TV NEWS
Oppenheimer: Was He Really Friends With Einstein?
By JARON PAK
This story contains spoilers for “Oppenheimer.”
SPOILER ALERT!
A character instantly recognizable in “Oppenheimer” is Albert Einstein. He plays a peripheral role in the film, but he and J. Robert Oppenheimer knew each other in real life.
In the film, we see Einstein (Tom Conti) and Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) have a few critical conversations, but those are made up. The men had a complicated history.
As indicated in the film, Oppenheimer served as the director of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study from 1947 to 1966. Einstein was there from 1933 until his death in 1955.
Records show they were willing to complement each other publicly, but were close in private. Oppenheimer installed an antenna for Einstein to listen to broadcasts from New York.
“Oppenheimer” addresses how the titular character saw his predecessor as scientific history. Scientists had to move on without Einstein since he was stubborn about newer physics.
Their opinions differed on scientific grounds, especially concerning black holes. They contributed to nuclear physics in different ways, but remained friendly at Princeton.