The Sad Death Of Oppenheimer, The Inventor Of The Atomic Bomb

From a brilliant boy to a gaunt chain smoking shadow , drowning in alcohol and remorse .

J Robert Oppenheimer lived his final years with full knowledge of what he'd become the arbiter of unimaginable destruction .

Oppenheimer died in 1967 .

More than two decades after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan known as the father of the atomic bomb .

The bombing of Japan concluding World War two in the Pacific Theater proved a sad turning point to the theoretical physicists career .

Oppenheimer was born in 1904 in New York City to wealthy parents .

He was an intelligent and lonely child interested in science , especially mineralogy and literature , the reading and writing of poetry in particular .

He was educated in progressive politics and secular humanism and as a boy , he seemed to live a life of relative privilege according to the National Park Service .

Oppenheimer later said my life as a child did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things .

While traveling in Europe .

Oppenheimer contracted dysentery and while recuperating , he visited New Mexico for the time where the future Manhattan project would be located .

Oppenheimer graduated from Harvard Suma cum laude and researched and studied theoretical physics at elite European and US universities .

By the late 19 twenties , Oppenheimer was employed at both the California Institute of Technology and the University of California Berkeley where he met his future wife , Catherine Harrison .

They married in 1940 early on in the war , Oppenheimer was already at work researching a potential nuclear power .

And by 1942 he was appointed director of the Manhattan project in Los Alamos New Mexico , tasked with the A bomb's development for Oppenheimer .

At least at first , the development of an atomic bomb was inevitable .

As a scientist , his job was to develop the technology .

It was up to the politicians to control it once Oppenheimer witnessed the so called trinity test a bomb explosion and especially after the second of two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan .

His views on nuclear technology and atomic weaponry shifted at the trinity test explosion .

The scientist famously quoted the Hindu scripture , the Babba Geeta .

Now I am become deaf , the destroyer of worlds .

In 1945 Oppenheimer told President Harry Truman , he felt like he had blood on his hands for the destruction wrought on Japan by the A bomb .

Marking the beginning of the end of the science's favorite place at Washington .

Oppenheimer expressed regret over what he helped create and with alleged ties , communism .

He was rejected by the political establishment .

Speaking to the American philosophical society in the post war period Oppenheimer said we have made a thing , a most terrible weapon that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world .

A thing that by all the standards of the world we grew up in is an evil thing .

If there is another world war , the cumulative stresses of his purported personal guilt and public humiliation likely did nothing to curb his habits and undoubtedly helped pave the way for his early demise .

By 1944 and 1945 J Robert Oppenheimer was already described as a heavy chain smoker who could burn through 100 cigarettes in a day as well as consume excessive amounts of alcohol .

Health was reportedly abysmal and he had a dangerously low BMI a lifelong smoker and heavy drinker in poor health .

At the end of his life , Oppenheimer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1965 .

Still , once he was diagnosed with cancer , Oppenheimer apparently found some peace according to Freeman Dyson , who also worked at the Manhattan project , according to the New Atlantis .

Dyson said that as Oppenheimer approached death , his whole demeanor changed .

Dyson said he accepted his fate gracefully .

He carried on with his job .

He never complained .

He became quite suddenly simple and no longer trying to impress anybody .

Oppenheimer was Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University from 1947 until he retired in 1966 .

He passed away on February 18th , 1967 at the age of 62 .