Who was the real Oppenheimer? Manhattan Project explained ahead of Christopher Nolan film

The release of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is just days away, and following the UK premier of the film the hype is at an all-time high. The film is set to be one of the biggest to hit screens this year boasting a star-studded cast that sees Cillian Murphy take on the titular role of Robert J. Oppenheimer.

The film tells the story of Julius Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and director of the laboratory responsible for the development of the atomic bomb. Much of the film is based on the biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The film is set to hit cinemas on 21 July alongside Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie which has forced an unlikely alliance between fans and a craze that has set the internet alight, Barbenheimer.

He famously said he was reminded of the phrase “now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" when he oversaw the first atomic bomb detonation in 1945. So, who was the real Oppenheimer? Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the blockbuster film.

Who was Robert J. Oppenheimer?

Oppenheimer was born in New York on April 22, 1904. He was best known as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, and is often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the research and development undertaking that created the first nuclear weapons. He retired from the institute in 1966.

Oppenheimer was a student of Harvard University. He was awarded a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1925 before studying physics at the University of Cambridge and University of Göttingen, receiving his PhD just two years later.

After holding numerous academic positions in the United States, he was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. He was later appointed as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico in 1943 and given the task of creating weapons. He was one of few who witnessed the ‘Trinity test’ in July 1945 that saw the successful detonation of the atomic bomb. These bombs were later used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, still the only uses of a nuclear weapon in conflict.

After the war, Oppenheimer lobbied for international control of nuclear power and also opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. While Oppenheimer never openly expressed his regret about the bomb used on Japan, he also spent two decades following the detonation of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki trying to stop their proliferation until his death.

When did Oppenheimer die?

Oppenheimer died of throat cancer on 18 February 1967.

Oppenheimer: The Manhattan Project explained

The Manhattan Project was a research and development initiative that took place during the Second World War which produced the first nuclear weapons. The project was led by the United States and saw the development of the first atomic bomb.

According to the National World War II Museum, The Manhattan Project saw the US military operated “secret plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington, to produce the needed uranium and plutonium elements necessary for a bomb. Isolated in remote Los Alamos, New Mexico, a tremendous team of physicists worked to create a viable detonation system”.

Oppenheimer’s wife and children

Robert J. Oppenheimer married Katherine “Kitty” Puening in 1940. The couple had two children named Peter and Toni. Kitty is set to be played by Emily Blunt in the upcoming film about Oppenheimer’s work.