Inside The Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk (PDF)

Description

J. Robert Oppenheimer is among the most contentious and important figures of the twentieth century. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb – a breakthrough which was to have eternal ramifications for mankind, and made Oppenheimer the ‘father of the Bomb’.But his was not a simple story of assimilation, scientific success and world fame. A complicated and fragile personality, the implications of the discoveries at Los Alamos were to weigh heavily upon him. Having formed suspicious connections in the 1930s, in the wake of the Allied victory in World War Two, Oppenheimer’s attempts to resist the escalation of the Cold War arms race would lead many to question his loyalties – and set him on a collision course with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunters.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐It can be argued that after Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer was the most important physicist in twentieth century America. While many very good biographies of Oppenheimer have been written, What separates ‘A life inside the Center’ from others is this- Ray Monk looks at Oppenheimer as a Physicist. Science is at the core of this book- as it was at the core of Oppenheimer’s life. The emphasis on science makes the biography ring more true as a picture of the public and private man.Not that Monk dodges the controversies that surrounded Oppenheimer’s life. He is frank about Oppenheimer’s political associations, his lack of candor with the US government on many occasions, and, his willingness to sometimes sacrifice others on the alter of his fame.Nonetheless, the biography is balanced. Monk also looks at Oppenheimer’s brilliance as a scientist, his determination to make American Physics relevant and his service as the Director of the Atomic Bomb project. Monk marvels at how this life long introvert became a manger, a confessor and a motivator to a group of disparate scientists from all over the world. He rose to the task, Monk contends, because he deeply wanted the United States, not Germany, to have access to the super weapon that could win the war.Another interesting attitude that Monk adapts is a lack of pity for Oppenheimer after his security clearance was pulled in 1953.Many other biographers have treated this as a seminal tragedy in Oppenheimer’s existence. While Monk deals with the public fallout, he contends that Oppenheimer still had important academic work to do after losing his clearance, and that his life was not over.Having read several other biographies of Robert Oppenheimer, it is easy to say that this is the one to be read if a reader is only going to read one.

⭐This was a wonderful biography, full of fascinating bits of information not only about Oppenheimer but just as much about the times he lived in. I’ve read quite a few books about that era, including another biography of Oppenheimer, and this one just stood out.I would distinguish this biography from typical ones in three ways:(1) There are long but fascinating digressions into other key people. The world of Manhattan in the 19th century is brilliantly limned, for example; Grove is discussed nicely; the milieu of Harvard is nicely drawn.(2) There is a considerable detail about Oppenheimer. The author seems to have completely mastered his subject. Yet the stories are all carefully sourced and seem persuasive.(3) The prose itself is elegant and well-written.I had two complaints about the book, however.First, I felt that the author took an unfairly supportive attitude towards Oppenheimer and an unfairly critical stance against his detractors in the matter of the security clearance. In hindsight, we know that Oppenheimer was blameless in the security leaks at the time, but given that he was certainly less than candid, to say the least, in the past; and given that the security leaks were of a distinctly dramatic nature, it is hardly unreasonable to expect security to err on the side of caution in the granting of a clearance. Although Monk lays out the facts for both sides, he is, perhaps understandably given his affection for such a brilliant and sympathetic man, somewhat uncharitable to those on the opposing side.Second, for some reason I did find the last 20% of the book, after the security hearings, not that interesting, and I sort of skimmed over a lot of it.Be that as it may, I really enjoyed this book, certainly one of the best few biographies I have ever read. My Kindle copy is full of notes and highlighting of interesting facts (I loved the way Oppenheimer didn’t go back East at one point partly because he missed the great California wines!). I am a bit unclear, however, how any future authors who do a biography of anyone at all can meet the incredible standard of deep and broad research that Monk brought to this project.

⭐I was not interested in yet another biography on a physicist or a mathematician or a scientist, so I thought I would quickly jump to the chapter “Los Alamos.” But I then saw “In On The Secret” and knew I would have to go back one chapter. And, yes, then I saw “Harvard.” And that’s where I finally started. Though I had to peek back at some earlier chapters to identify some personalities.I thought this would be a dry book on Oppenheimer: wow, was I surprised. Ray Monk spends three pages on George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” and how that may have affected Oppenheimer. And who ever would have thought a biography on Oppenheimer would include a reference to Garsington, a literary salon across town from London’s Bloomsbury?Outside of a few tourist books in New England, I never thought I would see a reference to Cape Ann, a rocky peninsula north of Boston.Yes, I was quite surprised. I think folks who enjoy literature would enjoy this book more than they might imagine.Best of all: written with absolute clarity. Fine, fine writing.

⭐This is one of the best books I have read for years. By far the best book on Oppenheimer. Extremely well written – I loved the authos style so much that I immediately bought his book on Witgenstein.I loved the statement from Groves and others that the Russians would not get a nuclear weapon as they could not make a jeep. Much the same statement in the new P J ORourke book.

⭐Monk spent over a decade working on this book and it shows. The detail in the descriptions of the events that defined the like of not just Oppenheimer but those closest to him is rare in biographies.The book is successful in painting a picture of the historical context from which Oppenheimer and his contemporaries emerged in the United States. The book also weaves a variety of factors that interplayed in order to shape the life of the troubled physicist and those who worked with him.To a non-expert, the physics in the book is incredibly difficult to follow and one might be forgiven for questioning whether the details of some of the problems Oppenheimer was working on really contribute much to the story. However, to skim over or ignore the incredible discoveries being made in the field that was at the heart of the man’s life would be a criminal omission, as would to reduce Oppenheimer’s work to the Manhattan Project, which, although immeasurably important, only took up a relatively small part of his life.It is worth the effort to gain some grasp of the work undertaken, overseen and hungrily studied by Oppenheimer. This is in part because it is so fascinating but also because one cannot understand the mind of the man without understanding the ideas which fascinated him.

⭐On starting this book I knew absolutely nothing about physics. On finishing this book I cannot pretend to know much more. However I could not put this book down. It’s so extraordinarily interesting. I often stopped to view YouTube videos otherwise it would have been pointless reading about neutrons, electrons and protons. I bought the book with the idea of learning about Oppenheimer, and however fascinating he was, the history and advances in quantum physics during his lifetime was amazingly interesting. I had no idea how closely quantum physics and the origins of life are so intertwined. I’m 69, this should be taught at school.

⭐This is indeed a monumental work which makes it at once quite hard to read but ultimately extremely informative and enjoyable. I knew nothing, for example, of his work on what are now called black holes.For me the prinicipal initial attraction was to find out more about the Manhattan Project and his role in it.However, the book is so much more than that. For example, much of the early part of the book is spent on Oppenheimer’s sense of alienation due to his Jewishness. I knew about his attempt at murder while at Cambridge and am left none the wiser about this event, surprisingly so given the exhaustive treatment of other aspects of his life. It seems to be something for which no rational explanation is possible.A major focus of the book is on the events of 1954 and what is described as his humiliation following removal of his security clearance. The brief conversation with his friend and colleague Chevalier is at the core of this. I found the break in the narrative in the middle of the book dealing with subsequent security matters too much and confess to skipping page after page in eagerness to find out about the progress at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer’s untruthful account of the conversation with Chevalier is portrayed as every bit as mysterious as the poisoned apple incident but I think can be rationalised thus: 1. he should have reported it right away but did not to protect his friend. 2. When later asked about it he still wanted to protect Chevalier and saw the necessity of alerting the security services about the Russian agent Eltenton. 3. He got trapped in his own web of deceit by embellishing the story.This view of events which explains what is otherwise weird and bewildering does not seem to be considered in this book which I find surprising. If it is included in the pages I skipped then I am extremely embarrassed!It is an odd thing that such a brilliant man of independent mind should be susceptible to things characteristic of the age like his ultimately fatal addiction to smoking and the then fashionable espousal of left wing politics.Maybe the best compliment I can pay the author is my eagerness to find out more about the man and his time.

⭐Let me apologise if this sounds like an advertisement, but the book is certainly the best biography I have ever read. Although I understand the physics, and have read other works about Oppenheimer and many of his colleagues, I couldn’t put it down. Neither could a friend to whom I leant it. The book reads almost like a pot-boiler, but the research and quality of the writing are both excellent. I was fascinated to discover all sorts of details and anecdotes of which I was unaware, including yet another brilliant line from Dirac. Anyone with an interest in the Manhattan Project, its protagonists and its aftermath, must read this book.

⭐When news came of this new biography of Robert Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer fans like myself were naturally inclined to ask, “What’s new”? In the past decade or so there have been several portraits and biographies of the father of the atomic bomb, with the culmination of these efforts being Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning volume “American Prometheus”. With so many around, do we need another biography?In this case the answer is a qualified yes. Monk who is the acclaimed biographer of Wittgenstein and Russell has produced a thoughtful and insightful portrait that covers a lot of the same ground as other books but also sheds much clearer insights into Oppenheimer’s character and a handful of key events from his life. The book is titled “Inside the Centre”, both as a reference to Oppenheimer’s wish to be at the center of science and policy, as well as an allusion to his own lack of a unifying center. The book is very well-written and presents a judicious balance of detail and broader discussion. The writing is clear and crisp, although not particularly eloquent, and delivers a solid, authoritative account of the subject matter.Monk’s main goal is to illuminate the central dilemma of Oppenheimer’s life; that of identity. His second goal is to pay attention to those aspects of Oppenheimer’s science which have been glossed over by other biographers. Oppenheimer was a brilliant, complex individual who excelled at a variety of things, an astonishingly quick thinker and wide-ranging intellectual who was as much at home with Sanskrit and French literature as with theoretical physics. Yet he was a man who kept on searching for a core identity that would hold it all together. Monk looks for the root of this crisis in Oppenheimer’s rejection of his German-Jewish background. Oppenheimer sought to distance himself from his father’s identity as a wealthy, highly successful, self-made Jewish textile importer from New York City. It’s not clear why he did this, but it’s at least partly because of a self-hatred engendered by anti-Semitism in America. Later on he turned toward Hinduism, and the Bhagavad Gita in particular, as a sort of partial replacement for his Jewish faith. While the Bhagavad Gita is a book of great beauty and wisdom, it places too much emphasis on detachment and the labours themselves rather than on the fruits of those labours. Monk believes that it was partly Oppenheimer’s fondness for this philosophy that prevented him from achieving things which men with lesser gifts achieved. A privileged and sheltered childhood combined with his extraordinary intelligence also left him with rather poorly developed social skills.Oppenheimer’s ambiguous attitude toward achievement and his capacity for self-doubt was particularly visible during his time at Harvard University, a time which Monk is especially deft at describing. At Harvard Oppenheimer excelled academically, graduating in only three years, but made few friends. His letters from this period provide extremely valuable insights into his core qualities. In them Oppenheimer appears in turn erudite, pitiful, accomplished, insecure and pretentious. They showcase his great gifts as an actor who could project a larger-than-life image and who could mold himself to suit the task and please his audience. These qualities were responsible for both his later successes and downfall. From Harvard Oppenheimer went first to Cambridge where he first floundered in experimental physics and evidenced serious psychological problems. It was only at the University of Gottingen where he flourished and came into his own as a physicist.These were great times for physics. Quantum mechanics was revolutionizing our understanding of the natural world and Cambridge and Gottingen were at the center of these developments. Monk describes Oppenheimer’s early contributions to the applications of quantum theory and his friendship with many of its pioneers including Bohr, Born and Dirac. He quickly established himself as one of the most promising physicists of his generation. Other qualities which were to cause him problems later – his impatience, conceit and arrogance – emerged during his time in Europe. With his quick thinking and somewhat underdeveloped social skills Oppenheimer could hurt people as well as intrigue them. But Europe was clearly where he became a confident young scientist out to transform the teaching and practice of physics.Oppenheimer returned to America with a mandate to establish an American school of theoretical physics that was second to none, and by any measure he succeeded. Over the next decade, at Berkeley and Caltech, he mesmerized a group of students who went on to make major contributions to American physics. During the first half of the decade Oppenheimer read widely but was consumed mainly by his science. Monk is very good at explaining some of Oppenheimer’s key contributions during this period that have been neglected by other biographers, especially his research on quantum electrodynamics, cosmic rays and mesons. Ironically, his most lasting contribution to physics was the early description of what we call black holes, but somewhat characteristically he was indifferent to this accomplishment in his later years. Monk discusses why Oppenheimer never managed to do work of the highest caliber, and locates the reason partly in the diversity of his interests which kept him from focusing on one thing for too long, partly in his somewhat mysterious view of the frontiers of physics that kept him from confidently pushing ahead, and partly again in his interest in the Bhagavad Gita which emphasizes detachment and a studied indifference to the fruits of one’s labours. During the latter half of the 1930s Oppenheimer also became interested in left-wing organizations and activities. This was a common political reaction during those times when fascism seemed to be taking over the world. Oppenheimer’s interest was also engendered by a tumultuous relationship with a left-wing medical student named Jean Tatlock. But Monk also makes it evident that while contributing to a variety of left-wing causes, Oppenheimer’s heart was never really in it. While Monk has a sure understanding of Oppenheimer’s life during this period, I thought that Bird and Sherwin’s book provides a more detailed description of his political activities.Monk’s account of Oppenheimer’s time as director of Los Alamos as well as the technical and political challenges connected with the bomb is quite readable, although this material has been covered to death in other sources, most notably in Richard Rhodes’s seminal book “The Making of the Atomic Bomb”. It was astonishing how quickly Oppenheimer transformed himself from being a rarefied intellectual who had not even led a university department to one of the best directors of a vast scientific and engineering enterprise that anyone had ever seen. Even those who later became his detractors acknowledged his indispensable role in the success of the Manhattan Project. His quick grasp of every issue – from social concerns to the most hands-on engineering problems – and his charm and persuasive powers were on full display here.The one thing that stands out from Monk’s narrative is a concise account of Oppenheimer’s fateful security problems, the clearest that I have found in any source. The basic story is now clear: Oppenheimer was approached by his friend Haakon Chevalier on behalf of a communist with a proposal to ferry atomic information to the Soviet Union. Oppenheimer refused right away, but did not report this approach to security officials. While this may have been justified (since no information had been communicated), Oppenheimer then made up a story in which Chevalier had approached three individuals and not one. He further declined to give the army Chevalier’s name until much later and confused them even more by telling at least one person that the person approached had been his brother Frank. His evasion and equivocation engendered a deep sense of suspicion in the military establishment. The account makes it clear that while Oppenheimer was a remarkably quick study, he was also incredibly naive and completely underestimated how seriously the security officials would take his story and to what lengths they would go to investigate its perceived implications. In an effort to ingratiate himself to the military establishment, he dug himself deeper, and this behavior would haunt him for the rest of his life. The story also sheds light on an ugly part of Oppenheimer’s personality, his willingness to implicate his former students and colleagues to save himself.After the war Oppenheimer was the most famous scientist in the world, a highly sought after government consultant and policy advisor. He stopped doing active work in physics, but still served as an outstanding critic and synthesizer of facts. He was always in touch with the latest research, and as a series of important post-war physics conferences demonstrated, was still considered the leader of the theoretical physics community in America who others looked up to as an incisive and wise teacher. This was especially evident in his selection as director of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.However Oppenheimer got seduced by power. The same charm and persuasion that made him such an effective leader at Berkeley and Los Alamos also made him powerful enemies in the military and the government, most notably Edward Teller and Lewis Strauss. His opposition to the hydrogen bomb, which was ambiguous in any case, was construed by his enemies as evidence of disloyalty or a lapse of judgement at the very least; it did not matter that many other prominent scientists opposed the hydrogen bomb on sound principles, and it also did not matter that Oppenheimer was a proponent of tactical nuclear weapons. On one hand his enemies were simply jealous since they did not have the kind of influence that he had, but they were certainly helped by his arrogance and lack of diplomacy and compromise, not to mention the inconsistencies in the story he had told security officials at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer also refused to see what direction the winds were blowing and was too enamored of his position in Washington to consider retiring from policy matters, leading Einstein to wisely point out that “Oppenheimer’s problem is that he loves a woman who does not love him; the United States Government”. Ultimately what Oppenheimer’s adversaries did was inexcusable, but he made it easier for them. Monk crafts a careful and clear narrative of world events and Oppenheimer’s own actions that led to his shameful security hearing in 1954. The trial was rigged against Oppenheimer from the start and the decision to oust him from power had already been made; it turned out to be the kind of show trial prevalent in the same Soviet Union which its architects so ostensibly detested. It is painful to read through the proceedings, and the episode will always be a blot on the political history of this country. The most perverse irony in all this is that time after time, ever since his days as a student in Europe, through both words and actions, Oppenheimer had displayed genuine love and admiration for his country and had proven his allegiance to America. In the end it’s best to remember Edward Murrow’s statement that “disagreement should never be equated with disloyalty”.After his hearing Oppenheimer’s political influence effectively ended. However he still continued to be the director of the Institute for Advanced study until 1967, a position that gave him access to some of the world’s greatest thinkers. In this capacity he brought together leading intellectuals from both the natural and the social sciences. He also remained a highly sought after speaker and writer, regarded as an authoritative voice on the relationship between science and society. His mastery of the English language is especially evident in his transcribed speeches. In the 1960s, as a gesture of political rehabilitation he was awarded the Atomic Energy Commission’s Enrico Fermi award, and he also lived long enough to see Teller and Strauss being shamed and ostracized by the scientific and political communities. Oppenheimer died of throat cancer in 1967, still a famous man, but still striving to be at the center of things.In summary then, Monk has written a fine biography of this complex, brilliant and flawed man, one of the most important individuals of the twentieth century. For those not familiar with Oppenheimer, it’s as good a starting point as any other. For the rest, it’s still a valuable resource that very clearly illuminates key aspects of Oppenheimer’s life and times, some better than in any other biography.

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