Oppenheimer: Scientists, The Bomb, and the Implications for Today

The film Oppenheimer, which opened in theaters in July, tells the story of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who led the team that built the first atomic bomb, and later worked to curb the nuclear arms race. The scientific community has played a critical role in highlighting the dangers of nuclear weapons and their human and environmental impacts, as well as nuclear arms racing from the days of the Manhattan Project to the present. Prompted by the film, the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction held a webinar on July 31, 2023, to discuss:

• The devastating human and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons testing and use
• The role of scientists in the effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and reverse the nuclear arms race
• The growing nuclear threat and how physicists can help reduce the danger today

Speakers included

• Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), co-author of Radioactive Heaven and Earth and Nuclear Wastelands
• Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, Research Affiliate, Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy, MIT
• Dr. Stewart Prager, Professor Emeritus of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University; The Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
• Dr. Frederick Lamb (Moderator), Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; The Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction

This webinar was co-sponsored by

– The APS Forum on Physics and Society
– The APS Forum on International Physics
– The APS Forum on the History and Philosophy of Physics

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: 

Recommended by Dr. Arjun Makhijiani:

• Arjun Makhijiani, Webinar Presentation Slides (PowerPoint)
• Arjun Makhijani, ““Always” the target?: While U.S. bomb scientists were racing against Germany, military planners were looking toward the Pacific,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 1995
• Arjun Makhijani. “Nuclear Targeting: The First 60 Years,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2003

Recommended by Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund:

• “Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System,” Union of Concerned Scientists, April 18 2000
• Richard L. Garwin and Hans A. Bethe, Anti-Ballistic-Missile Systems,” Scientific American, March 1968
• JASON Panel, “Nuclear Testing: Summary and Conclusions,” August 3 1995
• Kurt Gotfried, “Physicists in Politics,” Physics Today, 1999

Recommended by Dr. Stewart Prager:

• General Advisory Committee’s Majority and Minority Reports on Building the H-Bomb , Atomic Archive, 1949.
• Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris, Worldwide Deployments of Nuclear Weapons, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept 3, 2017
• Alan Robock and Owen B. Toon, Self-assured Destruction: The Climate Impacts of Nuclear War,Vol.68, Issue 5, p. 66, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2012).
• Zia Mian, Stewart Prager and Frank von Hippel, Once More Into the Breach: Physicists Mobilize Again to Counter the Nuclear Threat, Arms Control Today, May, 2021.