J. Robert Oppenheimer
| J. Robert Oppenheimer | |
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J. Robert Oppenheimer, c. 1944
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| Born |
April 22, 1904 New York City, New York |
| Died | February 18, 1967 (aged 62) Princeton, New Jersey |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions |
University of California, Berkeley California Institute of Technology Los Alamos Laboratory Institute for Advanced Study |
| Alma mater |
Harvard College Christ's College, Cambridge University of Göttingen |
| Thesis | Zur Quantentheorie kontinuierlicher Spektren (1927) |
| Doctoral advisor | Max Born |
| Doctoral students |
Samuel W. Alderson David Bohm Robert Christy Sidney Dancoff Stan Frankel Willis Eugene Lamb Harold Lewis Philip Morrison Arnold Nordsieck Melba Phillips Hartland Snyder George Volkoff |
| Known for |
Nuclear weapons development Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit Oppenheimer-Phillips process Born–Oppenheimer approximation |
| Notable awards | Enrico Fermi Award (1963) |
| Spouse | Katherine "Kitty" Puening Harrison (1940–1967; his death; 2 children) |
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| Notes | |
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Brother of physicist Frank Oppenheimer
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Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. As the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer is among those who are called the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico; Oppenheimer remarked later that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
After the war, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. After provoking the ire of many politicians with his outspoken opinions during the Second Red Scare, he suffered the revocation of his security clearance in a much-publicized hearing in 1954, and was effectively stripped of his direct political influence; he continued to lecture, write and work in physics. Nine years later, President John F. Kennedy awarded (and Lyndon B. Johnson presented) him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation.
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