The Americans did to Oppie what the British did to Alan Turing. Instead of thanking him, Truman called him a cry baby scientist. No good deed goes unpunished.

Thank you Kai Bird for such a detailed and engaging biography that took decades to complete. It's a shame Martin Sherwin passed just two years ago. He would've been proud. His co-authored biography becoming a best-seller for the first time ever, and the adapted film becoming a critical and box office success.

Such an apt movie for the right time. 3 hrs flew by in an instant. Kudos to Chris Nolan & the cast! Phenomenal piece of work!

The point at 8:25, “we don’t seem to have many scientific gurus around,” which after 9:00 is equated to Oppenheimer’s public humiliation, is a common phenomenon even today. As a scientist, from my perspective the gurus of science are typically ignored out of others’ ignorance, fear, or self enrichment. Oppenheimer’s experience is simply one of many examples. For instance, environmental scientists have known since well before the middle 1980s, when I learned the physics, about humanity’s impact on climate change. Only recently, with the growing weather-related tragedies around the world, has a significant portion of humanity begun to acknowledge our contribution to this phenomena. The decades of denial wound my heart.

Side point, to the question these men asked about whether the Bomb would put an end to the world's ability to conduct wars: they could not anticipate the role of profiteers. What Eisenhower came to address in his 1961 "beware the Military-Industrial Complex" speech. War makes big money for contractors, and conscience has no place where greed exists. No better example in America's history than the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011.

When news of the first bomb at Hiroshima reached occupied Singapore, the personnel of the Japanese imperial army who were stationed there took fright and panicked. In the various detention camps scattered across the island, allied prisoners witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of sudden pandemonium in the quarters of their captors of three-and-a-half years, who burst shouting and screaming from every door, and ran straight for the jungle, leaving the compound gates open wide, and their stunned captives free to walk tentatively out of them and wander among the islanders in shared disbelief. Everyone had been aware that the war was going badly for the Japanese, from their dwindling rations of food and water, and the increasingly agitated behaviour of the guards and soldiers, many of whom were psychotic by training. There was a real anxiety that a Japanese withdrawal from the island might be preceded by orders to have them killed - random violence, executions and massacres had always been integral to the warcraft of the Imperial Army, which had a fundamental philosophical contempt for any warrior that surrendered in battle, and generally held the lives of both their military and civilian captives as cheap. Although Japan was a signatory to the Geneva convention, its provisions were routinely flouted by the imperial military establishment, under which countless war crimes were committed. On Singapore, tens of thousands had already died, either from the habitual violence or systemic neglect of the occupiers (and across the Pacific theatre, the fatalities of Japanese aggression were estimated to be in the millions) so the fears were real, and all too well justified. Then all of a sudden, a moment came when the oppressors fled in terror. What of, however, was unclear, as no allied forces appeared on the island until a couple of days later. For all the novel terrors this war of technology and industrial production had produced, no-one living at that time knew or could conceive of a nuclear weapon, let alone be able to imagine the catastrophic destructive power such a device could have. The first reports of it had filled samurai war criminals with existential terror; and after 1200 days of abusive deprivation and coercive fear, their victims were scarcely able believe that their ordeal might be at an end, still less conceive of the cause. Liberation could not save the dead, but came just in time for others who were suffering the effects of severe malnutrition and dehydration, tropical diseases that had gone untreated, and the exhaustion of hope. One such prisoner was my father, whose body had wasted to just 90 lbs, and knew from having watched so many of his comrades die that his own death was all but inevitable, until a miracle came just in time to save him. He was very sick, and had to spend three months in a British military hospital in Bombay before he was strong enough for the long sea voyage home. He did recover, physically at least. PTSD was one of WW II's major innovations, but it would be some years before neuroscience and psychology were able to name, describe or treat it, and social attitudes towards any kind of mental distress, especially in men, were extremely negative. So many returning servicemen, and others who had survived intense encounters with conflict, experienced lasting distress that they were unable to acknowledge even to themselves, let alone seek diagnosis, treatment or support. The PoWs who returned from the far east were welcomed by their families, but there was little interest or understanding for what they had experienced and survived in wider society. Dad was a courageous and determined man in many ways, but he was also damaged, and never really recovered from his experience. He rarely talked about the war, but I know that he strongly believed that he owed his life to the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the tens of thousands of deaths it caused. So I've long been aware that I too owe my own existence to the bomb, which is a sobering thing to know. Oppenheimer's story, his achievement at Los Alamos, and his sunbsequent struggles, both with his conscience and the US political and military establishment during the early years of the cold war, have been of interest to me for a long time. He was a complicated man who lived a complicated life. He is a fascinating subject for creative artists, and it's a little surprising that Christopher Nolan is the first film maker to take him on. There was a bbc tv series in the 80s that was pretty good if I remember rightly; and in 2005, American composer John Adam wrote an opera about him (an Op-enheim-era perhaps?) which he titled Doctor Atomic, that I liked so much I saw it three times. I look forward to seeing what Nolan and his cast have made of Oppenheimer's extraordinary life.

There is no public space for intellectuals. The public wants to be lied to. Fortunately there are venues where they can speak and reach an audience that wants them.

THat interaction about Nobel Prize is one of the best dialogs in the movie!

Oppenheimer wanted to show how destructive atomic weapons are but the US administration wanted to show how powerful they are.

Two of my favorite authors. I wish this was a regular segment!! Kai's written many tour de forces but not as much of the recognition...this should change.

We have let money dictate. “We” meaning the USA with the rest made to follow. President Eisenhower’s warning about the Military-Industrial Complex went unheeded. Money has bought democracy so ethics and the common good are ignored. Any mention of social concern in the US is labelled Communist. This is very difficult for the rest of the World.

Your dads service will never be forgotten by millions. Our families story is not too different from yours.

Politicians will always berate Intellectuals, especially Scientists!!

The first film within Japan to address the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was commissioned by the Japanese Teachers Unions. The film, “Children of Hiroshima” was released in 1952 at the end of the American occupation. A somber and poignant film with an underlying message of hope.

Professor Chomsky has been warning us for decades... I hope I leave this life before the Weapons are used again. Thank You Professor Chomsky!

Amazing book & definitely still worth reading if you've seen the movie. Also damn!, Walter Isaacson is doing the interview? I guess he's the right person for the job as he knows a thing or two about Biographies.

I need to read the book. I do think AI is as important today as Bomb was in 40s. Nuclear weapons scare hell out of me.

Agree with Nigel re: dropping the bomb did save lives in the short term-on both sides. But this "winning the war" has actually been dwarfed by the larger "war" between the forces of peace and the forces of violence, chaos, and authoritarianism that could still use nuclear weapons to destroy our world.

It is a great movie, everyone who love physics and history should watch it. Before watching the movie, I knew nothing about Robert Oppenheimer. I really like to read the book.

Great discussion. And a vital one to continue. I'm really anxious to see Christopher Nolan's film, and I want to get the Kai Bird-Martin J. Sherwin book.

What shocked me the most about Oppenheimer, was how unbelievably stupid Truman was.

The quote from the movie that struck me was the lawyer asking Oppie if he had moral qualms about dropping a hydrogen bomb on Hiroshima. Oppie replied he did, and that Hiroshima wasn't a BIG enough target. A city of 1.1M people, was not BIG enough. The only two suitable targets were Tokyo or Osaka which would have killed 7M (including the Emperor) or 5M people respectively. Of course he had moral qualms about the "Super". We ALL should.

War is a racket...

Great conversation.

Back to the future. May we learn from our past in order to create a more inclusive and equitable present and tomorrow.

The tech geeks who are developing AI and other robotic technologies are NOT 'polymaths'...are probably woefully undereducated in the humanities, and incapable of the thought experiments that could foresee consequences on humanity.

If there is one good thing this movie has done is reignite debate among human at a deep level about nuclear weopons and hopefully like in the 1980s mass protest eventually puts pressure on the political establishment like it did with Reagan and Campaign for nucelar disarmament protests in United States and Europe regular million plus marches were common occurrence back then and one day Reagan started agreeing with the protesters and everything changed also another Hollywood also swayed his opinion I do not now if its true called Wargames. Where the message of the movie was the only winning move was not to play the wargame. Apparently being a Hollywood movies nut being once an actor in Hollywodd himself this movie had a profound impact on Reagan and he started to support the Protesters privately and in 1985 he initiated talks with the Russians. As far as I know only John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and maybe Richard Nixon as well were the only American Presidents who finally came around to Oppenheimers way of thinking regarding nuclear weopons after initially being warhawks finally came around the the idea that nuclear arms reductions and eventually total abolishment and must be agreed upon and acted upon and we saw that come to fruition in the 1970s with Nixon and Breznev and then Reagan and Gorbachev in the 1980s.

I don't think groves gets enough credit the pentagon and the a bomb were both a plus projects

Honestly how could Oppenheimer be the most unlikely choice if he must have been one of the few scientists to even be capable of doing it. 3:49

Fantastic book. Everyone should read it and dwell on what you will learn.

I am in full agreement about this scene. When I explain to people the reason why Nagasaki and Hiroshima aren't shown in the film, this is the scene that is the metaphorical understanding of the bomb's effects. The film isn't about who used the bomb or where. Oppenheimer wasn't physically there when the bomb was dropped and the movie is Oppenheimer.

Teller was the guy who really crucified him

7 of our 8 5 star Army and Naval officers are on record in 1945 stating the atomic bombs were militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both…Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Henry “Hap” Arnold, and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Earnest King, and William Halsey.

The subtitle of Mary Shelley's "Frankensetin" is "The Modern Prometheus." Written in, what, 1808?

Why is this hardcover book so hard to find and so expensive when available??

As other commenters responded, the use of atomic bombs on cities wasn't necessary. First, Japan was willing to surrender if they would allow to keep the emperor. Second, if they really wanted to intimidate the enemies and show the capability of the weapon, it could have been used in an non-urban area, where none, or fewer, people would have been affected.

That was cheery

Kai Ford reference to the threat Oppenheimer posed to military budgets, which was why he was attacked and humiliated, is what President Eisenhower was later warning about in his Presidential Farewell Address in warning against the corrupting affects of the burgeoning “Military-Industrial Complex.”

"It [the Nuclear Age] still could end badly." That would have to be the silliest, most understated opinion ever! Absent complete and total global nuclear disarmament, "badly" is the ONLY way the Nuclear Age will end. The only real hope is that the Nuclear Age will NEVER end.

1914-1918 The First World War: "the war to end all wars." It will be over in 2 weeks, they also said. Geo Bush II and Obama both said "war is ultimately about peace."

Curious about how the Manhattan project influenced future collaboration between science and industry in the US. Anyone that has some input about this? One dimension of the project that I find interesting is how they managed (or tried) to stage an interplay between two completely different cultures for information exchange. One governed by security clearence, another one by the ability to grasp compleixity and add value. We try to set up data sharing in multi-stakeholder ecosystems, and it is quite tricky.

Trying to get caught up on this before I see the movie...

Aside from the mispronunciation of “nuclear” meaning “of the nucleas” (there’s no such thing as a nuke-you-lus)… it was a great conversation.

Even South Africa developed nuclear weapons. Then again we also conducted the first heart transplant…

Thank you for pronouncing "Nuclear" correctly! :) It seems to be a lost art! :(

The opening of this is screwed up. Oppemheimer is not about the msnhattan project, it us about Oppenheimer the man. I

rip martin sherwin.

Though his nickname “Oppie” has been brought up several times in the film, top scientist, advocate & martyr are the titles what we lay people suppose to know him, unlike what he call himself as a “death, destroyer of the world”, “American Prometheus” definitely is he, but thanks to Gary Oldman’s US President Truman who’s proactively seized the title of destroyer.

I do not know what year you won the Pulitzer Prize for the book...The question I have is how much different information is included or clarified from the 1980 BBC series " Oppenheimer" starring Sam Waterston? How did the BBC series discover all of the information/sequences that it shared and having seen the new film " Oppenheimer" how is it really any different or substantially different then the 7 hour mini-series shown in 1980?

The real authority is Martin Sherwin while Kai is just a sidekick

Oppenheimer: One last thing; remember the movie The Producers (aka Springtime For Hitler), where Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder intentionally make a bad movie to cash in on an insurance loss policy. It seems we have a copycat here. The dialogue is almost not existent due to the loud, overwhelming, spastic violins and cellos. If you didn't observe this, then you are deaf or didn't see the movie. This movie might get an 8 if muted and using closed captions. Historically it was correct and the acting was excellent.

A Genius.👍

Many of the scientists involved were European born and educated. Very much an international effort, as was the film, mainly British I think....

I disagree Oppenheimer should be called ‘the father etc’. He managed the project but Oppenheimer had no direct discovery as far as nuclear fission and the mechanics concerned

Didn’t America pulled out of the nuclear controls agreement with Russia . Also in the war on terror , there all this talk about small nukes .

They are absolutely capable of calculating the future with AI, but late capitalism worships monetization above all else.

I stopped watching at min 19, I´ll come back after watching the movie

You should make another one with turtle or another family

Why was this topic even taken as a movie subject in the first place?

????? Main supporting character played by Emily Blunt .,....not Florence Pugh...

As soon as I heard about this film, I knew people would use it as a metaphor for AI. Hee hee. I also think nukes should be dismantled. Yes, we could build them again at any time, but dismantling them would substantially reduce the risk of a war because everyone wouldn't be on hair-trigger alert. The biggest danger moments for nuclear war in the last 80 years have been ones of rapid escalation, where everyone was instantly ready to fire the weapons. If they were dismantled, we would at least have some breathing room and wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.

Why do so many people struggle to pronounce nuclear instead of "nuc-u-lar"

Talk about nuclear power stations ready to melt and explode, ticking time bombs.

I dont get how Oppenheimer was a threat to the 'nation's budget' simply by disagreeing with spending more on the hydrogen bomb.

The real authority is Martin Sherwin while Kai is just sidestepping

We’re on such a knife’s edge right now in this conflict with Russia. I know Zelenskyy is just advocating for his country, but some of the demands that they make seem to be from a world where the bomb tied to ICBMs doesn’t exist. In the end, the bomb has and should make us a more peaceful species.

Truman such a badman

Glad all involved seem to be aware of my mood. My situation is disgusting.

Scripture says man WILL destroy himself. Look around. We're on our way.

See democracy now on the bomb and Oppenheimer. And the fact that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was unnecessary and the second bomb on Nagasaki was a crime.

Good points made; we seem to have become inured to the oppression inherent in this Capitalism - gone to seed the Banana Republic we now function in. no accident.

@ 13.18 Not just Putin, but N. Korea.

Ind vs pak no new nuke war both countries progress towards good things

Why doesn’t the film present those issues. But instead the movie gives the audience a Hollywood perspective of klitch.

Love Florence Pugh, but she hardly deserves top billing besides Murphy in the intro here.

It would behove "US" to make sure Saudi Arabia is not building and Atomic or Hydrogen Bomb for the $2B they paid Kerschner.

It's "nuclear," not "nukular."

I’d love to meet ppl in real life in real settings after they rehab me and get me away from this chaos

Less fiction and more reality so I can move on is essential

Nolan’s film did not make clear why Oppenheimer was castigated publicly! It made it seem like it was only about the ‘red scare’ of communism! Not his urgent pleas for peace!

It's new-clee-er, not new-cue-ler! Why can so few people pronounce this simple word?!

The Soviets got the bomb, not the Russians. There is a difference kids

At least they limited my options to ppl with degrees. That was a necessary shift.

Let’s see if all the brilliant ppl involved in this can figure smthg out that works for me bc this doesn’t.

It will be the Us not Putin for first use.

RADIATION…RADIATION…RADIATION…RADIATION…RADIATION…RADIATION.😢😢😢😢😢😢

The idea that if they know who I’m attracted to I lose bc they will use my situation and I have no choice was very 2013-2023. Not now!

Please do a different family 🥺

Oppenheimer was like one of those guys you meet in the bar who tells you he feels bad because he's cheating on his wife, while you know he is really only telling you in order to brag about it.

The man who wrote the book says “nucular”!

A bunch of men took off with my life to get ahead and appeal to ppl who think they did it on their own

Can’t wait to see how much money was generated and who it went to the last forty years on my existence.

You need not worry about India using nuclear weapons because India is a responsible country unlike the USA, Pakistan and Russia. India also has not to strike the first policy.

They don’t need me but I’m glad it’s not lost on all of them how I could have done anything else the last decade and a bunch of my time was wasted bc Eminem ppl who don’t know what it takes to get a degree. And that needs to be resolved so they get there’s no competition

I debated seeing this movie........I have friends from that area and her son recently died YOUNG there from exposure... I hear the movie does NOT address what the bomb did to New Mexico residents......I decided NOT to see the movie ......rather honor my friends and their loss from relatives working there......the movie should have honored local americans who died (and are STILL dying) at that toxic spot on american soil......c'est la vie

America did to Oppenheimer what they will eventually do to Dr. Fauci.

he says, "nucular"

The US does not possess a humane society.

7:37 NEWCULAR??!! How in the world can the author of a book on Oppenheimer NOT KNOW how to properly pronounce the word NUCLEAR.

I’ll never be a para mañana type. So let’s find smthg that works for me.