J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Born: April 22, 1904 (New York, New York)
- Died: February 18, 1967 (Princeton, New Jersey)
Education
- 1925: AB, Harvard University
- 1925–1926: Cambridge University
- 1927: PhD, University of Göttingen (Physics)
Major Positions
- 1927–1928: Harvard University and California Institute of Technology, NRC Fellow
- 1928–1929: University of Leiden and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, International Education Board Fellow
- 1929–1931: University of California, Berkeley and California Institute of Technology, Assistant Professor of Theoretical Physics
- 1931–1936: University of California, Berkeley and California Institute of Technology, Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics
- 1936–1947: University of California, Berkeley and California Institute of Technology, Professor of Theoretical Physics
- 1947–1967: Institute for Advanced Study, Director
Other Positions
- 1943–1945: Manhattan Project, Los Alamos Laboratory, Director
- 1948–1948: American Physical Society, President
Selected Part-Time Positions
- 1947–1952: Chair, General Advisory Committee, United States Atomic Energy Commission
- 1949–1955: Member, Board of Overseers, Harvard University
- 1951–1954: Member, Science Advisory Committee, United States Office of Defense Mobilization
Selected Awards and Honors
- 1941: National Academy of Sciences, Member
- 1963: United States Atomic Energy Commission, Enrico Fermi Award
Archival Resources
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC
Online Finding Aid
Robert Oppenheimer Family Collection (1799-1977), Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, New York
J. Robert Oppenheimer Oral History Collection, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Oral History Interviews
- 1963: American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
- 1966: American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Resources on the Web
Berkeley Exhibit: Oppenheimer: A Life
Institute for Advanced Study Exhibit
BBC 1953 Reith Lecture audio: "Science and the Common Understanding"
Published Resources
H. A. Bethe, "J. Robert Oppenheimer: 1904-1967", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
Joseph Kugelmass, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Story (New York: J. Messner, 1953)
Charles P. Curtis, The Oppenheimer Case: The Trial of a Security System (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955)
Michael Wharton, A Nation's Security: The Case of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, edited from the official transcript (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955)
Michel Rouzé, Robert Oppenheimer: The Man and His Theories (New York: P. S. Eriksson, 1962)
Haakon Chevalier, Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship (New York: Braziller, 1965)
Nuel Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968)
Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1969)
Philip M. Stern with Harold P. Green, The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial (New York: Harper and Row, 1969)
I. I. Rabi, et al., Oppenheimer (New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1969)
John Major, The Oppenheimer Hearing (New York: Stein and Day, 1971)
United States Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1971)
Herbert F. York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976)
Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner, eds., Robert Oppenheimer, Letters and Recollections (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980)
Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Shatterer of Worlds (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980)
James W. Kunetka, Oppenheimer: The Years of Risk (Edgewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982)
Horst Kant, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1985)
Herbert F. York with Hans Bethe, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989)
Rachael L. Holloway, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Politics, Rhetoric, and Self-Defense (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993)
Klaus Hoffmann, J. Robert Oppenheimer: Schöpfer der Ersten Atombombe (Berlin: Springer, 1995)
Michael Rival, Robert Oppenheimer (Paris: Flammarion, 1995)
Silvan S. Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb: Bethe, Oppenheimer, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)
Richard Polenberg, ed., In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Security Clearance Hearing (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002)
Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002)
Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004)
David C. Cassidy, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century (New York: Pi Press, 2005)
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: A. A. Knopf, 2005)
Priscilla J. McMillan, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (New York: Viking, 2005)
Jennet Conant, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005)
Cathryn Carson and David A. Hollinger, eds., Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections (Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, 2005)
Charles Thorpe, Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Cynthia C. Kelly, Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project: Insights into J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Father of the Atomic Bomb" (Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2006)
Abraham Pais with Robert Crease, J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Silvan S. Schweber, Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008)
Ray Monk, Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (London: Jonathan Cape, 2012)
Jane A. Sanders, "The University of Washington and the Controversy over J. Robert Oppenheimer," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 70 (1979): 8-19
Gerald Holton, "Young Man Oppenheimer," Partisan Review 47 (1981): 380-388
John Arbab, "Oppenheimer and Ethical Responsibility," Synthesis: The University Journal in the History and Philosophy of Science 5 (1982): 22-43
Herbert Knust, "From Faust to Oppenheimer: The Scientist's Pact with the Devil," Journal of European Studies 13 (1983): 122-141
Gerald Holton, ""Success Sanctifies the Means": Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, and the Transition to Modern Physics," in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen, ed. Everett Mendelsohn (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press: 1984), 155-173
Natividad Carpintero Santamaría, "Robert Oppenheimer y la bomba atómica: Ciencia versus conciencia," Arbor: Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura 131 (1988): 11-26
Manuel G. Doncel, "Quantum Electrodynamics Settles in America: The Oppenheimer School," in Història de la física, ed. Luís Navarro Veguillas (Barcelona: CIRIT: 1988), 143-154
Charles Rhéaume, "L'internationalisme des scientifiques et la bombe: Le cas des physiciens Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Igor Kourtchatov, et Andreï Sakharov," Social Science Information 34 (1995): 269-285
John S. Rigden, "J. Robert Oppenheimer: Before the War," Scientific American 273 (1995): 76-81
Michael A. Day, "Oppenheimer on the Nature of Science," Centaurus 43 (2001): 73-112
Charles Thorpe, "Disciplining Experts: Scientific Authority and Liberal Democracy in the Oppenheimer Case," Social Studies of Science 32 (2002): 525-562
Silvan S. Schweber, "J. Robert Oppenheimer: Proteus Unbound," Science in Context 16 (2003): 219-242
Silvan S. Schweber, "Einstein and Oppenheimer: Interactions and Intersections," Science in Context 19 (2006): 513-559
David C. Cassidy, "Oppenheimer's First Paper: Molecular Band Spectra and a Professional Style," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37 (2007): 247-269
