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How to get to the Institute of PhysicsThe Institute of Physics is located at 76 Portland Place. The nearest tube stations are Great Portland Street (Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines), Oxford Circus (Central, Bakerloo and Victoria lines) and Regent’s Park (Bakerloo Line).
For further information please contact:Claudia ReidegeldThe Institute of Physics 76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT Tel 020 7470 4887 Fax 020 7470 4848 E-mail [email protected]
Inside the Centre: The life of J. Robert Oppenheimer
A talk by Ray Monk
An invitation to attend a talk organised by the Institute of Physics on 14 January 2013
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L HEP INV 1112 Oppenheimer-5.indd 1-2 04/12/2012 10:17
Inside the Centre: The life of J. Robert OppenheimerA talk by Ray Monk
J. Robert Oppenheimer is among the most contentious and important figures of the 20th century. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb – a breakthrough that was to have eternal ramifications for humanity and made Oppenheimer the “father of the Bomb”.
Oppenheimer was a man of diverse interests and phenomenal intellectual attributes. His talent and drive allowed him as a young scientist to enter a community populated by the great names of 20th-century physics, such as Bohr, Born, Dirac and Einstein, and to play a role in the laboratories and classrooms where the world was being changed forever.
But Oppenheimer’s was not a simple story of assimilation, scientific success and world fame. A complicated and fragile personality, the implications of the discoveries at Los Alamos were to weigh heavily on him. Having formed suspicious connections in the 1930s, in the wake of the Allied victory in World War II, Oppenheimer’s attempts to resist the escalation of the Cold War arms race would lead many to question his loyalties – and set him on a collision course with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunters.
Ray Monk has written award-winning biographies of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. His new biography of Oppenheimer, Inside the Centre, is a work of towering scholarship. A story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices and unimaginable destruction, it goes deeper than any previous work in revealing the motivations and complexities of this most brilliant and divisive of men.
This talk will be of immense interest to scientists, historians, politicians and just about anyone interested in the intersection of science and politics.
The Institute of Physics is delighted to invite you to attend a talk by Ray Monk entitled:
Inside the Centre: The life of J. Robert Oppenheimer
To be held at the Institute of Physics at 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT.
Registration with tea and coffee: 5.00 p.m.Talk followed by discussion: 5.30 p.m.Refreshments: 7.00 p.m.
SpeakerProf. Ray MonkProfessor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, focusing on research in the history of analytic philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical issues arising from the practice of biography.
ChairProf. Sir Chris Llewellyn-Smith FRSDirector of Energy Research, University of Oxford
RegistrationThe talk is free to attend but places may be limited, so please register your attendance at the earliest possible opportunity. Please contact Claudia Reidegeld at the Institute of Physics by e-mailing [email protected].
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