biography
| name: |
Oppenheimer, J(ulius) Robert
|
pronunciation:
[openhiymer]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1904–67)
|
| biography:
| Physicist, born in New York City, New York, USA. During his graduate studies in Europe (1925–9), he and Max Born of Göttingen developed their classical contribution to molecular quantum theory, the Born–Oppenheimer method (1926). Returning to the USA, he taught theoretical physics concurrently at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley (1929–42), and investigated electron-positron pairs, cosmic ray theory, and deuteron reactions. He joined the Manhattan Project (1942) and directed the Los Alamos laboratory (1943–5), where his crucial input made him internationally known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’. During the post-war period he became a government and UN adviser, proposing international regulation of nuclear power to ensure peace. As director of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, NJ (1947–66), he stimulated discussion and research in quantum and relativistic physics. He lost his security clearance (1953) because of his alleged ‘disloyalty’ but he was vindicated (1963) when he was given the Atomic Energy Commission's Fermi Award. |
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