Quotes About Oppenheimer

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.

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

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

Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well, not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports.

Echoing his discussion of the previous day with Szilard, Oppenheimer said, "If we were to offer to exchange information before the bomb was actually used, our moral position would be greatly strengthened.

Having preached the necessity of international control and openness in 1946, Oppenheimer by 1947 was beginning to accept the idea of a defense posture supported by a multitude of nuclear weapons.

Physicists today agree that Oppenheimer's most stunning and original work was done in the late 1930s on neutron stars—a phenomenon astronomers would not actually be able to observe until 1967.

Oppenheimer—and surely many others in the room—understood that they could not rush to "stay ahead" in atomic weapons without pushing the Russians into an arms race with the United States.

No one can be certain of Oppenheimer's reaction had he learned that on the eve of the Hiroshima bombing, the president knew the Japanese were "looking for peace," and that the military use of atomic bombs on cities was an option rather than a necessity for ending the war in August

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.

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.

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

the Gita celebrates a life of action and engagement with the world. As such, it was compatible with Oppenheimer's Ethical Culture upbringing; but there also were important differences. The Gita's notions of karma, destiny and earthly duty would seem to be at odds with the humanitarianism of the Ethical Culture Society.

The Air Force did not want Eisenhower exposed to Oppenheimer's thinking, particularly since his views would support the Army's demand for a bigger share of the atomic budget.

Increasingly alarmed by the development of what President Eisenhower would someday call the "military-industrial complex," Oppenheimer had tried to use his celebrity status to question the scientific community's increasing dependency on the military. In 1954, he lost.

I am very distressed, as I assume you are, over the Oppenheimer matter. I feel that it is somewhat like inquiring into the security risk of a Newton or a Galileo.

The most relevant political fact about Robert Oppenheimer was that in the 1930s he was devoted to working for social and economic justice in America, and to achieve this goal he chose to stand with the left.

Oppenheimer's warnings were ignored—and ultimately, he was silenced. Like that rebellious Greek god Prometheus—who stole fire from Zeus and bestowed it upon humankind, Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire. But then, when he tried to control it, when he sought to make us aware of its terrible dangers, the powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him.

As the sociologist Daniel Bell later observed, Oppenheimer's ordeal signified that the postwar "messianic role of the scientists" was now at an end.

Oppenheimer decided to import the entire Princeton team of twenty scientists to Los Alamos. This turned out to be a particularly serendipitous decision, as the Princeton group included not only Robert Wilson but a brilliant and cheerfully mischievous twenty-four-year-old physicist named Richard Feynman.

tea was served every afternoon between three and four in the Common Room on the main floor of Fuld Hall. "Tea is where we explain to each other," Oppenheimer once said, "what we don't understand.

One day in class, after a particularly difficult lecture, Oppenheimer quipped, "I can make it clearer; I can't make it simpler.

Oppenheimer's defeat was also a defeat for American liberalism.

Groves, with his eye for sizing up people who could get things done, saw the deep ambition Oppenheimer covered with his surface charm.