Oppenheimer

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O_P_T

Why Be Normal
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OK, the latest Christopher Nolan film hits Friday (I'm seeing it Sunday), so I thought I'd start a thread on it.

Here's an interesting backstory video from Veritasium, which is a Youtube channel that I highly recomend.

 
I'm excited to see it. LW #1 is interning at ORNL in TN this summer, and they are getting a special screening of it before it hits theatres because of the connection. She's pretty jazzed, but it definitely took a back seat to her nerding out all summer. She's never happier than when she's synthesizing shit or messing with ionic liquids. :shrug-n:
 
ParanoidPatriot said:
Trying to decide that if we go to the movies, should we see Opp or Barbie.:lecture:
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Even if you are joking, this is how I feel. Barbie looks "Brady Bunch Movie" funny.

I still haven't seen the last Indiana Jones and since Raiders of the Lost Ark is my all-time favorite movie and feel like I need to see this on the big screen for old time's sake (even though I am sure it's terrible).
 
I'll be interested to see how they portray Oppenheimer's relationships with the other lead physicists working "under" him since some were more accomplished and more well thought of than he was at the time. How they all got along, personally and professionally, strengths and weaknesses - that kind of thing - with egos involved. I want to find out what led Groves to appoint a communist with no administrative experience and little practical experience to lead this important project. This is a historically important movie so it's important to keep it perfectly accurate.
 
I will likely not go to see this at the theater, but I do have some personal connection to the Manhattan Project.

My grandfather worked for Stone & Webster and was one of the lead project engineers for the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, which was also constructed by Stone & Webster. He was one of the people sitting at the table when they couldn't get enough copper to build it, and the decisions was to approach the US Treasury to get silver to continue the work...resulting in 15,000 tons of silver being given to Stone & Webster to finish production of Y-12.

Once Y-12 was built, he was moved to another government project where he was part of the team that designed the exploding-bridgewire detonator, the core that compresses the fissionable material and causes it to fission, working under Lawrence Johnston, who recruited him personally in Boston. My grandfather helped design the wiring harness that insured that the electrical charge would be delivered equally and at precisely identical voltage and heat at all points outside of the casing. That was more difficult than anyone had predicted, apparently...imperfect wire created minute variations in delivering the charge, and heat, and this would cause the detonator to fail.

What they ended up doing, was buying a higher gauge wire than was called for, and re-rolling it themselves like spaghetti to get the precision they needed.

My grandfather claimed he never knew what it all was for until he read it in Life magazine. I'm pretty sure he was lying, probably a lifetime NDA. He was a mechanical engineer, not a nuclear engineer, but I find it hard to believe he didn't pick up on what it all was for, especially since after the war he went into building nuclear power plants for Stone & Webster. He didn't design them, of course, but he was project manager on countless nuclear plants, first in the United States, but then after 3 Mile Island, the majority of his work was abroad.
 
Baron Samedi said:
I will likely not go to see this at the theater, but I do have some personal connection to the Manhattan Project.

My grandfather worked for Stone & Webster and was one of the lead project engineers for the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, which was also constructed by Stone & Webster. He was one of the people sitting at the table when they couldn't get enough copper to build it, and the decisions was to approach the US Treasury to get silver to continue the work...resulting in 15,000 tons of silver being given to Stone & Webster to finish production of Y-12.

Once Y-12 was built, he was moved to another government project where he was part of the team that designed the exploding-bridgewire detonator, the core that compresses the fissionable material and causes it to fission, working under Lawrence Johnston, who recruited him personally in Boston. My grandfather helped design the wiring harness that insured that the electrical charge would be delivered equally and at precisely identical voltage and heat at all points outside of the casing. That was more difficult than anyone had predicted, apparently...imperfect wire created minute variations in delivering the charge, and heat, and this would cause the detonator to fail.

What they ended up doing, was buying a higher gauge wire than was called for, and re-rolling it themselves like spaghetti to get the precision they needed.

My grandfather claimed he never knew what it all was for until he read it in Life magazine. I'm pretty sure he was lying, probably a lifetime NDA. He was a mechanical engineer, not a nuclear engineer, but I find it hard to believe he didn't pick up on what it all was for, especially since after the war he went into building nuclear power plants for Stone & Webster. He didn't design them, of course, but he was project manager on countless nuclear plants, first in the United States, but then after 3 Mile Island, the majority of his work was abroad.
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Wow
 
chevss454 said:
I'll be interested to see how they portray Oppenheimer's relationships with the other lead physicists working "under" him since some were more accomplished and more well thought of than he was at the time. How they all got along, personally and professionally, strengths and weaknesses - that kind of thing - with egos involved. I want to find out what led Groves to appoint a communist with no administrative experience and little practical experience to lead this important project. This is a historically important movie so it's important to keep it perfectly accurate.
Click to expand...
Not well, according to the review by the movie critic here in the Irish Times today. He's a critic I think is very good. He said the film had definitely not gone anywhere near the more dubious sides of the man in question.

Nolan’s screenplay lightly questions its subject as it lionises. The script can’t entirely account for the slippery character’s metamorphosis from the father of the atomic bomb to the peace mongering “crybaby” who is run out of Truman’s office. The most unpleasant incidents from Oppenheimer’s life – his violence towards college classmates; his disdain for the graduate students he taught – are excised entirely. Tellingly, we never see the post-atomic images that Oppenheimer flinches while watching.

Other disparaging details are extenuated or glossed over. Oppenheimer’s intellectual fidgeting – which arguably haunted him on his deathbed more than anything else – is never explored. Nor what Einstein called his autoritdtsdusel, or stupor in the face of authority. Womanising is mentioned, yet one of Oppenheimer’s extramarital conquests is reduced to a glib punchline.

Downey jnr’s Strauss questions Oppenheimer’s post-Hiroshima hand-wringing but Nolan is far too enthralled with Oppenheimer and Murphy’s commanding portrayal to follow suit. Awed onlookers frequently sound as if they are pitching for a book blurb: “You see beyond the world we live in,” goes one remark. “The great salesman of science,” goes another.

Yes, about that.

The film’s representation of science is bafflingly facile, even if the chalkboard squiggles on quantum dynamics and quantum physics in the background are undoubtedly (knowing Nolan’s fastidiousness) accurate. “Light is both a particle and a wave!” Oppenheimer cheerily (and anachronistically) imparts to a student.

It’s equally unfortunate that the women characters are doughily undercooked. It is a blessed relief when Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) gets a big scene in the closing third, not least, we imagine, for Blunt, who plays Drunk Refrigerator Mom for two hours of the film. Florence Pugh’s Jean Tatlock is distilled from a real-world intellectual and political influence to Crazy Naked Chick, a glistening pair of breasts that weigh on Oppenheimer’s mind.

One particular explicit scene between the pair – you’ll know which one – uses a device that proves a toe-curling R-rated embarrassment. Nolan, an otherwise virtuoso film-maker, has little aptitude for on-screen bunga bunga and the results are bungle bungle.

Oh well. The filmmaker’s technique generally counterpoints any caveats and script imperfections. The ensemble cast is starry and strong. The segue from the end of the second World War into the cold war is marked by a spectacular explosion sequence. “Brilliance makes up for a lot,” Murphy’s Oppenheimer tells us. It sure does.
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I
Baron Samedi said:
I will likely not go to see this at the theater, but I do have some personal connection to the Manhattan Project.

My grandfather worked for Stone & Webster and was one of the lead project engineers for the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, which was also constructed by Stone & Webster. He was one of the people sitting at the table when they couldn't get enough copper to build it, and the decisions was to approach the US Treasury to get silver to continue the work...resulting in 15,000 tons of silver being given to Stone & Webster to finish production of Y-12.

Once Y-12 was built, he was moved to another government project where he was part of the team that designed the exploding-bridgewire detonator, the core that compresses the fissionable material and causes it to fission, working under Lawrence Johnston, who recruited him personally in Boston. My grandfather helped design the wiring harness that insured that the electrical charge would be delivered equally and at precisely identical voltage and heat at all points outside of the casing. That was more difficult than anyone had predicted, apparently...imperfect wire created minute variations in delivering the charge, and heat, and this would cause the detonator to fail.

What they ended up doing, was buying a higher gauge wire than was called for, and re-rolling it themselves like spaghetti to get the precision they needed.

My grandfather claimed he never knew what it all was for until he read it in Life magazine. I'm pretty sure he was lying, probably a lifetime NDA. He was a mechanical engineer, not a nuclear engineer, but I find it hard to believe he didn't pick up on what it all was for, especially since after the war he went into building nuclear power plants for Stone & Webster. He didn't design them, of course, but he was project manager on countless nuclear plants, first in the United States, but then after 3 Mile Island, the majority of his work was abroad.
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Just forwarded this to LW#1...
 
Roberto71 said:
Not well, according to the review by the movie critic here in the Irish Times today. He's a critic I think is very good. He said the film had definitely not gone anywhere near the more dubious sides of the man in question.
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Sorry to hear this. Many who watch the movie won't realize, as brilliant as he was, he failed miserably in many aspects of living a happy and fruitful life.
 
3 Point Stan said:
Even if you are joking, this is how I feel. Barbie looks "Brady Bunch Movie" funny.

I still haven't seen the last Indiana Jones and since Raiders of the Lost Ark is my all-time favorite movie and feel like I need to see this on the big screen for old time's sake (even though I am sure it's terrible).
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I'd rather have my fingers slammed in a drawer for 2 hours than watch the Barbie movie.
The one thing about the Opp movie is that it runs for 3 hours. I can't sit in a movie, having popcorn and soda, without having to pee. So, I'd be missing part of a movie that I paid $12 to see.
My problem is with Netflix getting out of the disc business, I don't know how I'll see it. I won't feed my credit card into a red box machine.
 
F1fbyePXgAAsX_6
 
ParanoidPatriot said:
I'd rather have my fingers slammed in a drawer for 2 hours than watch the Barbie movie.
The one thing about the Opp movie is that it runs for 3 hours. I can't sit in a movie, having popcorn and soda, without having to pee. So, I'd be missing part of a movie that I paid $12 to see.
My problem is with Netflix getting out of the disc business, I don't know how I'll see it. I won't feed my credit card into a red box machine.
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I figured you were being sarcastic but:
1) I will happily skip the Barbie movie in favor of slamming your fingers in a drawer for 2 hours - PLEASE!!!
2) Assuming you'll almost certainly decline #1, I will post an honest review of the Barbie movie once I get around to seeing it (Note: I had wanted to see the "Cats" movie based on the Broadway play for the sheer sake of mocking it, but I still haven't gotten around to seeing that one, so there's that.... not that you're holding your breath on a review of the Barbie movie from a grown ass man, but also... why am I still typing about this?)
 
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