Oppenheimer shows scientists' humanity

There are no secrets in science, and Teller was a horrible human

Lots to talk about with the Oppenheimer film, mostly done well elsewhere. This interview with Richard Rhodes in Nature is quite good, and here is a story from us on Oppenheimer’s record as a physicist. Plenty of other stuff out there about the identity politics and filmmaking. The main point is about Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil over whether it was a good thing that he led Los Alamos and then tried to stop nuclear weapons - and all the psychodynamics thereunto pertaining. But I want to touch on two things that stood out (spoilers) that aren’t getting as much attention.

Scientists blab

A critical scene is when Matt Damon is in the hearing about revoking Oppenheimer’s security clearance. There are a lot of important aspects to Oppenheimer losing his clearance, the main one being that it sent a message to scientists that we should stay out of politics (particularly if we’re on the left) and let the political grownups sort out what to do with our findings, a position still held by a majority of conservatives. But when Damon is asked if he would have approved Oppenheimer’s clearance again in 1954, he said no, but that he also wouldn’t approve clearances for any of the other scientists on the project. He had figured out from hanging around with these characters for three years that scientists couldn’t keep scientific findings to themselves.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Maybe the biggest is that scientists’ egos are such that we want to be the ones with the answer, especially if we’re the ones who figured it out. But even if we just know something that not everyone knows, many of us can’t keep that home. (It’s why if Tony Fauci, Bill Gates, and I had developed a vaccine that could put a microchip in a person, it would have gotten out immediately.)

There are wholesome reasons for this as well. Most scientists believe that knowledge belongs to the world, which is why claims of international scientific espionage don’t ring true since these are all ideas and observations that will ultimately be published and widely circulated. Also, thankfully, most scientists believe that our findings need to be vetted and discussed by a wide community before they become knowledge. You can feel the scientists in Oppenheimer itching to go write everything up as soon as they can both for fear of being scooped but also because they want the validation that comes from external evaluation.

Teller learned the ropes of government and went on to use them to do harm

Edward Teller is certainly portrayed as the most evil of the scientists and with good reason. While Oppenheimer and many of his colleagues came to regret their involvement in the start of a nuclear world, Teller is highly motivated to build the hydrogen bomb and keep the party (as he sees it) going. You can see how giddy he is when the Trinity test worked:

You can almost see him plotting a diabolical future. After antagonizing Oppenheimer and pushing for the hydrogen bomb program, he went on in the 1980s to help Ronald Reagan push for the “Star Wars” missile defense system. There is a great chapter on this in Merchants of Doubt that I teach in my class. Teller was a tool of the military industrial complex and the neocons who distorted the science around the feasibility of the Strategic Defense Initiative in order to drive political success and investment in defense technology.

Some people I trust have complained about how the scenes of the hearings were too long. There are probably a lot of reasons for this (getting Robert Downey Jr an Oscar had to be part of it), but this is where Teller was learning the ropes of government. Just as Oppenheimer’s lesson was not to push progressive ideas against the government machine, Teller learned how to use the same concepts to his advantage in pushing in the politically favored direction. In the process, he took what people perceived about lasers from space operas to confuse them about what real lasers can do, all while delighting right-wing think tanks and defense contractors.

Why are so many people going to this movie?

I get why I like the movie. I know the story by heart and who all the players are. There’s even a bit of academic politics, because the board chair/donor of the Institute for Advanced Study fancies himself a scholar, which drives his conflict with Oppenheimer. Also, Oppenheimer is chosen to be the leader even though some of the other physicists are viewed as better scientists while he is viewed as better at getting things done.

All of this seems like such inside baseball, that it’s hard for me to see how this craze is going. I’ve always lamented that we don’t have enough good stories about the drama of science, because despite all our foibles, I think science is more interesting with the drama than without (just like any other profession).

Welcome to the party, everybody.