If you’re new to the planet and haven’t heard of “Puben Hemming” — the practice of seeing Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in quick succession, preferably within hours — then the current entertainment news cycle may be unfamiliar to you, as these two movies completely dominate the box office (and the attention spans of everyone I know).
After Barbie , I don’t like to see Oppenheimer based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus biography American Prometheus (In retrospect, I should have swapped them and used Barbie as a cleaning Taste’s Pink Spirit Sorbet), but once I saw it, I found myself with several lingering questions about the real-life Manhattan Project’s work and some of the characters portrayed in the film. For answers, I turned to Cindy Kelly, founder and president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation. Read her response below. What was the occupation of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty?
Kitty, a biologist, briefly worked as a Los Alamos laboratory technician under the supervision of Dr. Louis Hempelman (hospital and worker health), but resigned after a year. A botanist by training, Kitty felt her career was stymied at Los Alamos, and instead she led an active social life. She often hosts cocktail parties for small groups of women to distract from the high-pressure environment of Los Alamos. Kitty was also an important confidant to her husband. Robert Oppenheimer trusted his wife completely, and often sought her advice on a range of issues facing the Manhattan Project. Kitty and her husband built each other on a solid foundation, relying on each other through the program’s tumultuous years and their newfound fame in the years to come. What was Einstein’s specific involvement in the making of the atomic bomb?
Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 explains the enormous amount of energy contained in the nuclei released in the atomic bomb. Because he was the most famous scientist in the world, he was asked to write a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In August 1939, Einstein sent a letter to Roosevelt warning him that Germany might be developing a weapon of immense destructive power and urging the United States to make a similar effort. This effort eventually became the Manhattan Project. However, Einstein was not directly involved in the atomic bomb project. Instead, Oppenheimer took Einstein’s ideas and theories and used them to guide the Manhattan Project scientists at Los Alamos in designing and testing the atomic bomb. What impact did the experiment have on the local tribes and neighboring towns around Los Alamos?
There are pueblo neighborhoods and Hispanic towns surrounding the Los Alamos lab. Many of them are employed in laboratories as construction workers, technicians and support staff. Scientists also employ them as nannies and housekeepers. The Trinity test was conducted at the Alamogordo Bomb Range 000 miles south of Los Alamos, in an area known as Jornada del Muerto (City of the Dead). Members of the Hispanic and Mescalero Apache tribes in New Mexico claim the Trinity test caused health problems for generations living near the site and are seeking compensation from the federal government. Is the town of Los Alamos still alive?
Yes! What is the use of the atomic bomb after it is developed? The lab continues its mission to study nuclear weapons and today employs 000,000 people working on national security issues. The Manhattan Project National Historical Park was established at 24 three sites: Los Alamos, New Mexico, where scientists designed and built the bomb; Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where large factories produced enriched uranium, the fuel for the Hiroshima bomb; and Hanford, Washington, where the first reactors produced plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb. You can visit the historic Manhattan Project site at Los Alamos, including many sites featured in the movie Oppenheimer . 193919391939
