The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

James Gleick reviews a biography of Oppenheimer in the Washington Post:

OppenheimerThe atomic bomb would surely have come into existence without Oppenheimer to lead the Manhattan Project, but the label “Father of the Bomb” could be attached to no one else. He felt his responsibility deeply. His self-lacerating conscience let him see with immediate and lasting clarity what his success meant for humanity. If he had done nothing else — if nothing else had happened to him — Oppenheimer would still be one of the 20th century’s great, complex, defining figures.

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