J. Robert Oppenheimer A Life

by Pais, Abraham; Crease, Robert P.

• ISBN13: 9780195327120
• ISBN10: 0195327128
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The late Abraham Pais, author of the award winning biography of Albert Einstein, Subtle is the Lord, here offers an illuminating portrait of another of his eminent colleagues, J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of modern physics. Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly bringing it to a stateof prominence. He paints a revealing portrait of Oppenheimer's life in Los Alamos, where in twenty remarkable, feverish months, and under his inspired guidance, the first atomic bomb was designed and built, a success that made Oppenheimer America's most famous scientist. Pais describes Oppenheimer'slong tenure as Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, where the two men worked together closely. He shows not only Oppenheimer's brilliance and leadership, but also how his displays of intensity and arrogance won him powerful enemies, ones who would ultimately make him one of theprincipal victims of the Red Scare of the 1950s. J. Robert Oppenheimer is Abraham Pais's final work, completed after his death by Robert P. Crease, an acclaimed historian of science in his own right. Told with compassion and deep insight, it is the most comprehensive biography of the great physicist available. Anyone seeking an insider'sportrait of this enigmatic man will find it indispensable.

Author Biography

Abraham Pais was Detlev W. Bronk Professor Emeritus at The Rockefeller University in New York City. A leading theoretical physicist, he was also an esteemed science writer, the author of 'Subtle is the Lord...' for which he won the American Book Award, Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World, Niels Bohr's Times, and several other books.
Robert P. Crease is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His most recent book is The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
Preface	p. xvii
Introduction	p. xix
First Encounters	p. 1
Background: Early Years	p. 4
University Studies	p. 8
Postdoctoral Studies	p. 14
Harvard	p. 14
Caltech	p. 14
Leiden	p. 15
Zurich	p. 17
The California Professor as Teacher	p. 20
The California Professor as Researcher	p. 24
More on QED	p. 24
Cosmic Rays	p. 26
Electron-Positron Theory	p. 28
Nuclear Physics	p. 29
Shower Theory	p. 29
Mesons	p. 30
Astrophysics and Cosmology	p. 31
Oppenheimer's Opinion of His Own Teaching and Research in California	p. 33
Personal Life in the 1930s	p. 34
"The Shatterer of Worlds"	p. 39
In Which Oppenheimer Enters the World Stage	p. 45
An Atomic Scientist's Credo	p. 49
The Institute Prior to Oppenheimer's Arrival	p. 59
The Flexner Years	p. 69
The Aydelotte Years	p. 73
In Which Oppenheimer Is Elected Director of the Institute and Chairman of the General Advisory Committee	p. 77
Oppenheimer's Early Years as Institute Director	p. 86
Oppenheimer and the World of Physics: 1946-1954	p. 96
"The Great Charismatic Figure"	p. 96
Building Up Physics at the Institute	p. 102
F. J. Dyson	p. 103
C. N. Yang	p. 104
T. D. Lee	p. 105
Of Some Who Came and Some Who Went	p. 106
Hideki Yukawa	p. 106
Sin-itiro Tomonaga	p. 106
David Joseph Bohm	p. 107
John von Neumann	p. 108
Oswald Veblen	p. 109
Oppenheimer as Leader of Conferences	p. 110
Shelter Island, June 1947	p. 110
Pocono, March/April 1948	p. 114
Solvay, September/October 1948	p. 116
Old Stone, April 1949	p. 117
Rochester I, December 1950	p. 117
Rochester II (January) and III (December) 1952	p. 118
IBM, April 1953	p. 119
A Book Review, October 1953	p. 121
Japan, September 1953	p. 121
Rochester IV, January 1954	p. 122
Further on Oppenheimer the Man	p. 123
Los Alamos Vignettes	p. 123
Robert Wilson	p. 123
Hans Bethe	p. 125
Edward Teller	p. 126
Enrico Fermi	p. 129
Richard Feynman	p. 130
Luis Alvarez	p. 130
Robert Serber	p. 130
Niels Bohr	p. 131
Young Wives' Tales	p. 134
Elsie McMillan	p. 134
Bernice Brode	p. 134
Robert Oppenheimer	p. 136
More Personal Recollections	p. 139
Atomic Politics in the Early Postwar Years	p. 144
1945-1946	p. 144
October 3, 1945	p. 144
August 1, 1946	p. 144
October 1946	p. 145
December 1946	p. 145
The Acheson-Lilienthal Plan	p. 146
The Baruch Plan	p. 151
1946 as the Highest Point of Oppenheimer's Political Contributions	p. 155
Oppenheimer's Public Expressions on Atomic Policy: 1947-1948	p. 157
Of the First Serious Enemies and of the First Russian A-Bomb	p. 163
In Which the First Clouds Appear	p. 163
The First Soviet A-Bomb	p. 166
Of the Superbomb and of Spy Stories	p. 168
Varia: 1947-1949	p. 168
Shall the United States Develop the Super?	p. 171
Emil Klaus Julius Fuchs et al.	p. 177
The New Super	p. 183
The Teller-Ulam Invention	p. 183
Oppenheimer's Views on the Super	p. 187
Oppenheimer's Participation in Panels: 1950-1953	p. 188
The Long Range Objectives Panel	p. 188
Project Gabriel	p. 189
Project Charles	p. 189
Project Vista	p. 189
Project Lincoln	p. 190
1952: Oppenheimer Leaves the General Advisory Committee	p. 191
Atomic Politics in the Early 1950s	p. 193
The Doctrine of Massive Retaliation	p. 193
Operation Candor	p. 194
The Opening Salvos of the Attackers	p. 196
May 1953	p. 197
June 5, 1953	p. 198
June 20, 1953	p. 198
July 3, 1953	p. 198
July 7, 1953	p. 198
July 1953	p. 198
August 1953	p. 198
August 20, 1953	p. 198
November 12, 1953	p. 198
November 1953	p. 201
November-December 1953	p. 201
In Which the Excrement Hits the Ventilator	p. 202
The Oppenheimer-Strauss Meeting, December 1953	p. 202
Eisenhower Erects a "Blank Wall"	p. 204
Preparations for the Hearings	p. 208
Oppenheimer and McCarthy	p. 212
In Which the News of the Hearings Is Made Public	p. 214
How Einstein and I First Heard	p. 214
First Newspaper Comments	p. 216
Supplemental Material
"Open Book": The Hearing in the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer	p. 227
The Hearing: April 12-May 6, 1954	p. 232
Findings, Appeal, Decision: May 17-June 29	p. 250
No Final Judgment	p. 259
First Judgments	p. 259
Post-Mortems	p. 264
Cultural Judgments	p. 265
The Sense of Tragedy	p. 268
Insider in Exile	p. 272
Institute Director	p. 273
Science Impresario	p. 278
Speaker and Author	p. 285
St. John	p. 292
Rehabilitation and Retirement	p. 295
Cloaked Mountain Peak	p. 300
Notes	p. 311
Principal Sources Used	p. 335
Index	p. 337
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