The biopic of her life has faced a premiere in the same week as Barbie and has shared a billboard duel with this film. Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, was much more than that, as Christopher Nolan makes clear in his latest work. but there are some details that are not well known outside of his scientific career, its relationship with the Communist Party or its relationship with the United States government. Here are five things you didn’t know about Julio Robert Oppenheimer.
geology
Oppenheimer majored in chemistry as a Harvard undergrad (graduating in just 3 years with honors) and later made a name for himself as a physicist, but rocks and minerals were his first scientific love. At age 7, Oppenheimer began studying mineral crystals for their structures and interactions with polarized light. He became a fanatical collector and used his family’s typewriter to initiate long and detailed correspondences with local geologists that went on for years. This led to the fact that, at the age of 12, Oppenheimer was invited by these geologists to give a lecture.
In the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimerthe biographers Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, relate what happened: “At the age of 12, I was using the family typewriter to correspond with several well-known geologists about the rock formations I had studied in Central Park. Not knowing of his youth, one of these correspondents nominated Robert for membership in the Mineralogical Club of New York, and soon after he arrived a letter inviting him to give a conference to the club. Encouraged by his parents, the young Oppenheimer delivered the speech and received a round of applause for his efforts, even though he needed to climb into a box to see over the podium.”
Cosmics rays
NASA describes cosmic rays as a “puzzling form of radiation” that consists of “electrically charged subatomic particles colliding with our atmosphere, where they break up and fall to Earth in even smaller fragments.” It could be said that Oppenheimer was one of the first to study them. In 1931, he and a student named Frank Carlson co-wrote first of many scientific papers on the physics of cosmic rays, a relatively new phenomenon that had only been discovered in 1912, less than 20 years earlier.
Languages
One fact that stands out about Oppenheimer’s life is his exceptional linguistic prowess. Raised in an educational environment that emphasized not only the sciences, but also the humanities, he developed an eclectic range of interests that spanned the languages of Greek, Latin, French, Sanskrit, and German. However, what is really striking is the speed and dedication with which Oppenheimer was able to learn a new language when necessary. People say that learned Dutch in just six weeksfor the sole purpose of giving a technical talk in the Netherlands.
master mixologist
No doubt he would have gotten along great with James Bond, not only talking about atomic physics and nuclear threats, but also about Martinis. Oppenheimer used to hold parties and informal gatherings at his Los Alamos residence. And for such events he had a unique recipe. This recipe was so well known and received so many compliments that the Los Álamos Laboratory itself published it on its website. To imitate the great scientist you have to mix four ounces of gin and a splash of vermouth. So far it doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary, but then comes the unique touch: dip the rim of the chilled glass into a mixture of honey and lime juice. Pat Sherr, the wife of a laboratory physicist, described Oppenheimer’s martinis as “the most delicious and greatest” she had ever tasted.
black holes
Although Einstein’s equations already spoke of the influence of gravity on light, back in 1915, he was the one who predicted in the 1930s that a massive star could suffer a gravitational collapse and, therefore, black holes could form in nature. The study included calculations of the properties of white dwarfs and the theoretical mass limit of neutron stars. But he also pointed out that there must be “dying stars whose gravitational pull exceeds their energy output.” The paper received little attention at the time (studies on the atomic scale were more interesting), but it was later rediscovered by physicists who realized that Oppenheimer had predicted the existence of black holes.
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