Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (125 page)

Max Born (seated), Oppenheimer’s PhD supervisor at Göttingen, in 1922. Behind him (left to right) are: William Osler, Niels Bohr, James Franck and Oscar Klein.

Charlotte Riefenstahl (centre).

Werner Heisenberg in 1933, the year after he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Paul Ehrenfest in 1927.

Oppenheimer on Lake Zurich with I. I. Rabi, H. M. Mott-Smith and (smiling rather sinisterly at the camera) Wolfgang Pauli, 1929.

Oppenheimer in 1930 during his first year at Berkeley.

Oppenheimer with his close friend and scientific collaborator, Robert Serber.

Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley in the 1930s with one of the early cyclotrons.

Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, who was almost universally disliked among his colleagues at Los Alamos and later at Princeton.

Perro Caliente – ‘hot dog!’

Haakon Chevalier, whose very brief, half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt to contribute to Soviet espionage had deep and lasting consequences for Oppenheimer and himself.

Frank Oppenheimer

Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer’s fiancée and fellow-traveler in 1930s radical politics.

Steve Nelson, a leading figure in the US Communist Party and in the attempts to provide the Soviet Union with the allies’ atomic secrets.