J. Robert Oppenheimer

Theoretical Physicist · American 🇺🇸 · 1904–1967

Scientific director of the Manhattan Project. Watched the Trinity test and quoted the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

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Manhattan ProjectEra

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0Nobel Prizes

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1904Born

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1967Died

01 Biography

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who became the scientific director of the Manhattan Project - the US wartime programme that developed the first atomic bombs. Born in New York in 1904, he studied at Harvard, Cambridge, and Göttingen. He led Los Alamos Laboratory from 1943, coordinating thousands of scientists and engineers. He witnessed the first nuclear explosion (Trinity test, July 16, 1945) and later recalled the Bhagavad Gita verse: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." After the war he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and campaigned for international nuclear controls. In 1954, during McCarthyism, his security clearance was revoked after a politically motivated hearing - a decision reversed by President Biden in 2022, posthumously clearing his name.

02 Key Achievements

→Scientific Director, Manhattan Project

→Led Trinity nuclear test (July 1945)

→Director, Institute for Advanced Study

→Opposed hydrogen bomb development

→Chaired Atomic Energy Commission advisory board

→Security clearance posthumously restored 2022

03 Notable Quote

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

04 Legacy

Oppenheimer is considered the "father of the atomic bomb." His story, and the moral weight he carried after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, defined the ethical questions surrounding nuclear weapons that persist today.