Oppenheimer and the Bomb

A charismatic teacher who inspired a generation of physicists, Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of this brief biography, is remembered today as the father of the atom bomb. It was his creation that brought a devastating end to World War II. The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed the lives of millions, and ushered in a new era in which the potential for nuclear annihilation held the world in a precarious balance for the next five decades.