![]() The first atomic bomb test took place on 16 July, 1945, at 5:29:45am, at the Trinity Site in New Mexico. That nuclear weapons are effectively global suicide bombs targeting everyone wherever they live, that must be ended before they end us. More than ten times as many people would die from nuclear famine as from the immediate effects of burns, blast and radiation, whether their country was directly targeted or not. That nuclear war – even in one region – using less than three per cent of the world’s nuclear arsenal could loft so much black smoke from burning cities into the atmosphere that temperatures would plummet to ice age levels, decimating agriculture and condemning over two billion people to starve to death. That many accidents and near misses have repeatedly brought us to the brink of nuclear war, which has been prevented principally by one person’s wise action and by good luck, an unreliable security policy. That any use of nuclear weapons is very likely to rapidly escalate. That they appreciate that any use of nuclear weapons would be an unmitigated catastrophe for which no meaningful emergency response is possible. My hope, and clearly that of the film director, Christopher Nolan, is that the film will stimulate many people to ponder and discuss, whether for the first time or anew, the acute existential danger that the global nuclear arsenal poses to us all, to all that we hold dear and strive for. Oppenheimer recognises that the development and proliferation of the bomb could inexorably lead to indiscriminate nuclear violence on a scale to destroy our world. The content of the brief conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein which ends the film is as consequential as any two humans could discuss. A scene from the film with ‘the Gadget’ which was the name given to the first nuclear bomb. There are profound dangers for humanity and our living planet that can be created by science and technology blindly harnessed in the service of the nation state. The deep perils of compartmentalising scientific and technical developments from their consequences and scientists leaving their humanity, morality and scientific responsibility outside the laboratory door is most graphically demonstrated in the film by the relentless pursuit of even more destructive thermonuclear weapons by theoretical physicist Edward Teller. The bigoted scapegoating of rabid anti-communist McCarthyism laid a foundation for the continuing bitter divisiveness in American politics today.įundamentally, ‘ the Gadget’ – as the first nuclear bomb was known – and all its successors, are machines built by humans that can be dismantled by humans. Individuals like the US Atomic Energy Agency’s Lewis Strauss, beset by moral failings, corrupted by ego, power and ambition, can shape history. Scientific brilliance is inevitably encapsulated with human failures, foibles and frailties.įocused and sustained collaborative effort harnessing diverse skills can achieve remarkable results. The human drama that unfolds in the film has many moments and lessons which echo down the corridors of time. Picture: Getty Imagesīut without squarely facing the problem we have no chance of fixing it. Robert Oppenheimer (left) was the chief scientist of the Manhattan Project. Like the whole nuclear age, explosively begun through the events depicted in the film and in which we are still vulnerably immersed up to our necks, the acute existential danger posed by the fruits of the Manhattan Project are daunting and can be overwhelming. The Oppenheimer film is a significant artistic work, and by all accounts – including of Kai Bird, the surviving author of the detailed biographical book on which it is based – impressively historically accurate. ![]()
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