Student Education Repository (மாணவர்கள் கல்விக் களஞ்சியம்): Today (February 18, 1967) is the anniversary of the American theoretical physicist, Father of atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Today (February 18, 1967) is the anniversary of the American theoretical physicist, Father of atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Today (February 18, 1967) is the anniversary of the American theoretical physicist, Father of atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was born on April 22, 1904, in New York City. Born in 1888 to Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman, a wealthy Jewish textile importer who emigrated from Germany to the United States. Julius came to the United States without money, bachelor's degrees, and knowledge of the English language. He got a job at a textile company. Oppenheimer was initially educated at the Equine Production School. In 1911, he entered the School of Ethical Cultural Society. It was founded by Felix Adler to promote a kind of ethical training based on the ethical cultural movement. Oppenheimer was a versatile scholar with an interest in English and French literature. Particularly interested in mineralogy.

Oppenheimer finished third and fourth grade in one year and dropped out halfway through eighth grade. In his final year, he became interested in chemistry. He entered Harvard College at the age of 18, a year after graduation. Because during a family summer vacation in Europe he was suffering from colitis in anticipation of Joachimstall. Oppenheimer graduated with a degree in chemistry, but science students at Harvard must study history, literature, and the philosophy of mathematics. He took six courses each season to make up for his late start.

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Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory. And one of the proudest "fathers of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project of World War II, which developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945, during the Trinity test in New Mexico. Oppenheimer later noted that it brought to mind the words of the Bhagavad Gita. In August 1945, weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the end of the war, Oppenheimer became chairman of the newly formed US Atomic Energy Agency's influential public advisory committee. He used that position to control nuclear power internationally to avoid nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.

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He revoked his security clearance in 1954 during a highly publicized trial after provoking the anger of many politicians with his outspoken comments during the Second Red Fear. And was effectively removed from his direct political influence. He continued to work in discourse, writing and physics. Nine years later, President John F. Kennedy presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political revival. Oppenheimer's achievements in physics include Born-Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wave functions, the work of the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer-Philips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of a quantum tunnel.

He made important contributions with his students to the modern theory of neutron stars and black holes, the theory of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and the interactions of cosmic rays. As a teacher and science promoter, he is remembered as the founding father of the American School of Theoretical Physics, which gained world importance in the 1930s. After World War II, he became director of the Advanced Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of atomic bombs, passed away on February 18, 1967, in the United States at the age of 62 due to an intestinal infection.

Source By: Wikipedia

Information: Ramesh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.