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Oppenheimer Movie Review
EEVblog:
--- Quote from: TimFox on October 07, 2023, 03:47:30 pm ---However, I object strenuously to your statement that "Oppenheimer would be essentially a nobody" if it weren't for the project.
--- End quote ---
Oh come on, you know I meant a nobody to Joe Average.
He's not even remotely close to an Einstein, Feynman, Bohr et.al in terms of public name recognition.
If it wasn't for him leading the Manhatten project he'd only be known within the physics circles, and there wouldn't be any movies or documentaries made about him.
TimFox:
I reacted to your actual statement with respect to the effect of the Project on his career.
One could make the opposite point that had Oppenheimer not directed the Manhattan Project, he would have continued real science and become more famous.
Although I never met the man, I did interact with professors who knew him and had interesting opinions and anecdotes about him as a person.
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is not known to "Joe six-pack", but is still an important figure.
Perhaps someone should make a movie about him.
Einstein was certainly very well-known to the general public, but Bohr and Feynman, although very well known to the technical and scientific communities and Einstein's equal in terms of scientific production, are not that well-known to the general public.
Einstein and Oppenheimer have operas written about them (by Glass and Adams, respectively).
Of the scientists directly involved, Enrico Fermi was perhaps the most productive, but how well known is he to the general public?
EEVblog:
--- Quote from: TimFox on October 08, 2023, 02:38:17 pm ---I reacted to your actual statement with respect to the effect of the Project on his career.
One could make the opposite point that had Oppenheimer not directed the Manhattan Project, he would have continued real science and become more famous.
--- End quote ---
Entirely speculation. Odds are he wouldn't have. Few of the well known physicists that we (engineers and scientists) would have heard of became big household names, enough to warrant a movie or documetnary.
--- Quote ---Although I never met the man, I did interact with professors who knew him and had interesting opinions and anecdotes about him as a person.
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is not known to "Joe six-pack", but is still an important figure.
Perhaps someone should make a movie about him.
--- End quote ---
Ask Kathy
https://www.youtube.com/@KathyLovesPhysics
--- Quote ---Einstein was certainly very well-known to the general public, but Bohr and Feynman, although very well known to the technical and scientific communities and Einstein's equal in terms of scientific production, are not that well-known to the general public.
--- End quote ---
Feynman was huge in the US. He had so much name recognition with the public that even though he had terminal cancer, NASA asked him to be the head phyicist investigating the Challenger disaster.
He hosted very popular TV series and stared in various documentaries and TV show appearances. Him and Carl Sagan were probably the two "go to" scientists of that era when public outreach was required.
coppice:
--- Quote from: TimFox on October 08, 2023, 02:38:17 pm ---Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is not known to "Joe six-pack", but is still an important figure.
Perhaps someone should make a movie about him.
--- End quote ---
Noooo. Hollywood is afraid of bell curves.
TimFox:
Feynman's most famous moment with the general public was probably his cogent analysis of the Challenger disaster.
The statement "Oppenheimer would be essentially a nobody, and a movie never made about him if it wasn't for the project." is not "speculation".
Both of us are speculating on a situation contrary to fact.
In fact, both Feynman and Bohr ended up far more important in actual science than Oppenheimer.
Neils Bohr, besides being a great scientist, was a good human being: the biographies of such people are edifying, but not as interesting as those of less perfect subjects.
(Of course, quite a few biographies of Bohr have been published.)
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