J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life

396 Pages·2006·7.06 MB·English

by  Abraham Pais

J. Robert Oppenheimer:
A Life
ABRAHAM PAIS
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
J.OBERT OPPENHEIMER
A Life
ALSO BY ABRAHAM PAIS
The Genius of Science:
A Portrait Gallery of Twentieth-Century Physicists
A Tale of Two Continents:
A Physicist's Life in a Turbulent World
Einstein Lived Here
Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity
Inward'Bound:
Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World
Subtle Is the Lord:
The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein
Twentieth Century Physics I—III
(eds. with Laurie K. Brown and Sir Brian Pippard)
ALSO BY ROBERT P. CREASE
The Prism and the Pendulum:
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science
Making Physics:
A biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peace and War:
Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science
(with Robert Serber)
The Play of Nature:
Experimentation as Performance
The Second Creation:
Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Science
(with Charles C. Mann)
J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER
A Life
ABRAHAM PAIS
WITH SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
BY ROBERT P. CREASE
OXTORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2006
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pais, Abraham, 1918-
J. Robert Oppenheimer : a life / Abraham Pais ; with supplemental material
by Robert P. Crease.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-516673-6 ISBN-10: 0-19-516673-6
1. Oppenheimer,J. Robert, 1904-1967. 2. Atomic bomb—United States—History.
3. Physicists—United States—Biography. I. Crease, Robert P. II. Title.
QC16.O62P35 2005 530'.092-dc22 2005002173
Robert P. Crease and Oxford University Press gratefully acknowledge permission granted for the use
of material from the following sources: by Charles Weiner for Alice Kimball Smith and Charles
Weiner, eds. Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and "Recollections, originally published by Harvard
University Press in 1980. Reissued in paperback with a new foreword by Stanford University
Press in 1995; by Peter Goodchild, BBC books, and Watson, Little Ltd., for material from
Peter Goodchild's "Robert Oppenheimer: Shattterer of Worlds (BBC Books, 1980); from "Peace and War,
by Robert Serber with Robert P. Crease (Columbia University Press, 1998) reprinted with
permission of the publisher; by the Florida State University Libraries for material from an
unpublished interview with Paul Dirac, May 14, 1963; by Olke Uhlenbeck for permission to
print material from an unpublished interview with George Uhlenbeck, March 30, 1962; and by
Columbia University Oral History Office for permission to print material from an interview
with I. I. Rabi, "Reminiscences of I. I. Rabi," 11 January 1983.
987654321
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my wife, Ida
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Ida Nicolaisen xiii
Preface by Robert P. Crease xvii
Introduction by Abraham Pais xix
11
CHAPTER 1
First Encounters /
22
CHAPTER
Background: Early Years 4
3
CHAPTER 3
University Studies 8
44
CHAPTER 4
Postdoctoral Studies 14
Harvard 14
Caltech 14
Leiden 15
Zurich 17
VII
viii CONTENTS
55
CHAPTER 5
The California Professor as Teacher 20
6
CHAPTER 0
The California Professor as Researcher 24
MoreonQED 24
Cosmic Rays 26
Electron-Positron Theory 28
Nuclear Physics 29
Shower Theory 29
Mesons 30
Astrophysics and Cosmology 31
7
CHAPTER 7
Oppenheimer's Opinion of His Own Teaching and Research in
California 33
8
CHEPTER
Personal Life in the 1930s 34
9
CHAPTER 9
"The Shatterer of Worlds" 39
10
CHAPTER 1 0
In Which Oppenheimer Enters the World Stage 45
11
CHAPTER
An Atomic Scientist's Credo 49
12
CHAPTER

The Institute Prior to Oppenheimer's Arrival 59
The Flexner Years 69
The Aydelotte Years 73
CONTENTS ix
13
CHAPTER

In Which Oppenheimer Is Elected Director of the Institute and
Chairman of the General Advisory Committee 77
14
CHAPTER 14
Oppenheimer's Early Years as Institute Director 86
15
CHAPTER 15
Oppenheimer and the World of Physics: 1946-1954 96
"The Great Charismatic Figure" 96
Building Up Physics at the Institute 102
F. J. Dyson 103
C.N.Yang 104
T. D. Lee 105
Of Some Who Came and Some Who Went 106
Hideki Yukawa 106
Sin-itiro Tomonaga 106
David Joseph Bohm 107
John von Neumann 108
Oswald Veblen 109
Oppenheimer as Leader of Conferences 110
Shelter Island, June 1947 110
Pocono, March/April 1948 114
Solvay, September/October 1948 116
Old Stone, April 1949 117
Rochester I, December 1950 117
Rochester II (January) and III (December) 1952 118
IBM, April 1953 119
A Book Review, October 1953 121
Japan, September 1953 121
Rochester IV, January 1954 122
16
CHAPTER

Further on Oppenheimer the Man 123
Los Alamos Vignettes 123
Robert Wilson 123