Kai Bird is the co-author of the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer that inspired Christopher Nolan’s movie on the American quantum physicist
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru offered Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, Indian citizenship after the latter’s humiliation in 1954 over statements against nuclear weapons, the co-author of the book that inspired Christopher Nolan’s movie on the American quantum physicist has said.
“After he [Oppenheimer] was humiliated in 1954...Nehru offered him to come to India and become a citizen...But I do not think Oppenheimer considered it [the offer] seriously because he was a deeply patriotic American,” Kai Bird, the co-author of the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer, told HT in an interview.
Bird said nine years after being celebrated as America’s greatest scientist, Oppenheimer was brought down in “a terrible kangaroo court” and stripped of his security clearance in a virtual security hearing. “He became the chief victim of the McCarthy witch-hunts,” he said, referring to the term coined to describe Republican senator Joseph R McCarthy’s practise of publicly accusing government employees of disloyalty and the use of dubious methods of prosecuting them when the government was countering communism in the US.
Bird said Oppenheimer feared the rise of Fascism. “He was of Jewish ancestry, but not a practising Jew. He gave money to help rescue Jewish refugees from Germany. He feared that German physicists were going to give Hitler an atomic bomb, that Hitler would be able to win the [Second World] war, and this would be a terrible outcome, a victory for fascism around the world. So he felt this [the atomic bomb] was necessary.”
Bird said Oppenheimer had mixed emotions about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. “By the spring of 1945, Germany was defeated. And that spring, some of the physicists and scientists...held an impromptu meeting to discuss the future of the gadget, and to ask why are we working so hard to build this terrible weapon of mass destruction when we know the Germans are defeated and Hitler is dead, and the Japanese can’t possibly have a bomb project?”
Bird said Oppenheimer reminded them the war was not over. “The Japanese still fight on. And he [Oppenheimer] said ‘I am reminded of the one question that Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist asked me [Oppenheimer]’... He had asked Robert, ‘Tell me, is it big enough? Is this gadget you are building big enough to end all wars?’ He was essentially making the argument that if we do not demonstrate the power and destructiveness of this weapon in this war, then the next war is going to be fought by two or three adversaries, all of whom will be armed with nuclear weapons.”
Bird said that Oppenheimer was terribly troubled as well and felt enormous empathy for the victims. “[After 1945, Oppenheimer]... read the accounts of what had happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and understood that tens of thousands of people had been instantly burned to death. And he actually plunged into a deep depression right after the two bombings. Then he recovers, but almost immediately, begins to speak out.”
Bird said Oppenheimer gave a speech in October 1954 saying these were weapons for aggressors. “These are weapons of terror. They are not defensive weapons. And they were used on an essentially already defeated enemy.”
Bird said that was an extraordinary thing for him to say just three months after Hiroshima. “But he had come to understand from conversations with people in Washington that the Japanese were actually very close to surrendering. He spent the rest of his life trying to persuade policymakers that we should create an international arms control regime.”
Bird said Oppenheimer acquired a fascination with Hindu mysticism and the Bhagavad Gita. “And he got Arthur Ryder, the only Sanskrit scholar at Berkeley University, to tutor him in Sanskrit so that he could read the Gita in the original.”
Bird said Oppenheimer developed an interest in Gita due to a fascination with mysticism and some of the philosophical notions in it that were sort of parallel to quantum about the nature of the world. “And that famous line that he used to describe what he thought when he saw the Trinity explosion [first detonation of a nuclear weapon]— ‘I am death, destroyer of the world’ — some Sanskrit scholars, as I understand it, think that the more accurate translation would be ‘I am Time, destroyer of worlds’. He is a quantum physicist, so he is trying to understand time and space, and these are issues that the Gita sort of addresses on some level.”
Bird said Oppenheimer’s story is incredibly relevant because the world is still trying to live with the bomb. “Just look at the war in Ukraine and the way [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has been threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The story is not over. And it may end badly still, these weapons could still be used again.”
He added it is also relevant because what happened to Oppenheimer in 1954 explains America’s current divisive politics. “...the phenomena of [former US President Donald] Trump and his anti-intellectualism, right-wing, populous, xenophobic, paranoid style of politics comes straight out of the McCarthy era.”
Bird said McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, became Trump’s lawyer and taught him the paranoid style of politics. “So Oppenheimer’s story is also about the crazy anti-intellectual strain of politics in America today. And it is relevant because his life as a scientist sheds light on our world today which is drenched in science and technology, and we are struggling to figure out how to absorb this technology and make it part of a humane society.”
Bird said the world is on the verge of yet another revolution in artificial intelligence (AI). “And this is going to have dire consequences for employment, and our whole culture, it raises issues of privacy. And people are talking about AI being used to trigger the use of nuclear weapons. And that is a frightening prospect.”
"bird" - Google News
July 24, 2023 at 12:49PM
https://ift.tt/uL6X5yf
Nehru offered Oppenheimer Indian citizenship in 1954: American author Kai Bird - Hindustan Times
"bird" - Google News
https://ift.tt/ICxafeR
https://ift.tt/7N8vGyW
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Nehru offered Oppenheimer Indian citizenship in 1954: American author Kai Bird - Hindustan Times"
Post a Comment