'Oppenheimer' And The Science Of Atomic Bombs

Short Wave

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🗓️ 21 July 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Christopher Nolan's new film 'Oppenheimer' chronicles the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the first director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and so-called "Father of the Atomic Bomb." The movie does not shy away from science — and neither do we. We talked to current scientists at Los Alamos about the past and present science of nuclear weapons like the atomic bomb.

Read more about the Manhattan Project.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we begin, we have a content warning.
0:02.8	This episode talks about the film, Oppenheimer,
0:05.6	and acknowledges the death and destruction
0:07.9	that resulted from the US dropping atomic bombs
0:10.4	on two Japanese cities.
0:12.8	Here's our episode.
0:14.7	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:19.8	In December 1938, scientists in Nazi Germany
0:22.8	made a breakthrough that alarmed other scientists
0:25.4	around the globe.
0:26.9	Like Leo Zillard, he was a Hungarian
0:29.4	Jewish physicist living in the US.
0:31.6	And almost immediately, he and another physicist,
0:33.9	Enrico Fermi, set out to conduct independent experiments
0:37.2	to confirm this breakthrough.
0:39.8	Nuclear vision.
0:41.2	The first piece of the atomic bomb puzzle, it was possible.
0:45.8	Zillard became so worried that in August of the following year,
0:48.9	he wrote a letter for his friend Albert Einstein
0:51.2	to sign and send directly to the president of the United States.
0:55.4	The letter warned that, quote,
0:57.2	extremely powerful bombs of a new type
	...

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