Closer Look at “Father of Atomic Bomb”

scientific genius. Oppenheimer fits that mold pretty well. In contrast, Gen. Groves didn’t look like, and didn’t act like, our conceptions of scientific genius — but there’s a case to be made that his experience with very large-scale engineering projects made his role central to the project’s success. If there has to be a single “father of the bomb,” why not Groves? But would a movie called “Groves” be as attractive? Doubtful.

Laine Perfas: One of the ways people described Oppenheimer was that at times he had an almost spiritual presence. How did that affect people’s deference to him and his ability to lead?
Shapin:Some Los Alamos scientists were moved by this presentation of spirituality, of moral vision, and of cultural breadth. Other scientists thought it was a bit too much, that Oppenheimer was something of a show-off. He famously said that when the Trinity test bomb exploded, he remembered a line from the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Other people reported that what he actually said was something more mundane — something along the lines of: “It worked.”

I understand that actor Cillian Murphy lost a lot of weight to portray Oppenheimer; people did reflect on how thin Oppenheimer was, how much weight he had lost during the project — partly through illness, but partly also through anxiety and the tremendous weight of responsibility. Some scientists at Los Alamos recognized in Oppenheimer’s thinness a religiously toned ascetic ideal. He had, they said, almost no flesh to him; he was all mind, all spirit.

Laine Perfas: There was a lot of uncertainty in the project, especially in terms of leadership and who was managing which aspects. How did Oppenheimer help address some of those things?
Shapin: This story is often told too simply: “The military wants secrecy; the scientists want openness.” The truth of matter is there’s never totally been open communication in science, and many scientists were comfortable with military types of secrecy, especially in an enterprise of this strategic importance. But one of the things that Oppenheimer did was to advocate for weekly colloquia in which people in different divisions actually got to talk to each other, and he had to persuade Groves that the project could not be successful if scientists working in different areas were compartmentalized, only knowing what they specifically needed to know. Oppenheimer was right to think