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Submitted URL: https://info.thebulletin.org/e/878782/learRisk-OppieArticle-08142023/4zmlv/901068052?h=NfvexLe40HOD9-CkLU6r3UrJgCYduzhllE0FsM...
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WHAT ‘OPPENHEIMER’ CAN TEACH TODAY’S SCIENTISTS

By Charles D. Ferguson | August 12, 2023



J. Robert Oppenheimer (as portrayed by actor Cillian Murphy) is cheered by
scientists of the Los Alamos Laboratory after the successful Trinity test in a
scene from Christopher Nolan's film 'Oppenheimer' (Image courtesy of Universal
Pictures)

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As a scientist, I found the Oppenheimer film’s depiction of scientists
refreshing and exhilarating. Scientists are shown as people with passion, as
citizens committed to great causes, and as human beings with flaws and emotional
complexity. Ultimately, the film has lessons for the roles and responsibilities
of scientists in society.

The first part of the film does a fantastic job conveying the excitement of
intellectual discovery. A young man, J. Robert Oppenheimer, leaves America for
Europe on an adventure in hot pursuit of knowledge about the “new physics,”
quantum mechanics. We see him seizing opportunities by meeting and learning from
the top physicists in Europe, forming friendships with American and European
scientists that will be foundational for his leadership in the Manhattan Project
in the decades to come. We also see Oppenheimer learning Dutch in six weeks to
give a lecture in the Netherlands on quantum physics, reading avant garde
literature, for example, T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and viewing modern art by
Pablo Picasso. Armed with this knowledge and professional connections,
Oppenheimer returns to America to found what Hans Bethe, a colleague and Nobel
laureate in physics, would call decades later “the greatest school of
theoretical physics that the United States has ever known.”[1]

But all is not perfect in this scientific Garden of Eden depicted in this part
of the film. Angry at his instructor for making him redo an experiment,
Oppenheimer injects potassium cyanide in an apple placed on the instructor’s
desk. Oppenheimer awakens the next morning realizing that he has done an immoral
act. He races to the laboratory and in the nick of time knocks away the apple
before Niels Bohr takes a bite. This episode foreshadows even more dire moral
dilemmas. The shape of the apple resembles the Gadget, the atomic bomb detonated
at the Trinity test.



The film shows the scientists wrestling in various ways with the implications of
their work on nuclear weapons. Physicist Isidor Rabi says to Oppenheimer: “You
drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t wish the
culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.”
Many of the Chicago group of Manhattan Project scientists sign and circulate the
Szilard petition, which was a moral plea to not use the bomb against Japan. The
film shows Oppenheimer knocking the petition out of the hands of one of the
scientists. Oppenheimer became committed then and in the several years to come
to playing the role of the wise scientist advising government.

RELATED:
‘Oppenheimer’ is terrific. But it’s just a movie


Much of the final part of the movie is devoted to the hearing deciding on
whether Oppenheimer would have his security clearance renewed. In this ordeal,
he witnesses who is for and against him. Edward Teller, who had campaigned for
development of the “Super” or hydrogen bomb during and after the Manhattan
Project, turns against Oppenheimer and represents the view that more powerful
weapons are needed for national security.

The film shows Oppenheimer struggling with the moral implications of nuclear
weapons. While he praises the amazing technical work of the workers at Los
Alamos in a speech after the atomic bombings in Japan, the film at the same time
depicts Oppenheimer visualizing audience members’ skin burning and melting from
their bodies. In that scene, most people appear ecstatic about the results of
the bombings, but one person is shown vomiting. In an earlier scene prior to the
bombings, a group of Los Alamos scientists convene to question whether the
weapons should be used against Japan. Oppenheimer supports use after weighing
several options. After the war in his role on the General Advisory Committee to
the Atomic Energy Commission, Oppenheimer argues against development of the
hydrogen bomb, fearing it could spark an even greater arms race with the
Soviets. But notably at the time of the hearing he is still in favor of fission
weapons, which are a thousand times less powerful than hydrogen bombs.

What is the lesson of Oppenheimer for today’s scientists?

Scientists cannot turn back to an idyllic scientific Garden of Eden where
research is pure and unencumbered with consequences for life and death
decisions. They need to take part in the public arena.

The film highlights various role models. Scientists from the Chicago group
founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; scientists mostly from the Los
Alamos group as well as other parts of the Manhattan Project founded the
Federation of Atomic Scientists, which soon was rebranded as the Federation of
American Scientists. The National Academy of Sciences, founded in 1863 during
the Civil War to provide scientific advice to the government, had many prominent
Manhattan Project scientists as members, including Oppenheimer, Teller, Bethe,
Ernest Lawrence, and George Kistiakowsky, who all influenced government policy.

Today, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine continues
to advise government with numerous consensus studies by committees of volunteer
experts. Several current and recent National Academies studies relate to the
legacy of the Manhattan Project, including the potential environmental effects
of nuclear war, strategies against weapons of mass destruction terrorism, risk
analysis methods for nuclear war and nuclear terrorism, and the review of the
analysis of supplemental treatment of low-activity waste at the Hanford nuclear
reservation.

RELATED:
‘Oppenheimer’, the bomb, and arms control, then and now


The meaning of Oppenheimer’s life and work lives on for scientists and is
brilliantly portrayed in the film.

Notes

[1] H. A. Bethe, Biographical memoir of J. Robert Oppenheimer, National Academy
of Sciences, 1997,
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/oppenheimer-j-robert.pdf

 


READ MORE EXPERT REVIEWS AND REACTIONS TO ‘OPPENHEIMER’



By Chris Griffith


A MANHATTAN PROJECT HISTORIAN COMMENTS ON ‘OPPENHEIMER’

Although Nolan’s film is not technically accurate throughout, the adjustments in
'Oppenheimer' are made for understandable artistic reasons, writes an historian
of the Manhattan Project.

By Andrew Facini


OPPENHEIMER’S VISION FOR ARMS CONTROL IS STILL UPON US

Oppenheimer's vision for arms control was incompatible with those drawing power
from the bomb. We are still there today, a nuclear policy expert argues.

By Stewart Prager


‘OPPENHEIMER’ IS TERRIFIC. BUT IT’S JUST A MOVIE

'Oppenheimer' might not have a lasting impact because the world-ending potential
of nuclear weapons is now essentially taken for granted in public discussions, a
Princeton physicist argues.

By Victor Gilinsky


THOUGHT-PROVOKED BY ‘OPPENHEIMER’

Christopher Nolan’s "Oppenheimer" authentically conveys the contradictions of
the man, some I discovered in a small way, a physicist writes.

By Daryl G. Kimball


‘OPPENHEIMER’, THE BOMB, AND ARMS CONTROL, THEN AND NOW

The viewers of 'Oppenheimer' might walk out of theaters with a lot of blind
spots, an arms control expert writes.

By Laura Grego


‘OPPENHEIMER’ DEPICTS A MAN BECOMING POWERFUL—AND IRRELEVANT

Oppenheimer did not have the temperament and skills to confront the US political
and military leadership on critical decisions about nuclear weapons, a nuclear
policy expert writes.

By Lisbeth Gronlund


NUCLEAR WEAPONS SINCE OPPENHEIMER: WHO’S IN CONTROL?

After Oppenheimer, policy makers of nuclear-armed countries have let the
interests of their military and arms producers control these weapons, an MIT
physicist argues.

By Charles D. Ferguson


WHAT ‘OPPENHEIMER’ CAN TEACH TODAY’S SCIENTISTS

'Oppenheimer' shows scientists cannot turn back to a world in which research is
pure and unencumbered with its consequences. They need to take part in the
public arena, a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine argues.






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Keywords: Atomic Energy Commission, Christopher Nolan, Federation of American
Scientists, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer
review collection, Trinity test, atomic bomb, movie, nuclear weapons
Topics: Nuclear Weapons

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CHARLES D. FERGUSON

Charles D. Ferguson is senior director of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies
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