Werner Heisenberg, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the Bomb
Prof. Mark Walker
John Bigelow Professor of History
Union College
Werner Heisenberg and J. Robert Oppenheimer were two of the most important physicists in the twentieth century. Each played an important role in their respective country's projects (Nazi Germany for Heisenberg, the United States for Oppenheimer) to build atomic bombs during the second world war. Myths and legends were created around both men in the postwar period as they tried to deal with the legacies of the Holocaust and the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This talk will compare and contrast the careers of these two scientists.