In preparation for the star-studded Oppenheimer movie, we’ve done a bit of research into the true story behind Oppenheimer, including the life of Robert J. Oppenheimer and the shocking impacts of his choices on our present.
Oppenheimer features a star-studded cast including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. and Florence Pugh. With a director like Christopher Nolan (of Memento and Inception fame), Oppenheimer is primed to be an extremely interesting and visually stunning movie.
Oppenheimer is a biographical thriller film about the American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, named “the father of the atomic bomb.” The movie focuses on his involvement in the development of the atomic bomb through The Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test.
Oppenheimer will premiere in Thailand on the 21 July, at the same time as Barbie, an equally anticipated movie.
[Hero and featured image credit: Oppenheimer / IMDB]
The true story behind Oppenheimer
Seeing as Oppenheimer is based on the biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin, there are definitely going to be very true-to-the-book occurrences in the movie. Read on to see what the true story behind Oppenheimer is.
Who was Robert J. Oppenheimer?
Robert J. Oppenheimer was an American scientist who acted as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He’s been commonly called “the father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan project.
Oppenheimer was born in 1904 and died in 1967, aged 62. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry summa cum laude from Harvard University. He later earned his PhD in physics at the University of Gottingen. He also studied at Cambridge University in London.
Oppenheimer was said to have had bouts of depression throughout his life. He had an avid interest in mysticism and learned Sanskrit, later reading Hindu scriptures in the original Sanskrit.
As for his romantic life, Oppenheimer became romantically involved with Katherine (“Kitty”) Puening, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. They later married in 1940 and had two children. While married, Oppenheimer also rekindled an affair with Jean Tatlock, a student at Stanford University School of Medicine, with whom he was involved with in the past.
In 1965, Oppenheimer was diagnosed with throat cancer, due to his habit of chain smoking. He fell into a coma in 1967 and later died, aged 62.
What was the Manhattan Project?
In 1941, United States’ President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved developing an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was initially invited to work on calculations for the bomb; he and his fellow scientists started investigating fission bombs. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American project to develop an atomic weapon during World War II.
Oppenheimer was appointed director of one of the sites for the Manhattan Project: the Los Alamos Laboratory. This was where the first bombs for the project were built and later tested. Oppenheimer’s group of scientists developed two bombs: one named the “Little Boy” and the other called the “Fat Man.” The “Little Boy” was dropped above Hiroshima and “Fat Man” was later dropped above Nagasaki. Both bombs killed more than 100,000 people.
What was the Trinity Test?
The Trinity test is the code name for the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1945 at a site south of Los Alamos. The nuclear weapon detonated for the Trinity Test was named “Gadget” and was a plutonium device, similar to the “Fat Man” bomb detonated over Nagasaki. There were many setbacks in preparing for the Trinity Test detonations, including concerns about the test bomb effects on the environment around the detonation site.
How similar will ‘Oppenheimer’ be to the real story?
We aren’t sure how similar Nolan will choose to make Oppenheimer, but we’re fairly confident a lot of realistic details will be added on because of Nolan’s inspiration from the biography itself. We’ll just have to see how close Oppenheimer is to the real thing, bombs and all.
Book your tickets for Oppenheimer at Major Cineplex.
Praewprach Lerthirunvibul (Praew) can be found crouching between bookstore shelves, surfing the internet for a new niche hobby, or simply holed up wherever the coziest corner is.
