Julius robert oppenheimer laws formulas and definitions. Robert Oppenheimer quotes

12.11.2020

Julius Robert Oppenheimer. Born April 22, 1904 - died February 18, 1967. American theoretical physicist, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, member of the US National Academy of Sciences (since 1941). He is widely known as the scientific leader of the Manhattan Project, within the framework of which the first samples of nuclear weapons were developed during the Second World War, because of this Oppenheimer is often called the "father of the atomic bomb."

The atomic bomb was first tested in New Mexico in July 1945. Later, Oppenheimer recalled that at that moment the words from the Bhagavad Gita occurred to him: "If the radiance of a thousand suns flashed in the sky, it would be like the brilliance of the Almighty ... I became Death, the destroyer of Worlds."

After World War II, he became director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He also became a senior advisor to the newly formed United States Atomic Energy Commission and, using his position, advocated international nuclear energy control to prevent nuclear proliferation and the nuclear race. This anti-war stance drew the ire of a number of politicians during the second wave of the Red Menace. As a result, after a well-known politicized hearing in 1954, he was denied access to secret work. Since then, having no direct political influence, he continued to lecture, write, and work in the field of physics. Ten years later, President John F. Kennedy awarded the scientist the Enrico Fermi Prize as a sign of political rehabilitation. The award was presented after Kennedy's death by Lyndon Johnson.

Oppenheimer's most significant advances in physics include the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wave functions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer-Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling.

Together with his students, he made an important contribution to the modern theory of neutron stars and black holes, as well as to the solution of certain problems of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and the physics of cosmic rays.

Oppenheimer was a teacher and propagandist of science, the founding father of the American school of theoretical physics, which became world famous in the 30s of the XX century.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York on April 22, 1904 into a Jewish family. His father, a wealthy fabric importer Julius S. Oppenheimer (Julius Seligmann Oppenheimer, 1865-1948), immigrated to the United States from Hanau (Germany) in 1888. The family of her mother, Paris-educated artist Ella Friedman (d. 1948), also immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1840s. Robert had a younger brother, Frank, who also became a physicist.

In 1912, the Oppenheimers moved to Manhattan, in an apartment on the eleventh floor of 155 Riverside Drive, off West 88th Street. The area is known for its luxurious mansions and townhouses. The family's collection of paintings included originals by Pablo Picasso and Jean Vuillard and at least three originals by Vincent van Gogh.

Oppenheimer attended Alcuin Preparatory School for some time, then, in 1911, he entered the School of the Society for Ethical Culture. It was founded by Felix Adler to encourage education promoted by the Ethical Culture Movement, whose slogan was "Deed before Creed". Robert's father was a member of this society for many years, serving on the board of trustees from 1907 to 1915.

Oppenheimer was a versatile student, interested in English and French literature and especially mineralogy. He completed the program of the third and fourth grades in one year and in six months finished the eighth grade and moved on to the ninth, in the last grade he became interested in chemistry. Robert entered Harvard College a year later, when he was 18 years old, after suffering a bout of ulcerative colitis while searching for minerals in Jachymov during a family vacation in Europe. For medical treatment, he traveled to New Mexico, where he was fascinated by horse riding and the nature of the southwestern United States.

In addition to majors, students were required to study history, literature, and philosophy or mathematics. Oppenheimer made up for his "late start" by taking six courses a semester and was admitted to the Phi Beta Kappa student honor society. In his first year, Oppenheimer was allowed to pursue a master's program in physics based on independent study; this meant that he was exempted from initial subjects and could be taken immediately to courses of increased complexity. After listening to the thermodynamics course that Percy Bridgman taught, Robert became seriously interested in experimental physics. He graduated with honors (Latin summa cum laude) just three years later.

In 1924, Oppenheimer learned that he was admitted to Christ College, Cambridge. He wrote a letter to Ernest Rutherford asking for permission to work at the Cavendish Laboratory. Bridgman made a recommendation to his student, noting his learning ability and analytical mind, but in conclusion noted that Oppenheimer was not inclined towards experimental physics. Rutherford was not impressed, but Oppenheimer traveled to Cambridge hoping to get another offer. As a result, J.J. Thomson accepted him on the condition that the young man completed the basic laboratory course.

In 1926, Oppenheimer left Cambridge to study at the University of Göttingen under the direction of Max Born.

Robert Oppenheimer defended his Ph.D. thesis in March 1927, at the age of 23, under the scientific supervision of Born. At the conclusion of the oral examination held on May 11, James Frank, the presiding professor, reportedly said, “I'm glad it's over. He almost started asking me questions himself. "

In September 1927, Oppenheimer applied for and received a fellowship from the National Research Council to work at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). However, Bridgeman also wanted Oppenheimer to work at Harvard, and as a compromise, Oppenheimer split his 1927-28 academic year so that he worked at Harvard in 1927 and at Caltech in 1928.

In the fall of 1928, Oppenheimer visited the Paul Ehrenfest Institute at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he shocked the audience by lecturing in Dutch, although he had little experience of communicating in that language. There he was given the nickname "Opie" (Dutch. Opje), which later his students altered in the English manner in "Oppie" (English Oppie). After Leiden, he went to the Swiss Higher Technical School in Zurich to work with Wolfgang Pauli on the problems of quantum mechanics and, in particular, the description of the continuous spectrum. Oppenheimer deeply respected and loved Pauli, who may have had a strong influence on the scientist's own style and critical approach to problems.

Upon his return to the United States, Oppenheimer accepted an invitation to become an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was invited by Raymond Thayer Birge, who was so eager for Oppenheimer to work for him that he allowed him to work in parallel at Caltech. But before Oppenheimer took office, he was diagnosed with a mild form of tuberculosis; because of this, he and his brother Frank spent several weeks at a ranch in New Mexico, which he rented and subsequently bought. When he found out that this place was available for rent, he exclaimed: Hot dog! (English "Wow!", literally "Hot dog") - and later the name of the ranch became Perro Caliente, which is the literal translation of hot dog into Spanish. Later, Oppenheimer liked to say that "physics and the land of the deserts" were his "two great passions." He recovered from tuberculosis and returned to Berkeley, where he excelled as a scientific advisor for a generation of young physicists who admired him for his intellectual sophistication and broad interests.

Oppenheimer worked closely with Nobel Prize-winning experimental physicist Ernest Lawrence and his fellow cyclotron designers to help them interpret data from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

In 1936, the University of Berkeley provided the scientist with a professorship with a salary of $ 3,300 a year. In return, he was asked to stop teaching at California Tech. In the end, the parties agreed that Oppenheimer was off work for 6 weeks each year, which was enough to hold classes for one trimester at Caltech.

Oppenheimer's scientific research relates to theoretical astrophysics, closely related to general relativity and the theory of the atomic nucleus, nuclear physics, theoretical spectroscopy, quantum field theory, including quantum electrodynamics. He was attracted by the formal rigor of relativistic quantum mechanics, although he doubted its correctness. In his work, some of the later discoveries were predicted, including the discovery of the neutron, meson, and neutron stars.

In 1931, together with Paul Ehrenfest, he proved a theorem according to which nuclei consisting of an odd number of fermion particles must obey the Fermi - Dirac statistics, and from an even number - the Bose - Einstein statistics. This statement is known as ehrenfest - Oppenheimer theorem, made it possible to show the insufficiency of the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of the atomic nucleus.

Oppenheimer made a significant contribution to the theory of showers of cosmic radiation and other high-energy phenomena, using to describe them the then-existing formalism of quantum electrodynamics, which was developed in the pioneering works of Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli. He showed that within the framework of this theory, already in the second order of the perturbation theory, quadratic divergences of the integrals corresponding to the electron self-energy are observed.

In 1930, Oppenheimer wrote a paper that essentially predicted the existence of a positron.

After the discovery of the positron, Oppenheimer, together with his students Milton Plesset and Leo Nedelsky, performed calculations of the cross sections for the production of new particles in the scattering of energetic gamma quanta in the field of an atomic nucleus. Later, he applied his results concerning the production of electron-positron pairs to the theory of cosmic ray showers, to which he paid much attention in subsequent years (in 1937, together with Franklin Carlson, he developed the cascade theory of showers).

In 1934, Oppenheimer, together with Wendell Furry, generalized Dirac's theory of the electron, including positrons in it and having obtained as one of the consequences the effect of vacuum polarization (similar ideas were simultaneously expressed by other scientists). However, this theory was also not free from divergences, which gave rise to Oppenheimer's skeptical attitude towards the future of quantum electrodynamics. In 1937, after the discovery of mesons, Oppenheimer suggested that the new particle was identical to the one proposed by Hideki Yukawa a few years earlier, and together with his students he calculated some of its properties.

With his first graduate student, Melba Phillips, Oppenheimer worked on calculating the artificial radioactivity of elements bombarded with deuterons. Earlier, when irradiating atomic nuclei with deuterons, Ernest Lawrence and Edwin Macmillan found that the results are well described by the calculations of Georgy Gamow, but when more massive nuclei and particles with higher energies were involved in the experiment, the result began to diverge from theory.

Oppenheimer and Phillips developed a new theory to explain these results in 1935. She became known as oppenheimer-Phillips process and is still used today. The essence of this process is that when a deuteron collides with a heavy nucleus, it decays into a proton and a neutron, and one of these particles is captured by the nucleus, while the other leaves it. Other results of Oppenheimer in the field of nuclear physics include calculations of the density of energy levels of nuclei, nuclear photoelectric effect, properties of nuclear resonances, explanation of the production of electron pairs under irradiation of fluorine with protons, development of the meson theory of nuclear forces, and some others.

In the late 1930s, Oppenheimer, probably influenced by his friend Richard Tolman, became interested in astrophysics, which resulted in a series of articles.

Many believe that, despite his talents, Oppenheimer's level of discoveries and research does not allow him to be ranked among those theorists who expanded the boundaries of fundamental knowledge. The diversity of his interests at times did not allow him to fully concentrate on a particular task. One of Oppenheimer's habits that surprised his colleagues and friends was his tendency to read original foreign literature, especially poetry.

In 1933 he learned Sanskrit and met the Indologist Arthur Ryder in Berkeley. Oppenheimer read the Bhagavad Gita in the original. He later spoke of her as one of the books that influenced him greatly and shaped his philosophy of life.

Experts such as Nobel Prize laureate in physics Luis Alvarez have suggested that if Oppenheimer lived long enough to see his predictions confirmed by experiments, he could win a Nobel Prize for his work on gravitational collapse related to the theory of neutron stars and black holes. In retrospect, some physicists and historians regard it as his most significant achievement, although not picked up by his contemporaries. When physicist and historian of science Abraham Pais once asked Oppenheimer what he considered his most important contribution to science, he named a work on electrons and positrons, but did not say a word about work on gravitational compression. Oppenheimer was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times - in 1945, 1951 and 1967 - but was never awarded one.

On October 9, 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt approved an accelerated atomic bomb program. In May 1942, the chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, James B. Conant, one of Oppenheimer's Harvard teachers, invited him to lead a group in Berkeley to take up calculations in the problem of fast neutrons. Robert, worried about the difficult situation in Europe, enthusiastically took on the job.

The title of his position - "Coordinator of Rapid Rupture" - definitely hinted at the use of a fast chain reaction in an atomic bomb. One of Oppenheimer's early actions in his new position was to organize a summer school on bomb theory at his Berkeley campus. His group, which included both European physicists and his own students, including Robert Serber, Emil Konopinsky, Felix Bloch, Hans Bethe and Edward Teller, studied what and in what order must be done to get a bomb.

In June 1942, the US Army founded the Manhattan Engineer District, better known as Manhattan Project, thus initiating the transfer of responsibility from the Office of Scientific Research and Development to the military. In September, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, Jr. was appointed project leader. Groves, in turn, appointed Oppenheimer as head of the secret weapons laboratory.

Oppenheimer and Groves decided that for safety and cohesion reasons, they needed a centralized, secret research laboratory in a remote area. The search for a convenient location in late 1942 brought Oppenheimer to New Mexico, in an area near his ranch.

On November 16, 1942, Oppenheimer, Groves, and the others inspected the alleged site. Oppenheimer feared that the high cliffs surrounding the area would make his people feel like they were in a confined space, while the engineers saw the possibility of flooding. Then Oppenheimer suggested a place he knew well - a flat mesa near Santa Fe, where a private school for boys, Los Alamos Farming School, was located. The engineers were concerned about the lack of a good access road and water supply, but otherwise found the site ideal. Los Alamos National Laboratory was hastily built on the site of the school. The builders occupied several buildings of the latter for it and erected many others in the shortest possible time. There Oppenheimer assembled a group of prominent physicists of the time, which he called "Luminaries".

Oppenheimer directed this research, theoretical and experimental, in the true sense of the word. Here his supernatural speed of grasping the main points on any issue was the deciding factor; he could familiarize himself with all the important details of each part of the work.

In 1943, development efforts were focused on a gun-type plutonium nuclear bomb, called the Thin Man. The first studies of the properties of plutonium were carried out using the plutonium-239 obtained at the cyclotron, which was extremely pure, but could only be produced in small quantities.

When Los Alamos received the first plutonium sample from the X-10 graphite reactor in April 1944, a new problem emerged: the reactor plutonium had a higher concentration of the isotope 240Pu, making it unsuitable for cannon bombs.

In July 1944, Oppenheimer abandoned the development of cannon bombs, focusing on the creation of implosion-type weapons. Using a chemical explosive lens, a subcritical sphere of fissile material could be compressed to a smaller size and thus to a higher density. In this case, the substance would have to travel a very small distance, so the critical mass would be reached in a much shorter time.

In August 1944, Oppenheimer completely reorganized the Los Alamos Laboratory, focusing his efforts on the study of implosion (explosion directed inward). A separate group was tasked with developing a bomb of a simple design that was supposed to work only on uranium-235; the project of this bomb was ready in February 1945 - it was given the name "Little Boy". After a titanic effort, the design of a more complex implosive charge, dubbed the Christy gadget after Robert Christie, was completed on February 28, 1945, at a meeting in Oppenheimer's office.

The result of the well-coordinated work of scientists at Los Alamos was the first artificial nuclear explosion near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, in a place that Oppenheimer named in mid-1944 Trinity... He later said that the title was taken from John Donne's Sacred Sonnets. According to historian Gregg Herken, the title may be a reference to Jean Tatlock (who had committed suicide a few months earlier), who introduced Donne to Oppenheimer in the 1930s.

For his work as the head of Los Alamos in 1946, Oppenheimer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit.

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Manhattan Project became public, and Oppenheimer became the national representative of science, symbolic of a new type of technocratic power [. His face has appeared on the covers of Life and Time magazines. Nuclear physics has become a powerful force as governments around the world have begun to understand the strategic and political power that comes with nuclear weapons and their dire consequences. Like many scholars of his time, Oppenheimer understood that nuclear security could only be ensured by an international organization, such as the newly formed United Nations Organization, which could introduce a program to curb the arms race.

In November 1945, Oppenheimer left Los Alamos to return to Caltech, but soon found that teaching did not appeal to him as much as before.

In 1947, he accepted Lewis Strauss's offer to head the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey.

As a member of the Council of Advisors to a commission approved by President Harry Truman, Oppenheimer was strongly influential in the Acheson-Lilienthal report. In this report, the committee recommended the creation of an international "Agency for the Development of the Nuclear Industry", which would own all nuclear materials and their means of production, including mines and laboratories, as well as nuclear power plants, where nuclear materials would be used for the production of energy for peaceful purposes. ... Bernard Baruch was appointed responsible for translating this report into a proposal for the UN Council and completed it in 1946. Baruch's plan introduced a number of additional provisions related to law enforcement, in particular the need to inspect the uranium resources of the Soviet Union. Baruch's plan was seen as an attempt by the United States to gain a monopoly on nuclear technology and was rejected by the Soviets. After that, it became clear to Oppenheimer that the arms race could not be avoided due to mutual suspicions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Following the establishment in 1947 of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian agency for nuclear research and nuclear weapons, Oppenheimer was named chairman of its General Advisory Committee (GAC).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (then under the direction of John Edgar Hoover) followed Oppenheimer even before the war, when he, as a professor at Berkeley, showed sympathy for the Communists, and was also closely acquainted with members of the Communist Party, including his wife and brother. He has been under close scrutiny since the early 1940s, with bugs deployed in his home, telephone calls being recorded, and mail being scanned. Evidence of his communist connections was readily used by Oppenheimer's political enemies, among them Lewis Strauss, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission who had long felt resentment towards Oppenheimer, as over Robert's opposition to the hydrogen bomb, which Strauss championed. and for humiliating Lewis before Congress a few years earlier; in connection with Ostrich's resistance to the export of radioactive isotopes, Oppenheimer unforgettably classified them as "less important than electronic devices, but more important than, say, vitamins."

On June 7, 1949, Oppenheimer testified before the Commission of Inquiry on Anti-American Activities, where he admitted to having connections with the Communist Party in the 1930s. He testified that some of his students, including David Bohm, Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, Philip Morrison, Bernard Peters, and Joseph Weinberg, were communists during the time they worked with him in Berkeley. Frank Oppenheimer and his wife Jackie also declared before the Commission that they were members of the Communist Party. Frank was subsequently fired from his position at the University of Michigan. A physicist by training, he did not find work in his specialty for many years and became a farmer on a cattle ranch in Colorado. He later began teaching physics in high school and founded the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

In 1950, Paul Crouch, a Communist Party recruiter in Alameda County from April 1941 to early 1942, became the first person to accuse Oppenheimer of being associated with the party. He testified in front of a congressional committee that Oppenheimer had hosted a meeting of Party members at his home in Berkeley. At that moment, the case received wide publicity. However, Oppenheimer was able to prove that he was in New Mexico when the meeting took place, and Crouch was eventually found to be an unreliable informant. In November 1953, J. Edgar Hoover received a letter regarding Oppenheimer written by William Liscum Borden, former executive director of the Congress "Joint Atomic Energy Committee. In the letter Borden expressed his opinion," based on several years of research, according to the available classified information, that J. Robert Oppenheimer - with a certain degree of probability - is an agent of the Soviet Union. "

Oppenheimer's former colleague, physicist Edward Teller, testified against Oppenheimer at a hearing on his admission to secret work in 1954.

Ostrich, along with Senator Brian McMahon, author of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, forced Eisenhower to reopen the Oppenheimer trial. On December 21, 1953, Lewis Strauss informed Oppenheimer that the admission hearing had been suspended pending a decision on a number of charges listed in a letter from Kenneth D. Nichols, general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission, and invited the scientist to resign. Oppenheimer did not do this and insisted on a hearing.

At the hearing, held in April-May 1954, which was initially closed and did not receive publicity, special attention was paid to Oppenheimer's previous ties with the Communists and his cooperation during the Manhattan Project with unreliable or Communist Party scientists. One of the key points in this hearing was Oppenheimer's early testimony about George Eltenton's conversations with several scientists at Los Alamos - a story that Oppenheimer himself admitted to have invented to protect his friend Haakon Chevalier. Unbeknownst to Oppenheimer, both versions were recorded during his interrogation ten years ago, and it came as a surprise to him when a witness provided these recordings, which Oppenheimer was not allowed to review. In fact, Oppenheimer never told Chevalier that he had called his name, and that testimony cost Chevalier his job. Both Chevalier and Eltenton confirmed that they spoke of the possibility of transmitting information to the Soviets: Eltenton admitted that he had told Chevalier about it, and Chevalier that he had mentioned it to Oppenheimer; but both saw nothing seditious in idle talk, completely rejecting the possibility that the transmission of such information as intelligence data could be carried out or even planned for the future. None of them have been charged with any crime.

Edward Teller testified in the Oppenheimer case on April 28, 1954. Teller said he did not question Oppenheimer's loyalty to the United States, but "knows him as an extremely active and complex mindset." When asked if Oppenheimer posed a threat to national security, Teller gave the following answer: “In a large number of cases, it was extremely difficult for me to understand Dr. Oppenheimer's actions. I completely disagreed with him on many issues, and his actions seemed to me confused and complicated. I would like to see the vital interests of our country in the hands of a person whom I understand better and therefore trust more. In this very limited sense, I would like to express the feeling that I personally would feel more protected if the public interests were in other hands. " ...

This stance angered the American scientific community, and Teller was effectively boycotted for life.

Groves also testified against Oppenheimer, but his testimony is rife with speculation and controversy.

During the trial, Oppenheimer willingly testified about the "leftist" behavior of many of his fellow scientists. According to Richard Polenberg, if Oppenheimer's admission had not been revoked, he could have gone down in history as one of those who "called names" to save his reputation. But since this happened, he was perceived by most of the academic community as a "martyr" of "McCarthyism", an eclectic liberal who was unfairly attacked by enemies-militarists, a symbol of the transfer of scientific creativity from the universities to the military. Werner von Braun expressed his opinion on the trial of the scientist in a sarcastic remark to a committee at Congress: "In England, Oppenheimer would be knighted."

P. A. Sudoplatov in his book notes that Oppenheimer, like other scientists, was not recruited, but was "a source associated with trusted agents, confidants and operatives." At a seminar at the Institute. Woodrow Wilson Institute On May 20, 2009, John Earl Hines, Harvey Claire and Alexander Vasiliev, based on a comprehensive analysis of the latter's notes based on materials from the KGB archives, confirmed that Oppenheimer never engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union. The USSR secret services periodically tried to recruit him, but they did not succeed - Oppenheimer did not betray the United States. Moreover, he fired several people sympathetic to the Soviet Union from the Manhattan Project.

Beginning in 1954, Oppenheimer spent several months a year on Saint John Island, one of the Virgin Islands. In 1957, he bought a 2-acre (0.81 ha) piece of land in Gibney Beach, where he built a Spartan home on the beach. Oppenheimer spent a lot of time sailing with his daughter Tony and wife Kitty.

Increasingly concerned about the potential dangers of scientific discoveries to humankind, Oppenheimer joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Joseph Rotblat and other prominent scientists and educators to found the World Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960. After his public humiliation, Oppenheimer did not sign major open protests against nuclear weapons in the 1950s, including the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955. He did not attend the first Pugwash Conference for Peace and Scientific Cooperation in 1957, although he was invited.

Oppenheimer has been a heavy smoker since his youth. At the end of 1965, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and, after an unsuccessful operation, at the end of 1966 he underwent radio and chemotherapy. The treatment had no effect. On February 15, 1967, Oppenheimer fell into a coma and died on February 18 at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 62.

The memorial service was held at Princeton University's Alexander Hall a week later, attended by 600 of his closest colleagues and friends: academics, politicians and the military - including Bethe, Groves, Kennan, Lilienthal, Rabi, Smith and Wigner. Also present were Frank and the rest of his relatives, historian Arthur Meyer Schlesinger Jr., writer John O'Hara and New York Ballet director George Balanchine. Bethe, Kennan, and Smith gave short speeches in which they paid tribute to the deceased's achievements.

Oppenheimer was cremated, his ashes placed in an urn. Kitty took her to St. John's Island and threw her from the boat into the sea within sight of their cabin.

After the death of Kitty Oppenheimer, who died in October 1972 from an intestinal infection complicated by a pulmonary embolism, their son Peter inherited Oppenheimer's ranch in New Mexico, and their daughter Tony passed the property on St. John's Island. Tony was denied access to secret work, which was required for her chosen profession of translator at the UN, after the FBI raised old charges against her father.

In January 1977, three months after the dissolution of her second marriage, she committed suicide by hanging herself in a house on the coast; she bequeathed her property to "the people of St. John's Island as a public park and recreation area." The house, originally built too close to the sea, was destroyed by a hurricane; the government of the Virgin Islands currently maintains a Community Center at the site.

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Oppenheimer Robert

Assistant Lieutenant General Leslie Groves

The name of Julius Robert Oppenheimer is known not only to physicists. For most, Oppenheimer is primarily a person led the work on the creation of the atomic bomb in the United States and was subsequently severely persecuted by the notorious Commission of Inquiry on Anti-American Activities.

As physicist R. Oppenheimer didn't such outstanding discoveries, which could be put on a par with the most important works of A. Einstein, M. Planck, E. Rutherford, N. Bohr, W. Heisenberg, E. Schrödinger, L. de Broglie and other leading figures of physics of the XX century. However, he owns a lot of research that aroused the admiration of all physicists and promoted him to the number of major scientists.

On April 22, 1904, in New York, a son was born into the family of an influential industrialist, a Jewish emigrant from Germany, Julius Oppenheimer. Naturally, no one in the family suspected that after 41 years, Robert Oppenheimer himself would become the father of such a brainchild, which will blow up the world - literally and figuratively. The first ever atomic bomb test conducted on July 16, 1945 in the state of New Mexico, irreversibly changed the course of history.In 1925 he graduated from Harvard University, having completed the entire course in three years, and left to continue his education in Europe. He was admitted to the University of Cambridge and began working at the famous Cavendish Laboratory under the direction of E. Rutherford. Here he was extremely successful in theoretical physics, although, according to him, he failed in practical classes in the laboratory. In Cambridge, Oppenheimer met such leading physicists as M. Born, P. Dirac and N. Bohr. At the invitation of M. Born, professor at the University of Göttingen, Oppenheimer moved from Great Britain to Germany. During these years, he listened to lectures by prominent physicists of the world - E. Schrödinger, W. Heisenberg, J. Frank - and worked with them in the field of quantum mechanics.

In 1929, Oppenheimer, having completed a course at Leiden University and the Higher Technical School in Zurich, returned to his homeland. A young, talented, already famous physicist 10 American universities were immediately interested. Since his health at this time was shaken, doctors, fearing tuberculosis, recommended that he live in the western United States. Oppenheimer settled on a farm located in New Mexico. There was a small town to the west of the farm. Los Alamos, in which later, under the leadership Leslie Groves a secret laboratory in Manhattan County was successfully operating. For 20 years, Oppenheimer simultaneously served as Assistant Professor at the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena and the University of California, Berkeley. Here he studied Sanskrit (the eighth language he spoke) from the famous Sanskrit scholar A. Ryder. When asked why he chose the University at Berkeley, Oppenheimer replied: - "I was attracted there by a few old books: the collections of French poets of the 16th and 17th centuries in the university library decided everything."

Close communication with outstanding physicists left an imprint on the entire biography of Oppenheimer. Working in the field of quantum mechanics, the scientist conducted research on new properties of matter and radiation, developed a method for calculating the intensity distribution over the components of radiation spectra, and created a theory of the interaction of free electrons with atoms. In the future, the scope of his scientific interests moved to the field of atomic physics... Since the discovery of uranium fission in 1939, Oppenheimer has been constantly interested in studying this process and the associated problem of creating atomic weapons. Since the fall of 1941, he participated in the work of a special commission of the US National Academy of Sciences, which discussed the problems of using atomic energy for military purposes. At the same time, Oppenheimer led a group of theoretical physics that studied ways to create the atomic bomb. The first American atomic project was named "Manhattan" or "project Y". His led by 46-year-old Colonel Leslie Groves, a scientific advisor was Robert Oppenheimer, who proposed uniting all scientists in one laboratory in the provincial town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, near Santa Fe. About 130 thousand people worked on the creation of the bomb, among whom were prominent physicists of the 20th century: Fermi, Pontecorvo, Szilard, Bohr and our compatriot Gamow. At the end of 1943, a group of British scientists was sent to Oppenheimer to strengthen the Manhattan project. Participated in the project at least 12 Nobel laureates, present or future. True, Oppenheimer himself did not become a Nobel laureate.

As it turned out later, the decision to invite Oppenheimer to the post of head of the Los Alamos laboratory was made by the military-administrative elite of the United States. not without hesitation. It was known that a scientist in the recent past clearly sympathetic to the left circles and even had personal connections with some members of the American Communist Party. Oppenheimer was a wealthy man and more than once took part in fundraising, the goals of which were later defined as "communist". His younger brother Frank and his brother's wife at the same time were in the US Communist Party. Oppenheimer's own wife was formerly married to a communist who died during the Spanish Civil War. The crimes of the Hitlerite regime in Germany deeply shocked Oppenheimer, who was hitherto completely apolitical. Wanting to contribute to the fight against fascism, he accepted active participation in the work of a number of anti-fascist organizations and even wrote several propaganda brochures and leaflets and printed them at his own expense. By the time Oppenheimer was invited to become the head of the laboratory, it had already been three years since he had severed his former political ties. As he began work on the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer filled out a very detailed questionnaire, listing all his connections with leftist elements that might be of interest to police and military authorities. The scientist understood well enough that the police and the army should and will be interested in his past, since he was appointed to a position very important from the point of view of security and intelligence.

Proving ground in New Mexico is spread over 10,000 square kilometers. In its northern part, on the early morning of July 16, 1945, the atomic sun lit up. Za dva day do etogo pepvaya atomnaya bomba, or kak ee called "vesch" or "uctpoyctvo" cobpannaya nA near pancho Makdonalda of matepialov, doctavlennyx of yadepnoy labopatopii in VOC-Alamoce, was vodpuzhena nA vepshinu 33 metpovoy ctalnoy bashni. Around, at a different distance from the tower, the ceismo-graphic and photographic equipment, as well as appliances that control radioactivity, temperature and temperature, were placed. In a radius of 9 km, three observation points were established, in which the project leaders took their posts. Mounted on a steel tower, a new weapon designed to change the nature of war or capable of ending all wars, was powered by a slight movement of the hand. The work went on with flashes of lightning and thunder. The bad weather delayed the explosion scheduled for 4 am for an hour and a half.

The world's first atomic bomb named "Trinity" ("Trinity"). An automatic device was turned on 45 seconds before the explosion, and from that time on, all parts of the most complex mechanism operated without human control, and only a scientist was placed at the spare switch, ready to try to stop the explosion if an order was given. The order was not issued. The actual detonation was entrusted to Dr. Bainbridge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. General Leslie Groves, along with Drs Conant and Bush, joined the scientists gathered in the base camp just before the test. According to their orders, all the free staff gathered on a small hill. All present were ordered to lie on the ground, face down, with their feet to the scene of the explosion. As soon as the explosion occurred, they were allowed to get up and admire it through the smoked glass that everyone was equipped with. The time was believed to be sufficient to protect the eyes of the onlookers from burns.

Stunned scientists immediately began assessing the power of America's new weapon. To investigate the crater, specially equipped tanks were sent to the place of the explosion, one of which was the famous nuclear researcher Dr. Enrico Fermi. His eyes saw a dead, scorched earth, on which all living things were destroyed within a radius of one and a half kilometers. The sand was baked into a glassy greenish crust that covered the ground. In a huge crater lay the mutilated remains of a steel tower. To the side lay a twisted, overturned steel box. The power of the explosion turned out to be equal to 20 thousand tons of trinitrotoluene. This effect could be caused by 2 thousand of the largest bombs of the Second World War, which for their unprecedented power at that time were called "Destroyers of neighborhoods."The power of the detonated bomb exceeded all expectations. The day before, scientists conducted a kind of tote with a minimum bet of $ 1, which of them will be able to most correctly guess the strength of the upcoming explosion. Oppenheimer, for example, named 300 tons in terms of conventional explosives. Most of the other responses were close to this figure. Few dared to rise to 10 thousand tons, and only Dr. Rabi from Columbia University, as he himself later explained, out of a desire to please the creators of new weapons, named 18 thousand tons. To his surprise, he was the winner.

If it were not for the desertedness of the area where the test was carried out, and not for the agreement with the press in the area, the test would have attracted the attention of the general public. However, this did not happen. Only a few eyewitness accounts appeared in the media. So, for example, newspapers wrote that one blind from birth girl living near Albuquerque, at a distance of many miles from the place of the explosion, at the moment when the flash lit up the sky and there was no rumble yet, exclaimed: "What is it?"

Robert Oppenheimer was very frank, quoting lines from the Bhagavad Gita in relation to himself: "I am become Death, the shatter of worlds" (“I became Death, the shaker of the worlds”). After the war, the father of the atomic bomb complained to President Truman that he felt blood on his hands. His opposition to the creation of the hydrogen bomb, his association in the late 1930s with the communist Jane Tatlock, led to suspicions of disloyalty to his country. In 1954, a court hearing took place, as a result of which Oppenheimer was "excommunicated" from work related to nuclear laboratories. As it turned out later, these suspicions were well-grounded.

According to the memoirs of Pavel Sudoplatov, who during the war years led the Fourth Directorate of the NKVD, in the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1992, documents of the Comintern were found, confirming Oppenheimer's ties with members of the conspiratorial cell of the US Communist Party. Sudoplatov believes that in the traditional sense Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard were not agents of the Soviet Union. However, Oppenheimer's bet on the anti-fascist emigrants was probably due to his visionary pursuit avoid a monopoly on nuclear weapons of one country.

The world's first atomic bomb test was successful. The military leadership of Project Manhattan was jubilant. When the explosion occurred and the smoke that enveloped the area cleared, to the words of his deputy, Thomas Farrell: "The war is over" - General Groves replied: - "Yes, but after we drop bombs on Japan." For him it was a long time ago decided business. The test of the first atomic bomb became an American trump card in a major game against the Soviet Union on the approaching Potsdam Conference. Truman expressed his hopes in his characteristic harsh manner: "If only it explodes, and I think it will, then I will get a club to hit this country."

The Manhattan Project cost the US government $ 2.5 billion. The Soviet Union got the classified materials at no such cost. "I would like to note right away that ... our first atomic bomb is a copy of the American one." This statement was made on August 11, 1992 by the scientific director of VNIIEF, academician Julius Khariton and published in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. "It was the fastest and most reliable way to show that we also have nuclear weapons, - he said later. - The more efficient designs we saw could wait. "

In October 1945, Oppenheimer resigned as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory and headed the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.His fame in the United States and beyond has reached a climax. New York newspapers were writing about him more and more in the style of Hollywood movie stars. Time Weekly featured him on the cover, giving him a cover story. It was since then that they began to call him "The father of the atomic bomb." President Truman awarded him the Medal of Merit, the highest American order. The Popular Michenik magazine ranked it among the Pantheon of the First Half of the Century. Many foreign higher educational institutions and academies sent him membership and honorary diplomas.

However, the fate of Oppenheimer was connected with atomic weapons for a long time. In 1946 he became chairman of the advisory committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, a trusted advisor to politicians and generals. In this position, he took part in the development of the American project for international control over atomic energy, the real goal of which was not to prohibit and destroy atomic weapons, to stop their production and restore the free exchange of scientific information, but to secure US hegemony in all areas of atomic science and technology.

Oppenheimer had to consider the project of creating a hydrogen bomb. However, he actually spoke against the creation of new weapons of mass destruction. He believed that a hydrogen bomb cannot be produced. However, on January 31, 1950, Truman signed an order to begin work on the creation of a hydrogen bomb: "I have ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to continue working on all types of atomic weapons, including the hydrogen or superbomb." He ordered the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Defense to jointly determine the scope and cost of the program.

On August 8, 1953, the Soviet government reported to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR that the United States is not a monopoly in the production of the hydrogen bomb. And on August 20, a government message was published in the Soviet press, which said: "The other day in the Soviet Union, a type of hydrogen bomb was exploded for testing purposes." Physicists from the US Atomic Energy Commission made a report in this regard, which was presented to President D. Eisenhower. The essence of this document was that the Soviet Union produced "At a high technical level, the hydrogen explosion turned out to be ahead in some respects."The authors of the report stated: "The USSR has already accomplished some of what the US hoped to get from the experiments scheduled for the spring of 1954."

The news that The USSR solved the problem of hydrogen weapons, gave the impression of a bomb exploding in Washington. A number of questions arose before the ruling circles. When will the United States have a hydrogen bomb? Should the country's population be informed that the Soviet Union already has hydrogen weapons? For a whole month, confusion reigned in the White House. Exactly in order to hide failures, was raised and swollen campaign against Oppenheimer. They tried to accuse him of an anti-American way of thinking, communism and other "deadly sins". In circles that did not have a diplomatic vocabulary, spoke frankly about espionage. On December 21, 1953, Oppenheimer was briefed on the charges brought against him by the Director General of the US Atomic Energy Commission, General Nichols. It turns out that Oppenheimer's owners never forgot about his past "sins." All these years, military intelligence has been watching him relentlessly. And now "his hour has struck." In the early 1950s, spy mania spread in the United States; the fear of leaking state secrets seemed to become an obsession among members of Congress, the government, and parts of the American public. It was during this period that L. Borden, the former Administrative Director for Personnel of the Joint Committee of the Congress on Atomic Energy, sent a letter to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Hoover, in which, in particular, he noted that, in his opinion, in 1939-1942 ... Oppenheimer "most likely" spied for the Russians. On December 21, 1953, Oppenheimer, who had just returned from a trip to Europe, went to report to Strauss, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Oppenheimer could not be convicted of any criminal or even disciplinary procedure, since by this time he was no longer an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission. The suggestion of his accusers was that deny him access to classified data in the field of atomic research. This was tantamount to condemning the scientist to the limitation of his scientific work. The trial was conceived as a slap in the face for Oppenheimer and all scientists who stand in solidarity with him, as a warning to scientists. Oppenheimer's conviction also had a broader significance, since according to the intention of his accusers and in its practical consequences was directed against all American scientists. He was supposed to be a warning for them against contacts with politically unreliable people, against independence in thinking and expressing their opinions. This is how American scientists, and especially atomic scientists, viewed the trial against Oppenheimer, and this is how they understood the guilty verdict, which aroused indignation and protests among them.

The process brought many scientists back to Oppenheimer. Like other members of the American intelligentsia, they clearly saw how dangerous it is for science, democracy and progress. mcCarthyism. The Federation of American Scientists protested the US government, and the governing body of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton unanimously approved Oppenheimer as director of the institute.

More than 10 years after the first atomic explosion, the place named after the Trinity (Trinity Site) was equipped with a provisional graft. But as the radioactivity decreased, it became all the more accessible. In 1965, from the pieces of black volcanic lava, which is around the clock, an inexperienced obelisk was co-founded with a laconic label: "Try the miracle site, where the first core is in the first "Troitskoe" is still closed to the general public and not because of radioactive safety, but because it is still a missile polygon. Every year, on the anniversary of the event, people are gathered here. To pray for the world in the whole world.

Biography:

Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904-1967), American physicist. Born in New York on April 22, 1904. In 1925 he graduated from Harvard University. In 1925 he was admitted to the University of Cambridge and worked at the Cavendish Laboratory under the direction of Rutherford. In 1926 he was invited by M. Born to the University of Göttingen, where in 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation. In 1928 he worked at the Zurich and Leiden Universities. From 1929 to 1947 he taught at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. From 1939 to 1945 he took an active part in the work on the creation of the atomic bomb in the framework of the Manhattan Project, headed the Los Alamos laboratory. For the next seven years he was an adviser to the US government, from 1947 to 1952 he chaired the general advisory committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission. In 1947-1966 Oppenheimer was director of the Institute for Basic Research in Princeton (New Jersey).

Oppenheimer owns works on quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, physics of elementary particles, theoretical astrophysics. In 1927, the scientist developed a theory of the interaction of free electrons with atoms. Together with Born, he created a theory of the structure of diatomic molecules. In 1931, together with P. Ehrenfest, he formulated a theorem according to which nuclei consisting of an odd number of particles with spin 1/2 should obey the Fermi - Dirac statistics, and from an even number - Bode - Einstein (the Ehrenfest - Oppenheimer theorem). Application of this theorem to the nitrogen nucleus showed that the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of nuclei leads to a number of contradictions with the known properties of nitrogen. Investigated the internal conversion of g-rays. In 1937 he developed a cascade theory of cosmic showers, in 1938 he made the first calculation of the model of a neutron star, in 1939 he predicted the existence of "black holes".

Major works:

Science and everyday knowledge (1954)

Open Mind (1955)

Some Reflections on Science and Culture (1960).

This text is an introductory fragment.

My friends - Einstein, Oppenheimer, Joliot-Curie All honest people, including those who did not belong to the supporters of socialism, have always in one form or another opposed the fact that the monster released from the cage - a nuclear weapon - became the reason

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His name was not Robert Oleg Strizhenov was born on August 10, 1929 in the city of Blagoveshchensk on the Amur River in a military family. His father, Alexander Nikolaevich, fought on the fronts of the Civil War in the ranks of the Red Army, and had several military awards. In the early 20s, by the will of fate, he fell in love

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Robert Schnackenberg The short (but uncut!) And outrageously scandalous biographical sketches collected in this book - from the life of Shakespeare to the resume of Thomas Pynchon - are designed to answer the harsh questions that school teachers were even afraid to ask: what is there.

LEE ROBERT EDWARD (b. 1807 - d. 1870) General. During the Civil War of 1861-1865. in the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Southern Confederation. He won a number of victories, but was defeated at Gettysburg (1863), and in 1865 he capitulated to federal troops. Robert Edward Lee

FULTON ROBERT (b. 1765 - d. 1815) Inventor. Built the first submarine "Nautilus" (1800), the first paddle steamer "Claremont" (1807). Many generations of sailors dreamed of a time when they could set sail without waiting for a favorable wind. This

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ROBERT SCHUMANN 8 JUNE 1810 - 29 JULY 1856ASTROLOGICHESKY SIGN: BLIZNETSYNATSIONALNOST: NEMETSMUZYKALNY STYLE: KLASSITSIZMZNAKOVOE WORK: "Dreams" from "Scenes from Childhood" Where you could hear the music: Oddly enough, "dreams" often sounded B American animated

Robert FISCHER A Word about Robert Fischer Twenty years after Fischer became world champion (he hasn’t played a single tournament game since that moment), he left the chess world, and many of his decisions seemed incomprehensible and unpredictable. Apparently Fischer imagined

71. Robert The Kennedy brothers have never had an unwavering commitment to moral principles. Talented, energetic, ambitious, they are used to taking from life what they like. They practically did not receive refusals from women for their claims. And while both loved their own

Robert Hooke Hooke was somewhat older than Newton. He was born in 1635 to a priest's family on the Isle of Wight, located in the English Channel. Hooke was a very weak and sickly child and therefore did not receive a formal education. In 1648 his father died and the boy moved

Robert In the early spring of 1945, everyone understood that the war was coming to an end. Day in and day out, an unbroken chain of refugees ran through our small town. There were both military and civilians, Germans and foreigners, men, women, children. Many were driving old cars or

After World War II, he became director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He also became a senior advisor to the newly formed US Atomic Energy Commission and, using his position, advocated international nuclear energy control to prevent nuclear proliferation and the nuclear race. This anti-war stance angered a number of politicians during the second wave of the Red Menace. As a result, after a well-known politicized hearing in 1954, he was denied access to secret work. Since then, having no direct political influence, he continued to lecture, write, and work in the field of physics. Ten years later, the president awarded the scientist the Enrico Fermi Prize as a sign of political rehabilitation. The award was presented after Kennedy's death.

Oppenheimer was a teacher and propagandist of science, the founding father of the American school of theoretical physics, which became world famous in the 30s of the XX century.

In 1926, Oppenheimer left Cambridge to study at the University of Göttingen under the direction of Max Born.

Oppenheimer worked closely with Nobel Prize-winning experimental physicist Ernest Lawrence and his fellow cyclotron designers to help them interpret data from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

In 1930, Oppenheimer wrote a paper that essentially predicted the existence of a positron.

In the late 1930s, Oppenheimer, probably influenced by his friend Richard Tolman, became interested in astrophysics, which resulted in a series of articles.

In 1943, development efforts were focused on a gun-type plutonium nuclear bomb, called the Thin Man. The first studies of the properties of plutonium were carried out using plutonium-239 obtained at the cyclotron, which was extremely pure, but could only be produced in small quantities.

For his work as the head of Los Alamos in 1946, Oppenheimer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit.

In November 1945, Oppenheimer left Los Alamos to return to Caltech, but soon found that teaching did not appeal to him as much as before.

In 1947, he accepted Lewis Strauss's offer to head the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey.

Oppenheimer's former colleague, physicist Edward Teller, testified against Oppenheimer at a hearing on his admission to secret work in 1954.

This stance angered the American scientific community, and Teller was effectively boycotted for life.

Groves also testified against Oppenheimer, but his testimony is rife with speculation and controversy.

Oppenheimer was cremated, his ashes placed in an urn. Kitty took her to St. John's Island and threw her from the boat into the sea within sight of their cabin.

), where he takes British citizenship and changes his name to Ernest... Returning to South Africa on September 25, 1917, with the support of an American bank Jp morgan founds a corporation Anglo american, which has long remained the world's largest mining concern. In E. Oppenheimer, he also became the head of a diamond mining company founded by Cecil Rhodes De beers, then experiencing financial difficulties. To this day, the presidency DeDe Beersremains in the family ownership of the Oppenheimer surname.

However, the most powerful creature in the Oppenheimer empire was Central Selling Organization (CSO)also called by the press Syndicate, which eventually achieved control over 90% of world diamond sales. During the World Crisis, in 1930, Oppenheimer bought up the diamond markets and founded CSO... Usually De beers sent diamonds mined all over the world to London by sea; there they were sorted and sent in smaller batches to large traders and cutters.

Harry Frederick Oppenheimer (Harry Frederick Oppenheimer; born October 28, Kimberley, South Africa - died August 19, Johannesburg, South Africa) - Former President of the International Diamond Processing Corporation De beers , in 2004 was elected to the 60th place in the list of "Great South Africans".

Biography

Harry Oppenheimer for a quarter of a century remained as president of the Anglo-American Corporation ( Anglo american) until he left this post in 1982, at the same time he was also the president of the international diamond processing corporation De beers for 27 years, leaving this position in 1984. His son Nick Oppenheimer became Deputy President of the Anglo-American Corporation in 1983 and President of De Beers since 1988.

For a short time (from 1948 to 1957), he was the speaker from the opposition in such sectors as economics, constitution and finance. His negative attitudes towards apartheid were widely known at the time, as were his philanthropic activities and his entrepreneurial entrepreneurial spirit. Also, he provided support for philanthropy in Israel.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he funded the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party, which later merged with the Democratic Alliance.

(born in 1908 - d. in 2000)

South African mining magnate and patriarch of the 20th century diamond business. President of the Anglo-American Corporation, which specializes in the extraction of precious metals, and the De Beers Consolidated Mines diamond cartel. The creator of a one-channel system for the sale of rough diamonds, which contributed to the price stabilization of the world market and increased the profitability of the entire industry. Nominal head of the University of Cape Town, as well as the Urban Foundation. Owner of a fortune of about $ 3 billion.

At the end of the 19th century, when the first diamonds were found in South Africa, prospectors flooded the country. Precious stones began to be found in one area or another, but the richest in crystals were the lands of the de Birov settlers. The farm, once bought for 50 pounds, the brothers Johannes and Diederik profitably, it seemed to them, were sold to a syndicate of miners for 6300 pounds. Very soon they regretted that they had cheapened so much, but since 1888 the largest transnational corporation De Beers Consolidated Mines began to bear their name. The ambitious Englishman Cecil John Rohde became its chairman. The company's nominal capital, which was initially £ 100,000, reached £ 14.5 million in a couple of years. On the one hand, an increase in the volume of diamond production played into the hands of the producer, but on the other hand, it brought down prices and harmed market participants.

To be successful, it was necessary to create a deficit, which was not difficult to calculate. The main buyers of diamonds at that time were grooms. According to statistics, there were approximately 8 million weddings a year in Europe and America. Consequently, roughly the same amount of diamonds had to be sold. After some simple calculations, Rode ordered to cut sales by 40%. Some of the mines had to be closed, and thousands of miners and cutters were left without work. Cecil, however, didn't care much. De Beers kept the market on a starvation diet, which made it possible to methodically raise prices.

The system created by Rhodes collapsed at the beginning of the 20th century, when new deposits were discovered on the African continent, the owners of which were interested in quickly selling their goods. Perhaps Cecil would have found some kind of balance of interests of all parties, but in 1902 he died suddenly, leaving no successor. Not one large company collapsed at this time, but De Beers held out.

Two years after Rhodes' death, the leadership of the once powerful company had to cede control of the diamond production to the board of directors of the new Premier mine. 1907 was marked by a crash in the US stock exchanges, and diamond production had to be reduced. To the great chagrin of the De Beers leadership, in 1912, in the desert on the territory of the German colony - Southwest Africa (now - Namibia), new rich diamond deposits were found. Everything indicated that De Beers had come to an end. Rhodes' longtime rival, Ernst Oppenheimer, was destined to act as the company's savior.

The son of a small cigar dealer from the suburbs of Frankfurt am Main, Ernst began his career as a jeweler's apprentice, sorting rough diamonds and became a good appraiser. At the age of 17, he moved to London, where he worked for 5 years in a trading company that sold precious stones. In 1902 he was sent to the diamond capital of the world - Kimberley. There was already where to turn around, and Ernst began to trade in pebbles. He managed to become a partner in several artisanal artels - primarily in those operating in German South-West Africa. An ambitious plan has matured in the head of the young businessman - to revive the power of De Beers. Naturally, after the controlling stake in the company is in the hands.

With the end of the First World War, Ernst's finest hour came. First, he organized the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa, specializing in the extraction of gold, platinum and other precious metals. The initial share capital was £ 1 million, half of which was raised in the United States and the other in England and South Africa. In 1919, with the backing of financial tycoon John Morgan, Ernst founded Consolidated Day-Mond Mines of South West Africa. This allowed him to buy up most of the diamond concessions previously owned by German monopolies. Ernst Oppenheimer's business style was no different from Cecil Rhodes.

The new economic crisis has played into the hands of an ambitious entrepreneur. A sharp drop in prices in 1921 led to the collapse of the entire diamond industry. New producers of raw materials - Angola, Belgian Congo, the Gold Coast - have simply disrupted the market. When the panic-stricken industrialists of these countries began to sell diamonds at bargain prices, cutters and traders rushed to buy them and soon began to go broke, unable to find a market for their goods. Customers were overwhelmingly suspicious of the record price drop and simply stopped buying jewelry.

While buyers were pondering whether to invest in something that is constantly falling in value, and jewelers were retraining into appraisers of stolen goods, Oppenheimer took his time buying up De Beers shares, which were now worth less than the securities of the candle factories. In 1929, a controlling stake in the company was in his hands. And Ernst set about restoring De Beers to its former glory, following the founding father's postulates.

Most of the mines were closed first. Special planes began to fly over the deposits of South-West Africa, catching single miners. Thanks to these measures, it was possible to suppress the uncontrolled supply of diamonds to America and Europe. Oppenheimer's London Diamond Syndicate has convinced major diamond producers to sell rough through him. Now the prices could still be dictated. By the beginning of the 30s. 94% of the diamond market was again in the hands of De Beers.

The crisis of 1934, and then the war, prevented the idea from being brought to its logical end. The closed mines "De Beers" and the "Syndicate" itself began to revive only after 10 years. But even during the war, Oppenheimer did not sit idle: he negotiated and signed contracts with large diamond producers and small dealers. It was then that the structure of the family company was created, which has remained unchanged to this day. After the death of Ernst Oppenheimer, his son Harry took over as president.

The future "father of South African business" Harry Oppenheimer was born on October 28, 1908 in Kimberley, the city of diamonds that gave the name to the bluish diamond-bearing rock - kimberlite. The home was dominated by an entrepreneurial atmosphere, where the yardstick for success, progress and behavior was making money. After graduating from the privileged private school Charterhouse in England, Oppenheimer Jr. studied politics, philosophy and economics at the prestigious Christ Church College, Oxford.

In 1931, Harry returned home and began working for the Anglo American Corporation, a business founded by his father in 1917, which has since grown into a financially extremely successful venture. It was a good but difficult school. The years of the “Great Depression” became a very difficult time for the company, as the precious metals market was practically paralyzed. Oppenheimer later said that the main items of the corporation's income at that time were previously unused financial assets.

However, difficulties can teach a lot. The crisis has clearly demonstrated the need to ensure the liquidity of the goods and to have free funds available. At the same time, the father's decisive refusal to admit defeat brought up in his son the same perseverance and perseverance. In 1939, Harry volunteered for the front, where he distinguished himself during operations in the deserts of Libya: an intelligence officer marched in the vanguard of the British 8th Army.

At the end of World War II, Oppenheimer Jr. became Managing Director of the Anglo-American Corporation. In 1945, he led a team that was faced with the daunting task of opening seven new mines at the same time in gold mines in the Orange Republic. In the 1950s, when the mines were already operating at full capacity, Harry was actively involved in expanding the corporation's scope of operations for copper mining in Northern Rhodesia and gold mining in western Rand. He was also one of the founders of the first commercial bank in the country and the first "discount house", which in turn gave impetus to the creation of the money market in southern Africa.

A whole series of successes of the young businessman brought the corporation to a leading position in South Africa and allowed it to become one of the largest mining companies in the world.

All this time, Oppenheimer took an active part in the political life of the country, and in 1948 won the parliamentary elections as the candidate of the Unionist Party from Kimberley County. His speeches in the Legislative Assembly were distinguished by the clarity and persuasiveness of the arguments presented. He established himself as a highly respected leader from the opposition, whose views on various economic, financial and constitutional issues were highly regarded.

After his father's death in 1957, Harry decided to leave politics in order to devote himself entirely to the family business, but continued to speak publicly on various issues, always expressing his point of view clearly, decisively and impartially and adhering to a principled position. “I don’t think that the head of a large company should delve into all the details of the political struggle between different parties,” he said, “but I think that if you are leading a large company in a relatively small country, you will inevitably face the fact that you have to work in an environment where politics and business are closely intertwined. This is indeed inevitable, and I believe that a businessman is obliged to express his point of view on the most important and politically sensitive issues, such as the issue of equality in employment rights between black and white people in the country. "

In 1964, saving the country from hundreds of economic devastation, Oppenheimer introduced Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers) into the mining business, until that time almost exclusively belonged to the British. Harry sold his controlling stake in General Mining to the Afrikaner. IN; 70s Oppenheimer became the figurehead of the University of Cape Town and chairman of the Urban Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing education and housing for the country's black population.

In 1984, he created the Brenthurst Library, where one could freely access his collection of rare books, manuscripts and paintings, which Oppenheimer himself called "history notes." In February 1998, when the country was swept by a wave of crime and emigration, Harry announced that "if the ship sinks, then you need to save yourself." However, he himself was not going to jump overboard before the ship actually began to sink, "because he always considered himself a South African." This is where the heroic story of an anti-apartheid fighter, savior of South Africa and a great public figure, unfortunately, ends. As for the history of life! As the cruel and calculating entrepreneur that Oppenheimer has always been, it was more eventful.

As people who knew the businessman recalled, Harry at all times was primarily a businessman. Although, according to a number of responses, he fought to provide his workers with better conditions and high wages, in the first place, in his own words, “business profitability was invariably”. Black employees in his factories always received much less than whites and were forced to live away from their families. And in general, the notorious apartheid government, as Western news agencies assure, kept afloat until 1994 only thanks to Oppenheimer's money and advice.

In 1939, Oppenheimer traveled to New York to meet with representatives of the advertising agency NWA Is. He rode with the firm intention to change people's ideas about diamonds: it was necessary to make sure that this stone ceased to be a trinket of the rich, and became an everyday commodity, without which ordinary people could not do. The agency issued advertising posters showing spectacular actresses with rings and earrings donated by De Beers. The posters said that diamonds add attractiveness and determine a person's social status. The advertisement was aimed at the fairer sex. But it turned out to be no less effective for men who felt like king-conquerors who give diamonds to their princesses. Continuing the advertising campaign, Oppenheimer solemnly presented a huge stone to Queen Elizabeth, wife of George VI, who visited Africa in late 1940.

Harry himself came up with the advertising slogan "A diamond is forever", launched the idea of \u200b\u200ba diamond as an "eternal gift of love" to the masses and introduced into the subcortex of the population of developed countries the idea that it is customary to give a ring for an engagement worth at least three months' salary. He developed the principles of trade, in accordance with which the cartel, which produced the raw materials, that is, diamonds, spent huge amounts of money to stimulate the sale of finished goods - diamonds. Oppenheimer himself believed that a diamond is an absolutely useless thing, and there is only one way to keep its price - by making one believe in its uniqueness, uniqueness and mystical property of preserving love. In other words, he came up with an illusion that still feeds millions of people around the world.

Oppenheimer also came up with another great idea behind the diamond business: the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating reserves - the so-called De Beers stocks - where stones were stored, the appearance of which on the market could bring down prices. Harry was confident that the diamond market should not be spontaneous and should be tightly regulated. Moreover, he took on this mission.

Oppenheimer's clever policies made diamonds relatively inexpensive. In 1960, Harry signed a contract for the purchase of diamonds from the USSR. Russian diamonds are mostly small, but of very high quality. Prior to that, De Beers convinced people to buy rings with large stones, but after another advertisement, the demand for rings with small diamonds scattered on them sharply increased. And it is no coincidence: the cartel began to convince that small pebbles look no less impressive.

Using such methods for many decades, "De Beers" received not only its own benefit, but also gave the opportunity to develop and prosper intermediaries, small businessmen, owners of jewelry stores. She had such a huge assortment of rough diamonds that OPEC could only envy her: after all, the creation of a "diamond fund" is much cheaper than storing oil reserves.

In the 60s and 70s. under the leadership of Oppenheimer, the diamond industry developed successfully and rapidly, and the Anglo-American Corporation became one of the largest international investment companies. The conglomerate continued to expand its diamond and gold mining, manufacturing and agricultural activities in South Africa. At the same time, the mining, production and financial structure Charter Consolidated, located in London, as well as the Minerals and Resources Corporation, which was then in Bermuda, and now has its headquarters in Luxembourg, were created at the international level. The creation of manufacturing plants such as Highveld Steel and Vanadium and Mondi Peipe showcases both Harry's entrepreneurial ability and the fact that he has advocated organic growth through the development of large mining projects.

Despite its enormous size, the Anglo-American Group retained much of the character of a family business, which once again confirmed Oppenheimer's personal qualities as a leader who managed the company perfectly and created a loyalty and desire in employees to work with him. His humane approach to people served as a guarantee that the company was constantly reviewing and increasing wages, improving working conditions. Harry all the time repeated the words of his father, who saw the goal of the corporation in "providing profit for our shareholders and real assistance to the growth of the welfare of the countries in which we operate."

One of his progressive activities as the leader of the South African business community was the creation of the Anglo-American Corporation and De Beers Chairman Fund. The foundation has developed and financed various programs, mainly in the field of education, which, according to Oppenheimer, is a driving force and also makes a huge contribution to the development of the social sphere in general. Another example of such an initiative was the formation of the Urban Programs Fund in the wake of the 1976 Soweto riots, which worked to improve social and work conditions for urban blacks in South Africa.

One of the most prominent businessmen in the world, Oppenheimer was chairman of the Anglo-American Group for a quarter of a century and President of De Beers for 27 years. He served on the board of directors of the diamond cartel from December 1934 to November 1994, when his resignation was officially announced in Kimberley. In his farewell address to the employees of the company's head office, Harry said: “We must believe and prove through our work that achieving success in business and striving for a free and just society are not mutually exclusive goals, but rather two sides of the same, like two sides medals ".

Oppenheimer and his wife Bridget lived at his home in Johannesburg, enjoying an excellent collection of rare books and manuscripts, as well as reprints from rarities, many of which are published by the Brenthurst Press, which he created specifically for this purpose. He often spent time on a farm near Kimberley, where he grew orchids and the country's best racehorses, and at a holiday home in La Lucia near Durban.

But all this time, the "Old King of Diamonds", as he was often called in the business world, did not part with his favorite business, making it a hobby. He kept an eye on Nicky’s son, who headed the corporation, from afar, and contemplated a new strategy for doing business in today's economic environment.

Oppenheimer once said about his father, Sir Ernst: “He successfully solved the problems of his time and left behind in Anglo-American an organization that absorbed his spirit, his strength and flexible approach to work, construction and implementation of his goals, even with circumstances that he could not foresee. And by this, of course, he deserved that share of immortality that any mortal on earth can only dream of. " The same can be said for Harry himself.

For about 50 years, De Beers played the role of the creator of the diamond market - omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. The corporation stockpiled surplus diamonds, forbade partners to increase production if the market was threatened with oversaturation, and regulated the demand for certain types of diamonds with the help of fine-tuned advertising campaigns. Whole countries were completely dependent on relations with the Oppenheimer empire. The buyers were afraid and angry, but kept quiet.

And in 1998, the cartel began to slowly sell off its stocks. This was the beginning of the implementation of the new De Beers strategies, which Harry officially announced a month before his death. The business concept he invented provided for the refusal to create so-called stocks, direct access to the diamond market (previously Oppenheimer's position was that since the interests of the miner and the cutter do not coincide, one should not engage in jewelry making), as well as an increase in market share by introducing into the most significant deposits.

Now it is difficult to say what exactly was the contribution of the "Old King" to the emergence of a new concept, which, in fact, crossed out the previous strategy, which he himself had created. Perhaps Harry actually gave his cartel a mission for the next half century, and then descended into the realm of shadows. This happened on August 19, 2000, when, unexpectedly for everyone, Oppenheimer suddenly died in the best private clinic in Johannesburg.

At present, the De Beers company controls, according to various estimates, from 60 to 75% of the world diamond market. It sells roughly $ 4.8 billion a year in rough diamonds. Twenty mining enterprises of the corporation conduct prospecting and exploration of deposits in 18 countries of the world. Currently, De Beers mines only diamonds for jewelry purposes, since it is cheaper to use artificial ones for industrial needs. However, global diamond prices are more stable than platinum, gold and oil. Moreover, over the past 15 years, diamonds have risen in price by more than 60%.

In the XXI century. The Anglo-American Corporation and De Beers will be ruled by Harry Oppenheimer's grandson, Jonathan.

Created by 28 Nov 2013

OPPENHEIMER Robert (Oppenheimer Julius Robert) (22.IV.1904 - 20.II.1967) - American theoretical physicist, member of the National Academy of Sciences (1941). R. in New York. Graduated from Harvard University (1925). Improved knowledge at Cambridge University at E Rutherford (1925 - 26) and the University of Göttingen at M. Bourne (1927), where he defended his doctoral dissertation. In 1928 he returned to the United States. In 1929 - 47 he worked at the California University and the California Institute of Technology (from 1936 - professor). In 1943 - 45 he headed the Los Alamos Science Laboratory. In 1947 - 66-director and in 1947 - 67 - professor of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). For speaking out against the creation of a hydrogen bomb and for the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, he was removed from all posts and accused of "disloyalty" (1953).

Works are related to nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, physics of cosmic rays, physics of elementary particles, theoretical astrophysics. Together with M. Born in 1927 he developed a theory of the structure of diatomic molecules. He proposed a method for calculating the intensity distribution over the components of the radiation spectra, developed a theory of the interaction of free electrons with atoms. In 1928 he explained the phenomenon of autoionization of excited states of atomic hydrogen using the tunnel effect.

In 1931 he and P. Ehrenfest showed that nuclei consisting of an odd number of particles with spin 1/2 should obey the Fermi - Dirac statistics, and from an even number - the Bose - Einstein statistics (the Ehrenfest - Oppenheimer theorem). Applying this theorem to the nitrogen nucleus, they showed that the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of nuclei leads to a number of contradictions with the known properties of nitrogen.
Together with M. Phillips he developed (1935) the theory of nuclear stripping reactions (Oppenheimer-Phillips reactions). Investigated the internal conversion of gamma rays, established (1933) the mechanism of pair formation.
In 1937, together with J. Carlson, he developed a cascade theory of cosmic showers; in 1938, with G. Volkov, he made the first calculation of a neutron star model; in 1939, together with J. Snyder, he predicted the existence of "black holes." At Berkeley, he collaborated with E. Lawrence in the development of methods for the separation of uranium isotopes.
In 1947, he independently explained the "Lamb shift".
Recent works are also devoted to general problems of science.
Founder of a scientific school at Berkeley. Member of a number of academies of sciences and scientific societies. In 1948 - President of the American Physical Society.

The remains of R. Oppenheimer after cremation were scattered over the sea near Carvel Rock on St. John's Island, Virgin Islands. Later, the ashes of his wife were scattered there.
E. Fermi Prize (1963) "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to theoretical physics, as well as for the scientific and administrative leadership of the work on the creation of the atomic bomb and for active work in the field of peaceful application of atomic energy."

Works:

Literature:

Roose M. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb. - State publishing house for literature on atomic science and technology of the State Committee on Atomic Science and Technology. Moscow. 1963
Yu. B. Khariton. Special speech in memory of Robert Oppenheimer. Nature, No. 3, 1999. (http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/03_99/KHARITON.PDF)
D. Holloway. Oppenheimer and Khariton: Life Parallels. Nature. No. 2, 2005 (http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/02_05/KHAROPP.HTM)

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