J. Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who is most famous for his role in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was born in New York City in 1904 and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1925. He went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in Germany in 1927.
After completing his doctoral studies, Oppenheimer returned to the United States and began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1942, he was recruited to lead the Manhattan Project, a top-secret government research program aimed at developing the first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer oversaw the construction of the first nuclear weapons, which were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. After the war, Oppenheimer continued to work in the field of theoretical physics and made important contributions to the development of quantum field theory. He died in 1967. Oppenheimer is often referred to as the “father of the atomic bomb” due to his key role in the development and deployment of the first nuclear weapons.
