Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dgllghr 1070 days ago
General Leslie Groves thought very highly of Oppenheimer, and if you got the stamp of approval from Groves, you were doing something right.

Oppenheimer was dragged through the mud during the red scare and his name is still tarnished because of that. It is ironic and a little sad that he was awarded the Fermi medal once his name was finally cleared because Fermi worked for him during the Manhattan Project. It probably would have been the Oppenheimer Medal if it weren’t for Senator McCarthy.

Oppenheimer beat Heisenberg (also a pretty smart guy) to the bomb and not by a little either. And thank whatever higher power is out there he did.

Oppenheimer was a genius both in theoretical and practical physics work. It is a shame that he doesn’t have a better reputation today. And when it comes to his “campaign”, well, he had good reasons for his concerns. The second atomic bomb dropped on Japan was dropped without the president’s knowledge! He realized that we were not ready for that weapon and still aren’t to this day.