Robert Oppenheimer Ethical Science Student Version Introduction Robert

Robert Oppenheimer Ethical Science Student Version

Introduction • Robert was born in New York City on April 22, 1904 • Father Julius, a wealthy German textile merchant • Mother, an artist • Parents of Jewish descent but did not observe the religious traditions • Robert lived a sheltered, comfortable early life

Question • How would you describe Robert’s family background ? • Individually think about this question • In pairs discuss each others answers • Share your answers with the class

Early Education • Early education was at the Ethical Culture School in New York. • Studied math and science classes, but also enthusiastically studied Greek, Latin, French, and German. • A talent for languages and often learned another language quickly just to read something in its original language.

Young Man • Taking a year off before starting college at Harvard • Robert traveled to New Mexico • He fell in love with horseback riding and the mountains and plateaus of the American Southwest

Question II • What do you think will happen to Robert at this stage of his Life ? • Write down a prediction of a pathway he might chose in life • Discuss and record your ideas in class

University • Studied at Harvard in 1922, started as a chemist, but switched to physics • Graduated summa cum laude (Degrees summa cum laude used to be quite rare ---- top one percent of students) in 1925

Research Life • Research at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, working under Ernest Rutherford • Ph. D at the age of 22 in Germany from the University of Göttingen to study under Max Born

The Scientist • Robert was an intense person, tall, thin, contemplative, and probing. • After the oral exam for his Ph. D, the professor administering it said, "Phew, I'm glad that's over. He was on the point of questioning me. "

Question III • Is there a change in Robert at this stage of his life? • Record YES or NO • Explain your answer to the class

The Leader • 1927, return to Harvard • Early 1928 at the California Institute of Technology. • Assistant professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, and joint appointment with California Institute of Technology. • In the ensuing 13 years, he "commuted" between the two universities, and many of his associates and students commuted with him.

The Leader II • He was an extraordinary teacher and an excellent theoretician. • Credited with being a founding father of the American school of theoretical physics. • Important research in astrophysics, nuclear physics, spectroscopy and quantum field theory.

The Real World • Absorbed in his studies and theoretical world of physics, he was often somewhat distracted from the "real world. " • The rise of fascism in the 1930 s caught his attention, and he took a strong stand against it.

Question IV • Why did Robert respond to political changes in 1930’s ? • Class discussion of answers

Evolution • By 1939, Niels Bohr brought news to the U. S. that Germans had split the atom. • The implication that the Nazis could develop extremely powerful weapons prompted President Roosevelt to establish the Manhattan Project in 1941 • November 1940, Robert married Katherine, a radical Berkeley student

Reaction • Robert’s political activity involved donations, occasional discussion groups, benefits and parties that he hosted for causes. • Meanwhile, he watched the mistreatment of the Jews in Nazi Germany with what he later described as "continuous, smoldering fury. " • May 1941 Robert had his first child, Peter.

Question V • What will Robert do at this stage of his Life ? • Record your prediction • Explain to the class your reasons for this prediction • What is the Dilemma for Robert based on your understanding of his strengths and weaknesses? • Think, Pair & Share

First steps • World War II began, Robert eagerly became involved in the efforts to develop an atomic bomb • June 1942 General Leslie Groves (refer to photo) appointed Oppenheimer as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project.

Los Alamos • Under Robert's guidance, the laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico were constructed. • He brought the best minds in physics to work on the problem of creating an atomic bomb. • He was managing more than 3, 000 people, as well as tackling theoretical and mechanical problems that arose.

Doubts • Some of the lab's scientists were unsure of their ethical standing in producing such a weapon to be used against civilians. • In 1944, the second child, Katherine (called Toni), was born at Los Alamos

Question VI • What is Robert’s response to the pressure of Los Alamos ? • Individually think about this question • In pairs discuss each others answers • Share your answers with the class

Logic • Robert agreed with those who urged the first use of the bomb against an actual target – and not as a demonstration. • Robert’s arguments against staging a demonstration were that the bomb was not certain to work (and a failed weapon might even be used against its builders by the enemy), that POWs might be moved to any target area for which advance warning was given, and that a demonstration would never be as effective as use against what the military had termed "built-up areas" – populated cities.

The Atomic Age • The joint work of the scientists at Los Alamos resulted in the first nuclear explosion at Alamagordo on July 16, 1945, which Oppenheimer named "Trinity. " • "We knew the world would not be the same, "

Application • August 6, 1945, the uranium bomb, "Little Boy, " destroyed Hiroshima with the explosive force of 15, 000 tonnes of TNT. • 3 days later, a plutonium bomb, "Fat Man, " on Nagasaki. • Either immediately or through injuries sustained in the blasts, the 2 bombs killed an estimated 210, 000 people, 95% of them civilians. • 6 days after the 2 nd bomb, Japan surrendered on August 10, 1945.

Question VII • How do you think Robert will respond to the result of the use of the Atomic Weapons ? • Class discussion of alternatives

Reflection • The "father" of the atomic bomb • After the initial euphoria stemming from the success of a job well done, Robert slumped into despair as casualty reports streamed in from Japan • "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. "

Guilt • "If atomic bombs are to be added to the arsenals of the a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the name of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The peoples of this world must unite, or they will perish. This war, that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand. "

Question VIII • What do you think will happen to Robert at this stage of his Life ? • Write down a prediction of a pathway he might chose in life • Discuss and record your ideas in class

Change • In the next few years, Robert would lobby vigorously for international control of atomic energy • The framework of involved the Soviet Union and the United States submitting to a supranational organization designed to allow sharing of peaceful atomic energy information while keeping weapons development to a monitored minimum

The End of the War • After the war, Robert chaired the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (1947 - 1952) • He opposed developing an even more powerful hydrogen bomb. • President Truman approved it, Robert did not argue, but his initial reluctance and the political climate turned against him.

Betrayal • In 1953, at the height of U. S. anticommunist feeling, Robert was accused of having communist sympathies • His security clearance was taken away. • He had friends who were communists, mostly people involved in the antifascist movement of the thirties. • This loss of security clearance ended Robert's influence on science policy

Question IX • How would Robert respond to this dramatic change in his life ? • Discuss in class the possibilities.

Final Impact • The scientific community, with few exceptions, was deeply shocked by the decision of the AEC. • In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to redress these injustices by honoring Robert with the Atomic Energy Commission's prestigious Enrico Fermi Award

Personal Summary • "Up until now and even more in the days of my almost infinitely prolonged adolescence, I hardly took any action, hardly did anything, or failed to do anything, whether it was a paper on physics, or a lecture, or how I read a book, how I talked to a friend, how I loved, that did not arouse in me a very great sense of revulsion and of wrong. It turned out to be impossible. . . for me to live with anybody else, without understanding that what I saw was only one part of the truth. . . and in an attempt to break out and be a reasonable man, I had to realize that my own worries about what I did were valid and were important, but that they were not the whole story, that there must be a complementary way of looking at them, because other people did not see them as I did. And I needed what they saw, needed them. "

Conclusion • Final position of Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton (1947 – 1966) • In the final years of his life, he discussed the problems of intellectual ethics and morality • He died of throat cancer in February 18 1967 • “Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful”

Question X • Is ethics an important aspect of science ? • Record Yes or No • Class debate with reasons for and against the above question