Author(s): Paul Strathern

Science

A charismatic teacher who inspired a generation of physicists, Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of this brief biography, is remembered today as "the father of the atom bomb". It was his creation that brought a devastating end to World War II. The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed the lives of millions, and ushered in a new era in which the potential for nuclear annihilation held the world in a precarious balance for the next five decades. Developing the bomb involved highly complex and theoretical work on splitting the atom. How did Oppenheimer go about this work, and what about the Manhattan Project and the frantic race to create the first atomic weapon? What of the moral dilemmas Oppenheimer faced over the creation of a weapon of such mass destruction? And what about his contributions to quantum mechanics and his early work on black holes? This book, one of a series which gives straightforward accounts of great discoveries, presents a snapshot of a scientist and his controversial work, offering an explanation of how the bomb was developed, its importance, and its implications for the 20th century and beyond.