The True Story of the Man Who Inspired the Film ‘Oppenheimer’

Born in 1904 to German Jewish immigrants in New York City, Julius Robert Oppenheimer’s narrative begins. His father, Julius, a prosperous textile importer, and his mother, Ella, an artist, shaped his early years. Although the film skims over his childhood, its significance becomes evident as the story unfolds. After graduating from school in 1921, Robert’s life took a turn, marked by recurring bouts of depression. He struggled with his identity at a very young age.

Oppenheimer was clearly academically gifted and attended Harvard, but it wasn’t that easy. His time at Harvard was ruined by the shadows of antisemitism, though he still managed to graduate summa cum laude in 1925. Seeking further knowledge, he ventured to England in 1926 to study at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. However, grappling with mental health challenges led him to be put on probation and fail his laboratory work. 

As the years unfolded, Oppenheimer found his rhythm in academia. In 1926, he collaborated with Max Born at Göttingen University, forging connections with renowned physicists. This period marked the birth of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, a pivotal addition to quantum molecular theory. He was only in his young twenties but making strides in the field of science. Later, his commitment to education led him to teach at both the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology. 

As the 1930s unfolded, Oppenheimer’s political interests took root, leading him to collaborate with prominent scientists like Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard on developing a nuclear weapon. Nazi Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland heightened the weapon’s urgency. Oppenheimer was tasked with overseeing the laboratory that became the foundation for the Manhattan Project—a US Army initiative focused on harnessing atomic energy for military use. His decision to lead was unexpected, given his left-leaning political stance and inexperience. 

Little did Oppenheimer know that his decision to lead the Manhattan Project would shape his legacy. But what exactly was the Manhattan Project? And what was Oppenheimer’s role in it? This project started in New Mexico in 1942, but by 1945, the team had grown to over 6,000, including talented scientists who had escaped Europe’s oppressive regimes. They all had one goal: to understand a newly discovered process involving uranium-235.

Oppenheimer and his team of scientists put in tremendous effort for Project Manhattan, and it all reached a climax on July 16, 1945. They triggered the world’s first nuclear explosion in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert, calling it “Trinity.” This event deeply impacted the team. Oppenheimer remembered a line from the Bhagavad Gita that compared the explosion’s brilliance to a thousand suns. He even uttered these haunting words, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

In the movie, the government wasn’t sure about Oppenheimer’s communist ties at first. But they chose to trust him because he was the right person for the job. This decision led to a whole town of scientists and their families working on the first nuclear bomb in Los Alamos. The big explosion they created, called Trinity, was a success. But sadly, it caused a lot of harm to the Indigenous people living nearby.

Two super powerful bombs were dropped. The first one was called Little Boy because it was smaller. But it caused massive damage. The bomb was as heavy as a car and exploded with the power of 15,000 tons of TNT over Hiroshima. About 80,000 people died right away, including 20,000 soldiers. After falling for 44 seconds, the bomb exploded high above the city, making a blinding flash and a super hot fireball.

After Oppenheimer and his team succeeded in making the atomic bomb, he initially felt happy about it. According to Ray Monk’s book, physicist Isidor Rabi described Oppenheimer’s walk as confident and triumphant. However, Oppenheimer’s feelings began to shift. When Nagasaki was destroyed, he started to feel guilty and sorry, thinking the final explosion wasn’t needed. This change upset President Harry Truman during a meeting, but Oppenheimer couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. 

Oppenheimer’s name was little-known during his initial work on the atomic bombs, thanks to the Manhattan Project’s secrecy. However, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought him into the spotlight, making everyone talk about the event and the person behind it. Following the explosion, he became the Chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The Soviet Union quickly caught up, pushing the US to create a stronger bomb. Despite his doubts, Oppenheimer kept moving forward.

Oppenheimer’s thoughts about the hydrogen bomb led to troubles. This made him political enemies, like Strauss, when he embarrassed him before Congress when their differing opinions arose regarding exporting radioisotopes. Oppenheimer said that exporting radioactive materials wasn’t as important as electronics but more important than vitamins. This caused Strauss to see Oppenheimer as a danger to American security. He held discussions with President Eisenhower, expressing that he couldn’t effectively fulfill his role at the AEC if Oppenheimer remained involved. 

Leading the development of the infamous nuclear bomb, Oppenheimer’s later opposition drew mixed reactions. His role in the project sparked controversies, and allegations of communist sympathies and Soviet support gained traction, leading to the 1954 AEC hearing that publicly humiliated him and ruined his reputation. His event effectively ended his involvement in government and policy matters. In 1963, Oppenheimer had a chance for redemption with the Enrico Fermi Award from President Kennedy, but JFK’s assassination delayed it until President Johnson.

When Oppenheimer was a young physics professor at Berkeley, he was introduced to radical political beliefs and communist ideas. This is where it’s believed that he developed his left-wing politics. He also met a young woman by the name of Jean Tatlock, who lived nearby because she was studying at Stanford Medical School. This began a new era for him, full of love and exploration, before he became involved in the Manhattan Project. 

Many accused Oppenheimer of being a communist, and while he wasn’t ever officially a part of the Communist Party, many people close to him were, including this woman, Katherine “Kitty” Puening, a fellow Berkeley student. She was married but ended up having an affair with Oppenheimer, and they eventually got married and had their own children. Though Oppenheimer would become a household name during that time, she didn’t like the attention. 

While many people think that the hearings were the biggest tragedy in Oppenheimer’s life, those who were closest to him know that the true sadness was his unrealized potential for greatness. His friends understood that he was incredibly smart but sometimes found it hard to focus and see things through. They thought he could be just as renowned as Einstein, but his fate was quite different—his days as a scientist were over. 

Oppenheimer’s kids struggled in life, given their mom struggled with alcoholism and their dad also struggled with mental health. Peter, the eldest of Oppenheimer’s children, wrestled with anxiety and found comfort more so in his father’s secretary rather than his own mother. Unlike his father, Peter didn’t excel in academics and faced difficulties at school. After Oppenheimer’s passing, Peter returned to the family’s ranch in New Mexico, working as a carpenter.

Contemplating the AEC hearing, Isaac Rabi, Oppenheimer’s close physicist friend, mourned how Oppenheimer was treated. He insisted that Oppenheimer was just a man of science and was ruined by the fighting and politics brought into it. Though there were many hardships he overcame, it was the chain-smoking that eventually claimed Oppenheimer’s life. In 1967, he passed away from throat cancer. Even though he had passed, people still had things to say about him. 

Oppenheimer’s intricate role in shaping history has transformed him into a captivating muse for the entertainment world. Beyond the much-anticipated film by Christopher Nolan, his life has been a canvas for diverse art forms – from cinema to stage. The 1980 BBC series Oppenheimer earned acclaim with three BAFTA Television Awards, while the documentary The Day After Trinity, released the same year, vied for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was released the same week as the acclaimed Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, which people all over the world are rushing to see back to back. It has brought a new phenomenon called “Barbenheimer.” On opening day, crowds flocked to the theaters, and within a week, both movies crossed the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales. The three-hour biopic Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy, played a significant role in this incredible achievement. 

While Toni passed away at 32 without children, Peter Oppenheimer had three kids: Charles, Ella, and Dorothy. These grandchildren have all achieved their own successes. Curiously, the family wasn’t involved in the film’s production, yet this doesn’t appear to be problematic. Dorothy noted, “They did not reach out to us, and the family did not contribute to the creation of the movie or the narrative. It’s an artistic project that Nolan is doing on his own terms.” 

Oppenheimer’s legacy is a mix of remarkable scientific achievements and deep ethical questions. He’s known for leading the creation of the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project, changing history forever. But the movie goes beyond this, exploring the tough moral choices he had to make due to the bomb’s consequences. The film presents Oppenheimer’s complex character, showing how he struggled between his dedication to science and his worries about the destruction caused.

Contrary to the allegations he faced, Oppenheimer himself did not identify as a communist. Nevertheless, his spouse, brother, close companion, and even his mistresses had connections to or a history with communism. Set against the backdrop of the 1950s Red Scare, being associated with communists, combined with Oppenheimer’s advocacy for causes like minimum wage, racial integration, and fighting Fascists in Spain during the 1930s, his career was bound to be jeopardized. 

Oppenheimer and Einstein shared a special bond, even though they held differing views on the emerging quantum physics theories. These theories contradicted Einstein’s own ideas, yet they were later confirmed through experiments. Both scientists believed that creating the atomic bomb was imperative to halt Hitler’s progress, with Einstein actively advocating this idea to FDR. However, due to Einstein’s left-leaning political leanings, the U.S. hesitated to involve him closely in the bomb’s development. 

Amidst the parade of physicists, another figure stands out: Werner Heisenberg, a German quantum physics trailblazer. He embarked on a mission to develop an A-bomb for Hitler, but his leadership failed compared to Oppenheimer’s. Oppenheimer’s concern about Germany’s nuclear potential and Heisenberg’s bomb project led to intriguing encounters between the two. When Oppenheimer discovered Heisenberg’s Nazi-led bomb pursuit, he expedited the Manhattan Project, and it was a race of who could create one first. 

Oppenheimer’s quirks were quite something. He gave his first big academic talk at only twelve years old and mastered languages like Greek, Latin, and even Dutch in six weeks for a nuclear physics lecture. He nearly got expelled from Cambridge for seemingly poisoning a teacher’s apple but grabbing it before it could be eaten. While teaching in Berkeley, he took a date to a hill for the view but walked away and left, forgetting she was there.  

The new Oppenheimer movie doesn’t show the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies directly, focusing instead on the moral question of their necessity to end the war. Nolan explained this choice, stating that deviating from Oppenheimer’s experience would compromise the storytelling. He learned about the bombings from the radio, just like everyone else, Nolan added. However, viewers took this as disregarding Japanese civilians who were affected by those horrible bombs and instead brushed over it. 

Another well-known physicist of that time was no other than Albert Einstein. While many compared Oppenhaimer’s academic abilities to that of Einstein’s, he didn’t quite live up to the same potential. Einstein’s discoveries changed how we understand the universe. You might know about his famous equation E=mc², but his personal life, relationship with his kids, and how he passed away might be new. And what about his connection with Oppenheimer?

Born in Germany on March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein’s parents were unsure of him. At birth, he looked different from other babies, leading his parents to worry about a potential illness.  Despite being born prematurely, he weighed a healthy seven pounds and six ounces.  His plumpness concerned his grandmother, who thought he was “much too fat.” More concerning was his huge and oddly shaped head. His parents were seriously concerned there was something wrong. 

Did you know that Einstein, the renowned physicist, suffered from what’s now known as ‘Einstein Syndrome’? About one in ten children are late-talkers, often wrongly associated with intellectual challenges. Einstein himself couldn’t construct full sentences until he was five, even repeating them and talking to himself. His parents were extremely worried and thought he might struggle with mental issues, but he proved them wrong, and soon enough, his genius shone through.

There’s a widespread myth that Albert Einstein failed math in school, but it’s far from the truth. This heartening narrative of overcoming struggles isn’t accurate for the young math genius. Einstein, even as a young student, delved into calculus at just 12 years old and was way ahead of his classmates. Preferring solitude, he engaged with puzzles and math books over people. He even taught himself Euclidean geometry and algebra during one summer. 

Einstein’s academic journey took an interesting turn due to his rebellious nature. He clashed with strict Munich teachers, prompting his relocation to Switzerland in 1896 at 17. Enrolling in Zurich’s Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, he embraced the city’s liberal atmosphere. Switzerland offered a break from German nationalism and military conscription, aligning with Einstein’s pacifist ideals. Renouncing his German citizenship, he resided in Switzerland for five years before gaining Swiss citizenship by naturalization. 

Despite his brilliance, Einstein grappled with unemployment for two years. Two brief teaching stints marked this phase. First, he filled in as a substitute teacher at Technikum Winterthur, guiding electrical engineering students in math and geometry during a colleague’s military absence. Soon after, he became a private tutor in Schaffhausen, teaching engineering to an English pupil, but left after five months. He was in need of work, so what did he do?

At five, Einstein began playing the violin, though he didn’t appreciate the classics yet. His teenage years brought a love for Mozart and mastery of Beethoven’s violin sonatas by seventeen years old. Music was a shared bond with his violinist mother, often performing duets together. As he aged, music’s grip on him tightened. When scientific hurdles overwhelmed him, he’d seek refuge in the violin, often finding his inspiration and answers while playing music. 

In Switzerland, Einstein discovered sailing and named his boat Tinef, meaning “little piece of junk.” After work, he’d escape on Tinef, connecting with nature like he did with physics. He enjoyed sailing with Suzanne Markwalder, his landlord’s daughter and shared it would bring him a sense of calm and quiet joy. Yet, sometimes it would become a problem because Tinef wasn’t a dependable sailboat, and Einstein actually didn’t know how to swim. 

Back in 1905, when Einstein was just 26 years old, he had an incredibly productive year. They even call it his “miracle year.” During this time, he finished his Ph.D. at the University of Zürich and wrote four important papers. These papers changed the way we understand the world of physics. He talked about things like how tiny particles move, the special theory of relativity, and how light works in the photoelectric effect.