Christopher Nolan’s historical drama took home seven Oscars, but the film conspicuously avoids Oppenheimer’s intimate involvement in how his diabolical weapon was used – and where.
The U.S. detonates an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia in the first underwater test of the device.
Universal History Archive/Getty Images
For all its praise, the film furthers the dominant narrative of the bombs as a morally fraught but necessary project, with American anxieties playing a starring role.
The words Robert Oppenheimer quoted from the Gita, seen written in dust on part of a deactivated nuclear missile at the Pima Air & Space Museum.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Oppenheimer’s knowledge of Sanskrit literature was more than cursory. He used quotes and parables from Sanskrit texts as a guide to right actions in his life.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Movie tickets are nearly always the same price, whether the film is a flop or a sold-out blockbuster. Why? And how much more does a trip to the movies cost than 20 years ago?
J. Robert Oppenheimer is responsible for a fundamental idea in the field of quantum chemistry.
AP Photo/John Rooney
Remember building model molecules with balls and sticks in chemistry class? You have J. Robert Oppenheimer to thank for that, as a quantum chemist explains.
Packaging excavated radioactive materials at the Hanford site in Washington state.
USDOE
Nuclear weapons production and testing contaminated many sites across the US and exposed people unknowingly to radiation and toxic materials. Some have gone uncompensated for decades.