Who built world’s first atomic bomb; used to read Bhagavad Gita; his family had to flee Germany due to Hitler’s fear, name is…

World’s first atomic bomb: J. Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York in 1904. He was the son of first-generation Jewish immigrants who came to America from Germany. By the age of 9, he had read literature and philosophy in Greek and Latin. He would send letters related to his research to the prestigious Mineralogy Club. Born in New York City, Oppenheimer graduated in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1925 and then earned a doctorate in Physics from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Oppenheimer’s reputation in quantum physics and quantum mechanics resounded throughout the world.

Katherine chose Oppenheimer as her partner and also assisted him in the research related to the first atomic weapon of the Manhattan Project. At one point, feeling unsuccessful in achieving something significant, Oppenheimer even contemplated taking his own life.

During the Second World War, when there was a race to create atomic bombs in Germany, Russia, and America, the search for a director for the Manhattan Project intensified. The great physicist Einstein was also in favour of Oppenheimer. When General Groves of the U.S. Army proposed Oppenheimer’s name, there was an uproar. His leftist thinking was cited as an example. Oppenheimer’s appointment is mentioned in the 1988 book ‘The Making of the Atomic Bomb’.

Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, was appointed as the director of the Los Alamos Lab under the Manhattan Project by the then American President during World War II and given the responsibility for the development of the atomic bomb. After three years of hard work, July 16, 1945, was the day when the first atomic bomb was tested. It was named Trinity. July 16, 1945, was doomsday for Robert Oppenheimer in the deserts of New Mexico. America’s atomic test was codenamed Trinity. Oppenheimer was in a bunker with his colleagues, from where the world’s first nuclear test was conducted 10 kilometers away.

In August 1945, atomic bombs named Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Approximately 250,000 people were killed in total. Japan surrendered, and World War II came to an end.

This devastation shook Oppenheimer. He described atomic weapons as destructive and a product of the devil. He told then American President Harry Truman that he held himself responsible for this massacre.

In the biography of Oppenheimer, historians Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin wrote that when the atom bomb with the intensity of 21 kilotons of TNT exploded, the shock of the earthquake was felt up to 160 kilometers away. Robert Oppenheimer recited a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “Kaal: Asmi Lokakshhayakritpraviddho Lokansamaahartumih pravrittah,” meaning ‘I am now death, the destroyer of worlds.’

Oppenheimer strongly opposed the creation of the hydrogen bomb after the atomic bomb. An investigation was set up against him, and his security clearance was revoked. However, the American government acknowledged its mistake in 1963 and honoured him with the Enrico Fermi Award.

News