Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (131 page)

96
. ‘felt so miserable’: JW in an interview with CW, 28.5.1975, quoted B & S, 43

97
. an attempt to murder his tutor: the story of the poisoned apple has been told many times in many different versions, all of them (directly or indirectly) based on accounts given by Oppenheimer to his friends. Denise Royal, basing her account on that of an unnamed ‘informant’ (presumably Jeffries Wyman), says that in the Christmas vacation of 1925, Oppenheimer went with Wyman to Corsica and, near the end of the holiday, turned down Wyman’s suggestion that they travel to Rome to meet Fergusson and Koenig, saying, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had to get back to Cambridge because he had left a poisoned apple on Blackett’s table. This, Royal says, ‘was Robert’s whimsical way of saying he had some work to do for Blackett’ (Royal [1969], 36).

Essentially the same story (based on the interview CW conducted with JW in 1975) is told in Smith and Weiner, though they correct some of the details, placing the Corsican holiday in the spring vacation, rather than at Christmas, and mentioning that Edsall was also included in the trip. ‘To this day,’ they say, ‘Edsall and Wyman are not sure about the poisoned-apple story; at the time they assumed it was an hallucination on Robert’s part’ (S & W, 93). ‘Metaphoric interpretations,’ they insist, ‘should not be excluded’ (ibid.). Goodchild repeats Smith and Weiner’s version of the story, and does not even entertain the idea that there actually was a poisoned apple. It was, he thinks, either an ‘elaborate metaphor’ or a hallucination (Goodchild (1980), 18).

Bernstein, partly because he believes that Oppenheimer ‘must have scarcely known Blackett’, is inclined to attribute the story to ‘the mythmaking Oppenheimer indulged in for most of his life, sometimes with disastrous consequences for himself and others’ (Bernstein [2004], 21).

My account follows that of Bird and Sherwin, who make crucial use of the recollections of Francis Fergusson, given in an interview that Sherwin conducted with Fergusson in 1979.
Remembering a confession that Oppenheimer had made to him at the end of 1925 (so some months before the holiday in Corsica), Fergusson told Sherwin: ‘He [Oppenheimer] had kind of poisoned the head steward. It seemed incredible, but that was what he said. And he had actually used cyanide or something somewhere. And fortunately the tutor discovered it. Of course there was hell to pay with Cambridge’ (B & S, 46).

Charles Thorpe mentions Bird and Sherwin’s account, but, for a reason he does not make explicit, is inclined not to believe it, thinking it ‘more likely’ that the episode was a ‘fantasy’ on Oppenheimer’s part, born out of the jealousy he felt for Blackett (see Thorpe [2006], 38).

97
. ‘Blackett was brilliant and handsome’: JE in his interview with CW, 16.7.1975, quoted in Thorpe (2006), 39

97
. his interview with Martin Sherwin: conducted 18.6.1979, quoted in B & S, 46

97
. His father negotiated an agreement: HWS interviewed by CW, 1.8.1974, quoted in B & S, 46

97
. ‘I saw him standing on the corner’: FF interviewed by AKS, 21.4.1976, S & W, 94

97
. ‘He looked crazy’: FF interviewed by MJS, 18.6.1979, B & S, 46

97
. ‘said that the guy was too stupid’: FF interviewed by AKS, 21.4.1976, S & W, 94

98
. ‘I was on the point’:
Time
magazine, 8 November 1948, 71

98
. ‘My reaction was dismay’: FF interviewed by MJS, 18.6.1979, B & S, 47

98
. ‘began to get very queer’: ibid.

98
. Oppenheimer’s behaviour in Paris: ibid. In his interview with AKS, Fergusson told her that Oppenheimer had been to see a prostitute, but had been unable to ‘get to first base’ with her: ‘nothing would click’ (quoted in B & S, 608).

98
. ‘one of his ambiguous moods’: B & S, 47

98
. ‘I leaned over to pick up a book’: ibid., the source for which is Fergusson’s ‘Account of the Adventures of Robert Oppenheimer in Europe’ and his interview with Sherwin of 18.6.1979. The same incident is described in S & W, 91, the source for which is FF’s 1976 interviews with AKS.

98
. ‘You should have’: JRO to FF, 23.1.1926, S & W, 91

99
. ‘the awful fact of excellence’: ibid., 92

99
. he insisted: for an account of these negotiations, see Crowther (1974), Chapter 14

99
. ‘thought my experiments quite good’: JRO to FF, 15.11.1925, S & W, 87

99
. ‘what happened with beams of electrons’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted ibid., 88

99
. ‘which can give an indication’: JRO to REP, 16.9.1925, ibid., 84

99
. ‘the miseries of evaporating beryllium’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted ibid., 88

100
. ‘The business in the laboratory’: ibid.

100
. ‘there was a tremendous inner turmoil’: JE interview with CW, 16.7.1975, ibid., 92

100
. ‘the most profound revolution’: Weinberg (193), 51, quoted in Kumar (2009), 153

100
. ‘certainly some good physicists’: JRO to FF, 15.11.1925, S & W, 88

100
. Kapitza Club: the account of Peter Kapitza and the club named after him is based on those given in Farmelo (2009), Kragh (1990), Mehra and Rechenberg (1982e) and Nye (2004)

101
. Paul Dirac: see Farmelo (2009), Kragh (1990) and Mehra and Rechenberg (1982e)

101
. ‘not easily understood’: JRO interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted S & W, 96

101
. ‘Quantum Theory (Recent Developments)’: see Dirac (1995), xvii–xviii, and Kragh (1990), 30

101
. ‘Dirac gave us’: see Kragh (1990), 30

102
. ‘a generous-spirited man’: Farmelo (2009), 53

102
. a series of three short papers: see
Comptes rendus
(Paris), Volume 177 (1923), 507–10, 548–50, 630–2

102
. Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning suggestion: ‘Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt’ [’On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light’],
Annalen der Physik
, 17 (6), 132–48

102
. a series of experiments: see Compton (1923)

103
. an English version of de Broglie’s articles: de Broglie (1924)

103
. ‘He has lifted a corner’: Abragam (1988), 30, quoted Kumar (2008), 150

103
. ‘brimful of talk and enthusiasm’: Lovell (1975), 10, quoted Nye (2004), 46

103
. Paul Dirac gave a paper: see Kragh (1990), 31

103
. Werner Heisenberg: the best biography of Heisenberg I know, and the source for much of my information about him, is Cassidy (1992). I have also learned much from Cassidy (2009), Powers (1994) and Rose (1998).

105
. ‘Quantum Theoretical Reinterpretation’: see Heisenberg (1925) for the original German publication; for an English translation, see Waerden (1968), 261–76

105
. ‘What do you think of this?’: Farmelo (2009), 83

105
. ‘The Fundamental Equations’: see Dirac (1925), and Waerden (1968), 307–20

105
. a paper that they wrote together in September: see Born and Jordan (1925). For an English translation, see Waerden (1968), 277–306

106
. ‘On Quantum Mechanics II’: Born, Heisenberg and Jordan (1926), Waerden (1968), 321–86

106
. Dirac’s second paper: Dirac (1926), Waerden (1968), 417–27

106
. a paper to the Del Squared V Club: see Cassidy (2005), 98

106
. ‘My regret’: JRO to FF, 7.3.1926, S & W, 92

106
. ‘and I remember thinking’: FF interview with MJS, 18.6.1979, quoted B & S, 49

107
. If he could take a break: see JRO to FF, 7.3.1926, S & W, 93

107
. ‘Quantization as a Problem of Proper Values’: Schrödinger (1926a). For a summary of Schrödinger’s theory in English, see Schrödinger (1926e); for an English translation of the original article, see Schrödinger (1982), 1–12

107
. ‘wave mechanics’: or, as his 1926e summary translation has it, ‘undulatory’ mechanics

107
. three further landmark papers: Schrödinger (1926a–d)

107
. ‘like an eager child’: Planck to Schrödinger, 2.4.1926, quoted Moore (1989), 209, and Kumar (2009), 209

107
. ‘the idea of your work’: Einstein to Schrödinger, 16.4.1926, quoted Moore (1989), 209, and Kumar (2009), 209

107
. ‘deepest form of the quantum laws’: quoted in Cassidy (2009), 150

108
. ‘passionately eager’: Edsall (2003), 14

108
. ‘intensely articulate’: ibid.

108
. ‘No, no. Dostoevsky is superior’: see Michelmore (1969), 18

108
. ‘The kind of person that I admire most’: JE in interview with CW, 16.7.1975, quoted S & W, 93. See Michelmore (1969), 18, for a slightly different version of the same recollected remark.

109
. a misunderstanding between Edsall and the Corsican police: Michelmore (1969), 18. Michelmore gives no source, but presumably he was told the story by Edsall.

109
. ‘what began for me in Corsica’: Pharr Davis (1969), 20

109
. ‘a great and lasting part’: ibid., 19

109
. ‘You see, don’t you’: ibid.

109
. ‘You ask whether I will tell you’: ibid., 20

109
. ‘a European girl’: ibid., 19

110
. ‘one of the great experiences’: Chevalier (1965), 34

110
. quoting from memory: ibid.

110
. ‘Perhaps she would not’: ibid., 35

110
. ‘We most of all’: JRO, speech at Seven Springs Farm, Mount Kisco, New York, summer 1963. Full text in the Oppenheimer Papers, Library of Congress; extract quoted in Goodchild (1980), 278, where, however, it is mistakenly dated ‘summer of 1964’.

111
. ‘felt much kinder’: Royal (1969), 36

111
. ‘passing through a great emotional crisis’: B & S, 50

111
. ‘I can’t bear to speak of it’: ibid.

111
. ‘Well, perhaps’: ibid.

112
. ‘On the Quantum Theory of Vibration-Rotation Bands’: Oppenheimer (1926a)

112
. ‘That was a mess’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted Pais (2006), 10

113
. ‘we went out on the river’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted S & W, 96

113
. ‘very warm person’: GU in interview with CW, 8.1.1977, quoted S & W, 97

113
. ‘realised then’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted S & W, 97

114
. ‘I’m in difficulties’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted S & W, 96

114
. ‘I forgot about beryllium’: ibid.

114
. ‘I thought it put a rather useful glare’: JRO in interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted B & S, 54

114
. Edsall remembers: JE interview with CW, 16.7.1975, quoted S & W, 93

114
. ‘I am indebted to Mr J.T. Edsahl’: Oppenheimer (1926b), 424

114
. ‘On the Quantum Theory of the Problem of the Two Bodies’: Oppenheimer (1926b)

114
. Max Born: for biographical information on Born, I have relied mainly on Born (1978) and Greenspan (2005)

114
. ‘Zur Quantenmechanik der Stossvorgänge’: Born (1926a). An English translation has appeared in Wheeler and Zurek (1983), 52–61.

114
. longer, more polished and refined paper: Born (1926b). English translation in Ludwig (1968), 206–30

114
. ‘On the Quantum Mechanics of Collisions of Atoms and Electrons’: see Mehra and Rechenberg (1982e), 215, and Mehra and Rechenberg (1987), 760

115
. ‘God does not play dice’: AE to MB, 26.12.1926, Born (1971)

116
. Jeremy Bernstein has speculated: see Bernstein (2005)

116
. ‘Physical Aspects of Quantum Mechanics’: Born (1927), reprinted in Born (1956), 6–13

117
. ‘particularly interested’: JRO to REP, 18.8.1926, S & W, 98

117
. ‘had very great misgivings’: JRO interview with TSK, 18.11.1963, quoted S & W, 97

121
. ‘conscious of his superiority’: Born (1978), 229

121
. ‘I was never very good’: ibid., 234

122
. ‘much mathematical power’: Bridgman to Rutherford, 24.6.1925, quoted S&W, 77

123
. ‘bitter, sullen . . . discontent and angry’: JRO interview with TSK, 20.11.1963, quoted S & W, 103

123
. one of the very first branches: see Madden and Mühlberger (2007), Chapter 7

123
. Achim Gercke: ibid.

124
. Charlotte Riefenstahl: the story of Oppenheimer’s meeting with Riefenstahl has been retold many times, but its original telling (presumably based on an interview with Riefenstahl herself) is in Michelmore (1969), 22–3.

124
. ‘had the typical bitterness’: JRO interview with TSK, 20.11.1963, quoted S & W, 103

125
. ‘The Americans’: Born (1978), 228

125
. ‘All right’: Michelmore (1969), 21

125
. ‘Trouble is’: ibid., 20

125
. ‘He and Born became very close friends’: Edward Condon, ‘Autobiography Notes’, Condon Papers, American Physical Society, Philadelphia, quoted Schweber (2000), 63–4

125
. Karl T. Compton: see Compton (1956)

126
. ‘when he was a member’: ibid., 125

126
. He is reported: Margaret Compton in interview with AKS, 3.4.1976, quoted S & W, 103–4

126
. ‘There are about 20 American physicists’: JRO to FF, 14.11.1926, S & W, 100

127
. ‘another problem’: JRO to ECK, 27.11.1926, S & W, 102

127
. In Born’s seminar: see Born (1978), 229, and Greenspan (2005), 144

127
. ‘I felt as if’: Elsasser (1978), 53

127
. ‘I was a little afraid of Oppenheimer’: Born (1978), 229