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The son of German-Jewish immigrants, Oppenheimer was a man of phenomenal intellectual attributes, driven by an ambition to overcome his status as an outsider and penetrate the heart of political and social life. As a young scientist, his talent and drive allowed him to enter a community peopled by the great names of twentieth-century physics—men such as Niels Bohr, Max Born, Paul Dirac, and Albert Einstein—and to play a role in the laboratories and classrooms where the world was being changed forever, where the secrets of the universe, whether within atomic nuclei or collapsing stars, revealed themselves.
But Oppenheimer’s path went beyond one of assimilation, scientific success, and world fame. The implications of the discoveries at Los Alamos weighed heavily upon this fragile and complicated man. In the 1930s, in a climate already thick with paranoia and espionage, he made suspicious connections, and in the wake of the Allied victory, his attempts to resist the escalation of the Cold War arms race led many to question his loyalties.
Through compassionate investigation and with towering scholarship, Ray Monk’s Robert Oppenheimer tells an unforgettable story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices, and unimaginable destruction.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 14, 2013 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780385362672
- File size: 1016518 KB
- Duration: 35:17:44
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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To fully appreciate physicist Robert Oppenheimer, you have to understand his Jewish background and his physics. That's the premise of this mammoth biography of the man who is considered to be the father of the atomic bomb. And that's also the problem. The author goes into such detailed depth that listeners may be overwhelmed, especially in the sections on atomic theory. Michael Goldstrom offers an easy-to-listen-to narration. His voice is steady without being monotonous, and he eschews the kind of vocal drama that would quickly become tiring in a work this long. He handles foreign phrases and names with ease. But he can't overcome the preponderance of detail. Listeners who persevere will be rewarded with a rich portrait well read. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine -
May 20, 2013
It's difficult to find a more complicated figure in 20th century physics than J. Robert Oppenheimer. While previous biographies have examined Oppenheimer's philosophy and politics, Monk's work stands apart for its attention to his work in physics. Born in 1904 to a well-off German Jewish family, Oppenheimer had a sheltered childhood and grew into an unrepentant "intellectual snob", putting mas-tery above sociability. Monk (Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius) captures Oppenheimer's zeal; a Harvard undergraduate dividing his time between chemistry and literatureâuntil he discovered physics. Clumsiness in the lab and fascination with quantum mechanics led him to theoretical physics where he excelled. Monk connects Oppenheimer's drive to succeed with his skill at building power-house teams of physicists: at Berkeley, where he created the first American school of theoretical phys-ics; at Los Alamos, where he guided the Manhattan Project; and after WWII at the Institute for Ad-vanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Monk explores the tangled politics that surrounded Oppenheimer as well as his weapons work, while celebrating the physicist's work on cosmic rays and stellar collapse. This grand biography illuminates the genius of a fascinating scientist as driven by his own research as he was driven to lead and inspire others.
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