Richard Rhodes wrote a classic book about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb

Eric Schlosser's Command and Control is a nice historical view of the nuclear defense establishment, and describes a particularly terrible missile site failure.

that's very grandiose and all, but this story is true. During the Fukishima aftermath here in the USA, a series of talks was called at UC Berkeley with the public invited. One of the talks was given by an actual nuclear weapons designer, who rarely stands in public for obvious reasons. A large, confident bearded man, he "commanded" the podium with ever more tales, speaking like that paragraph above.. Someone challenged him in some polite and meaningful way in a question, and just as he was starting to reply, people were getting uncomfortable due to the excessive air conditioning in the room -- it was hot outside but apparently the air conditioner was ON with a sensor not in the room? Someone went to check on the air conditioning exactly when the guy said "The USA has NEVER FAILED to achieve a stated objective in nuclear deterrance" or something similar, when the guy from the audience checking the thermostat said helplessly "its stuck ON, there is nothing I can do!"

it was so appropriate, had to repeat that here.. true.. and what a WEIRD collection of humanity were in the audience. Those old physics people and their kin, plus paranoids and vegans.. the lot.

Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb is deservedly regarded as a classic, but Dark Sun doesn't live up to the same standard [1]. For people interested in the technical history of the H-bomb, Anne Fitzpatrick's PhD thesis Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 is as good a single-document source as I've ever read:

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/10596

[1] Some reasons for the difference discussed here: https://old.reddit.com/r/nuclearweapons/comments/wr2pav/why_...

Not much happened " intellectually and culturally" after the said event!! Modern science was started with the likes of Galileo and Copernicus, was crystallized at the time of Newton and some great improvements happened in the 19th century and very early decades of the 20th. I think the impact of the steam engine and the discovery/development of vaccines in the 18th century are much more impactful than anything humans did after the Manhattan project, apart, maybe, from artificial fertilizers (Oh that was developed before the great war). Planes, cars, sliced bread all came before!!! There is only one exception, computers but these haven't done much to add to mankind happiness. They replaced fax machines and are trying to replace phones helped spread pornography and rage, but so far their effect on humanity is marginal compared to the steam engine or even sliced bread.

Came to say, essentially, the same thing.

I will add that I also enjoyed the move Fat Man and Little Boy which was about the Manhattan project. Not an Oscar-worthy movie. But told a good story, centered around Oppenheimer.

The first part of the book, describing the history of atomic theory and experimental physics, is still one of my favorite pieces of science writing ever.

Out of interest are you a physicist or chemist, or have a very good understanding of either of those subjects?

Asking because I found the book extremely dry and hard to get excited about (I only read the first half admittedly) due to it seeming to be aimed at people who do understand that stuff quite deeply. I'm amazed so many people can enjoy it.

For example, was I supposed to know who all those early twentieth century physicists were? It seemed like I was. Apart from Einstein and Oppenheimer I hadn't really heard of most of them.

Video archivist Peter Kuran is the force behind it. Im surprised he’s not mentioned on HN; filming atomic fireballs is quite technical.

His site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34294804

Well, to be fair, spying on a free and open society is much easier than spying on the opposite.

This. It gets far worse the further you get - it wasn't just spying. Sean McMeekan's recent book details how pervasive it was - for example, Harry Dexter White was in the Department of treasury, helped write the Morgenthau plan, which extended the war, and assigned "the booty" of germany to the soviets and leaked it to the soviets and the press. That led to "a near-miraculous revitalization of the German army."

The soviets under Stalin played the allies _hard_ during World War 2.

Ya, that was the most memorable part of Dark Sun. IIRC the State department confronted the Soviet ambassador about the routine exfiltration of boxes and boxes of US R&D documents, and the response was something like "We're losing 10,000 people a day in this war. This is how you be our ally.".

The Soviets can thank folks like Oppenheimer for it.

More like all that Uranium in the Czech and East German mines. The US thought that buying off the Uranium from East-Congo in Belgium protected them, but it only protected them from the Heisenberg bomb.

The bomb itself is trivial once you have enough uranium or plutonium.

I love RUSH but this song isn't their best lol

We'll be lucky to make it that far.

I imagine they made numerous visits to Israel because they were Jewish, just as Einstein did. Although Oppenheimer is said to have been ashamed of his Jewishness and tried to hide it, he still was a supporter of Israel and of course this meant helping their nuclear program. He met with Weizmann in 47 and Ben-Gurion in 52, literally just after the holocaust. He helped Israel as he was concerned about Egyptian-Russian relations and securing the position of the only Jewish majority state in the world in the wake of the largest industrialized genocide. Ben-Gurion recruited many Jewish scientists with the explicit goal of ensuring something like the holocaust never happened again. The french also helped newly independent Israel.

Why would this information be relevant in modern coverage of Oppenheimer and Teller? They weren't atomic spies selling secrets to an enemy state? The USSR was obviously not equivalent to Israel given the US was the first country to even recognize Israel. Post-WW2 the world was fractured into the eastern and western blocs, and obviously the USSR was the enemy. So I don't see your point

Finally, Israel's nuclear weapons policy is drastically different to that of the US or the then-USSR. The purpose is entirely defensive as Israel is a small country surrounded by majority-Muslim countries which have invaded Israel several times; Israel cannot afford to lose a war as this threatens the very existence of Jews. The US and USSR had very different, intentionally antagonistic policies with the exact opposite of deliberate ambiguity.

Can anyone comment on why this was downvoted? Is it not true? Even though sharing secrets with the Soviets would have been different from sharing them with Israel, if it was unsanctioned it still seems like this is a big deal.

I am actually re-reading it right now (started 6 months ago). No, it doesn't cover that ~1924 event. But it's an excellent book. Ignoring it because it doesn't go into all the people's childhoods seems like an over-reaction.

Just to be clear, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is about the lead up to and the making of the atomic bomb. It is not about Oppenheimer though it does go into great detail about all the major players.

The Times review says this attempted murder is Oppenheimer's first significant act in the film.

American Prometheus (the book on which the film is primarily based) covers the event in detail.

From the Science History Institute: "Fergusson was right to worry. Like all Cambridge students, Oppenheimer had an official tutor. This was an older graduate student who acted like a mentor. His tutor’s name was Patrick Blackett. Blackett was robust, popular, and good with his hands—everything Oppenheimer wasn’t. Oppenheimer developed a seething hatred for him.

Things came to a head in 1926 when Oppenheimer put a poisoned apple on Blackett’s desk, then left to vacation in Corsica.

Thankfully, Blackett never ate the apple. But Oppenheimer’s Corsica companions spilled the beans, and when Cambridge University found out, the administrators decided to press charges of attempted murder. And they would have. Except, Oppenheimer’s rich father happened to be visiting that week. He begged Cambridge to spare his precious, genius son. So, Oppenheimer got off with mere probation."

https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/disappearing-pod/the-...

I'd always read that he was somewhat troubled, but this guy was a borderline psychopath.

It's not a biography of Oppenheimer, it's a history of the making of the atomic bomb. Unsurprisingly, the parts of the book that deal with Oppenheimer - only a fraction of the book - are concerned with his involvement in the making of the atomic bomb. It does not mention the apple incident.

By contrast, the biography the movie is based on treats the apple incident at some length.

Both books are superb, in my opinion, and deserve their Pulitzers.

Both, yes

It's in the movie, but heavily simplified, and dramatized. As most of his lifetime hotspots. Such as his affairs.