Birth of J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer was born on 22 April 1904 in Manhattan. An American theoretical physicist, Oppenheimer directed the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bombs during the Second World War. A skilled teacher at Berkeley, he had earlier contributed to quantum mechanics and to studies of neutron stars and black holes. After the war he chaired an advisory committee of the Atomic Energy Commission and urged international control of nuclear weapons. In 1954 his security clearance was revoked after a hearing driven by Cold War suspicions, and his case became a famous example of the conflict between science and politics.

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