Oppie le respondió medio en broma que dicha investigación, «como el matrimonio y la poesía, no debería alentarse y debería tener lugar solo a pesar de ese desaliento».

However confident Americans might be that their views and ideas will prevail, the absolute "denial of the views and ideas of other people, cannot be the basis of any kind of agreement.

he suggested that his mental state had something to do with the " awful fact of excellence . . . it is that fact now, combined with my inability to solder two copper wires together, which is probably succeeding in getting me crazy.

The very least we can conclude is that our twenty-thousandth bomb . . . will not in any deep strategic sense offset their two-thousandth.