Quotes from Kai Bird

Oppenheimer was acutely attuned to the consequences of his actions, but, like Arjuna, he was also driven to do his duty. So duty (and ambition) overrode his doubts—though doubt remained, in the form of an ever-present awareness of human fallibility.

was Born who in 1924 coined the term "quantum mechanics," and it was Born who suggested that the outcome of any interaction in the quantum world is determined by chance.

We were all close to communism at the time," Bohm recalled. Actually, until 1940–41, Bohm didn't have much sympathy for the Communist Party. But then, with the collapse of France, it seemed to him that no one but the communists had the will to resist the Nazis. Indeed, many Europeans appeared to prefer the Nazis to the Russians.

Here the Army staked out an area eighteen by twenty-four miles in size, evicted a few ranchers by eminent domain and began building a field laboratory and hardened bunkers from which to observe the first explosion of an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer dubbed the test site "Trinity

An inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory accomplishes a lot, but it does not bring us closer to the secrets of the Old One. In any case, I am convinced that He does not play dice.

Green firmly believed that something untoward was happening, especially after he learned that Strauss subsequently transferred a lot of his legal business to Zuckert. Green didn't know it, but Zuckert also signed a contract with Strauss to serve as the latter's "personal adviser and consultant.

decompression chamber for scholars.

But I have never observed in any one of these other groups quite the spirit of belonging together, quite the urge to reminisce about the days of the laboratory, quite the feeling that this was really the great time of their lives. That this was true of Los Alamos was mainly due to Oppenheimer. He was a leader.

He was an idea man," recalled Phillips. "He never did any great physics, but look at all the lovely ideas that he worked out with his students.

Adler sostenía que la respuesta al antisemitismo consistía en difundir globalmente la cultura intelectual. Es interesante señalar que criticaba el sionismo porque se replegaba en la particularidad judía: «El sionismo es un ejemplo actual de la tendencia a

General Groves came for dinner at the Chadwicks' and in the course of casual banter over the dinner table, he said, "You realize of course that the main purpose of this project is to subdue the Russians." Rotblat was shocked. He had no illusions about Stalin—the Soviet dictator had, after all, invaded his beloved Poland. But thousands of Russians were dying every day on the Eastern Front and Rotblat felt a sense of betrayal.

IN THE AUTUMN of 1944, the Soviets received the first of many intelligence reports directly from Los Alamos. The spies overlooked by Army counterintelligence included Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist with British citizenship, and Ted Hall, a precociously brilliant nineteen-year-old with a Harvard B.S. in physics. Hall arrived in Los Alamos in late January 1944, while Fuchs came in August as part of the British team led by Rudolf Peierls. Fuchs

Así pues, a finales de la década de 1870, la Sociedad por la Cultura Ética de Felix Adler proporcionó al colectivo judío neoyorquino un medio para afrontar aquella intolerancia creciente en un momento oportuno.

Although the British Home Office knew all about his communist past, by the spring of 1941 Fuchs was working with Peierls and other British scientists on the highly classified Tube Alloys project. In June 1942, Fuchs received British citizenship—by then, he was already passing information to the Soviets about the British bomb program.

Modern Prometheans have raided Mount Olympus again and have brought back for man the very thunderbolts of Zeus.

Over the next year, Fuchs passed detailed written information to the Soviets about the problems and advantages of the implosion-type bomb design over the gun method. He was unaware that the Soviets were getting confirmation of his information from another Los Alamos resident.

His informality contrasted sharply with the manner of General Groves, who "demanded attention, demanded respect." Oppie, on the other hand, got attention and respect naturally.

On one occasion, sitting at the same Fuller Lodge dinner table with Niels Bohr, he heard Bohr's concerns for an "open world." Prompted by his conclusion that a postwar U.S. nuclear monopoly could lead to another war, in October 1944 Hall decided to act: ". . . it seemed to me that an American monopoly was dangerous and should be prevented. I was not the only scientist to take that view.

Einstein's instincts were right—and time would demonstrate that Oppenheimer's were wrong. "Oppenheimer is not a gypsy like me," Einstein confided to his close friend Johanna Fantova. "I was born with the skin of an elephant; there is no one who can hurt me." Oppenheimer, he thought, clearly was a man who was easily hurt—and intimidated.

En 1921, el año en que Robert se graduó en el instituto de la Cultura Ética, Adler exhortó a los estudiantes a desarrollar «imaginación ética», a ver «las cosas no tal como son, sino tal como podrían ser».

When Pais explained his mission, Einstein chuckled loudly, and then said, "The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn't love him—the United States government. . . . [T]he problem was simple: All Oppenheimer needed to do was go to Washington, tell the officials that they were fools, and then go home.

Su profesor de ética de la escuela, no obstante, fue John Lovejoy Elliott, quien siempre fue muy crítico ante la participación de Estados Unidos en la guerra.

Though he hadn't a shred of evidence, Hoover now floated the possibility that Oppenheimer intended to defect to the Soviet Union.

I need physics more than friends," he confessed to Frank in the autumn of 1929.