April 22, 1904: Robert Oppenheimer is born
Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)
Scientific field: Physics
Known for: Atomic bomb development, Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit, Oppenheimer-Phillips process
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and science administrator, noted as director of the Los Alamos laboratory during development of the atomic bomb (1943–45) and as director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1947–66).
In the 1920s the new quantum and relativity theories were engaging the attention of science. That mass was equivalent to energy and that matter could be both wavelike and corpuscular carried implications seen only dimly at that time. Oppenheimer’s early research was devoted in particular to energy processes of subatomic particles, including electrons, positrons, and cosmic rays. Since quantum theory had been proposed only a few years before, the university post provided him an excellent opportunity to devote his entire career to the exploration and development of its full significance. In addition, he trained a whole generation of U.S. physicists, who were greatly affected by his qualities of leadership and intellectual independence.
In August 1942 the U.S. Army was given the responsibility of organizing the efforts of British and U.S. physicists to seek a way to harness nuclear energy for military purposes, an effort that became known as the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was instructed to establish and administer a laboratory to carry out this assignment. The joint effort of outstanding scientists at Los Alamos culminated in the first nuclear explosion on July 16, 1945. In October of the same year, Oppenheimer resigned his post. In 1947 he became head of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and served from 1947 until 1952 as chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, which in October 1949 opposed development of the hydrogen bomb.
In 1963 President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award of the Atomic Energy Commission. Oppenheimer retired from Princeton in 1966 and died of throat cancer the following year.
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