J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Back in the 1990s, when Pais ("Subtle Is the Lord...") began to seriously consider writing about Oppenheimer, there was no full-scale biography of the scientist who led America's effort to create the atom bomb. But with a surfeit of books about Oppenheimer in the last year, this one comes too late—and suffers greatly in comparison to Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's more comprehensive and cogent American Prometheus. Though Pais, a physicist as well as a science writer, was a close colleague of Oppenheimer's at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies, he is largely incurious about the parts of his subject's life that he didn't observe personally. He does little more than acknowledge the Manhattan Project, for example, noting that it has been covered elsewhere, and dismisses Oppenheimer's wife as despicable with barely any supporting evidence. Some chapters are assembled by lengthy quotes from secondary sources, others by anecdote, some barely developed past outline form; none are particularly engrossing. Pais died before he could write about the political hearings that cost Oppenheimer his security clearance and public reputation. The final chapters covering this period, written by Crease, a historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory and author of The Prism and the Pendulum, are such a marked improvement that one wishes he'd produced a biography on his own. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Scientific American
Before you mutter "Not another book about Oppenheimer," recall that the author of this one--the late Abraham Pais--wrote what is arguably the most comprehensive biography of Albert Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord, which won a National Book Award. In the present book, Pais (who was a distinguished theoretical physicist) once again combines his sophisticated understanding of the science and his insider's knowledge of the man (he was Oppenheimer's next-door neighbor for many years) to produce a stunning portrait. Historian of science Crease completed the book after Pais's death.
EDITORS OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
On September 19, 1946, a week after I had arrived in the United States for the first time, a meeting of the American Physical Society began, held in the building of the Engineering Societies in Midtown Manhattan. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
clearance hearing, public custody, atomic policy, personnel security board, atomic explosives, peaceful applications, professorial appointments Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Alamos, United States, New York, Robert Oppenheimer, Air Force, Communist Party, Shelter Island, United Nations, Soviet Union, American Physical Society, General Advisory Committee, General Groves, White House, Admiral Strauss, Lewis Strauss, Fuld Hall, Niels Bohr, President Truman, Princeton University, San Francisco, Visual Archives, Edward Teller, Virgin Islands, Director's Fund, Manhattan Project New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
On September 19, 1946, a week after I had arrived in the United States for the first time, a meeting of the American Physical Society began, held in the building of the Engineering Societies in Midtown Manhattan. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
clearance hearing, public custody, atomic policy, personnel security board, atomic explosives, peaceful applications, professorial appointments Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Alamos, United States, New York, Robert Oppenheimer, Air Force, Communist Party, Shelter Island, United Nations, Soviet Union, American Physical Society, General Advisory Committee, General Groves, White House, Admiral Strauss, Lewis Strauss, Fuld Hall, Niels Bohr, President Truman, Princeton University, San Francisco, Visual Archives, Edward Teller, Virgin Islands, Director's Fund, Manhattan Project New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 53
books:
See all 53 books this book cites
- Uncommon Sense by J. Robert Oppenheimer on 4 pages
- Peace and War by Robert Serber in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Lawrence and Oppenheimer (Da Capo Series in Science) by Nuel Pharr Davis in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Birth of Particle Physics by Laurie M. Brown in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 53 books this book cites
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
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51% buy the item featured on this page: J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life $18.73 |
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31% buy American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer $12.89 |
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8% buy Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma $11.66 |
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6% buy 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos $10.55 |
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