专八人文知识需知美国名人--原子弹之父罗伯特.奥本海黙

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--原子弹之父罗伯特.奥本海黙

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　罗伯特·奥本海默(J. Robert Oppenheimer，1904年4月22日—1967年2月18日)，美国犹太人物理学家，曼哈顿计划的主要领导者之一，被美国誉为“原子弹之父”。

　　J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967)was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physicsat the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for hisrole as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, theWorld War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons at thesecret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. For this reason he is remembered as "TheFather of the Atomic Bomb". In reference to the Trinity test in New Mexico, where his Los Alamosteam first tested the bomb, Oppenheimer famously recalled the Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance ofa thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mightyone." and "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

　　After the war Oppenheimer was a chief advisor to the newly created United States Atomic EnergyCommission and used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power and to avertthe nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. After provoking the ire of many politicians with hisoutspoken political opinions during the Red Scare, he had his security clearance revoked in amuch-publicized and politicized hearing in 1954. Though stripped of his direct political influenceOppenheimer continued to lecture, write, and work in physics. A decade later President John F.Kennedy awarded (and Lyndon B. Johnson presented) Oppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award as agesture of political rehabilitation.

　　Oppenheimer's notable achievements in physics include the Born–Oppenheimer approximation,work on electron–positron theory, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process, and a first prediction ofquantum tunneling. With his students he also made important contributions to the modern theoryof neutron stars and black holes, as well as work on the theory of quantum mechanics, quantumfield theory, and the interactions of cosmic rays.

　　As a teacher and promoter of science, Oppenheimer is remembered most for being the chieffounder of the American school of theoretical physics while at the University of California,Berkeley, contributing significantly to the rise of American physics to its first era of worldprominence in the 1930s. After the second World War, he contributed to American scientificorganizations again, as director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he heldEinstein's old position of Senior Professor of Theoretical Physics.

　　J. Robert Oppenheimer in Europe

　　After graduating from Harvard, Oppenheimer was encouraged to go to Europe for further study.He was accepted for postgraduate work at Ernest Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory at theUniversity of Cambridge under J.J. Thomson.

　　Oppenheimer's clumsiness in the laboratory made it apparent his forte was not experimental butrather theoretical physics. He developed an antagonistic relationship with his tutor, PatrickBlackett, who was only a few years his senior. Oppenheimer once doused an apple with noxiouschemicals and put it on Blackett's desk; Blackett did not eat the apple, but Oppenheimer was puton probation and ordered to go to London for regular sessions with a psychiatrist.

　　In 1926 he left Cambridge for the University of Göttingen to study under Max Born. Göttingen wasone of the world's leading centers for theoretical physics. Oppenheimer made friends who wouldgo on to great success, including Werner Heisenberg, Pascual Jordan, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac,Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller. Oppenheimer was known at Göttingen for being a quick student.However, he was also known for being too enthusiastic in discussions, sometimes to the point oftaking over seminar sessions. This irritated some of Max Born's pupils so much that they signed apetition to make Oppenheimer be quiet in class. Born left it out on his desk where Oppenheimercould read it, and it was effective without a word being said.

　　Oppenheimer obtained his Ph.D. in 1927 at the age of 23 at the University of Göttingen,supervised by Born. After the oral exam for his degree, the professor administering reportedly said, "I'm glad that's over. He was on the point of questioning me."[9] Oppenheimer published morethan a dozen articles at Göttingen, including many important contributions to the then newly-developed quantum theory. He and Born published a famous paper on the so-called "Born-Oppenheimer approximation", which separates nuclear motion from electronic motion in themathematical treatment of molecules, an action allowing nuclear motion to be neglected in order tosimplify calculations. It remains his most cited work.

　　Atomic Energy Commission

　　After the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created in 1946, as a civilian agency in control ofnuclear research and weapons issues, Oppenheimer was immediately appointed as the Chairman ofits General Advisory Committee (GAC) and left the directorship of Los Alamos. From this position headvised on a number of nuclear-related issues, including project funding, laboratory construction,and even international policy—though the GAC's advice was not always implemented.

　　As a member of the Board of Consultants to a committee appointed by President Truman toadvise the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, Oppenheimer strongly influenced theAcheson-Lilienthal Report. In this report, the committee advocated creation of an internationalAtomic Development Authority, which would own all fissionable material, and the means of itsproduction, such as mines and laboratories, and atomic power plants where it could be used forpeaceful energy production. Bernard Baruch was appointed to translate this report into a proposalto the United Nations, resulting in the Baruch Plan of 1946. The Baruch Plan introduced manyadditional provisions regarding enforcement, in particular requiring inspection of the USSR'suranium resources. The Baruch Plan was seen as an attempt to maintain the United States' nuclearmonopoly, and was rejected by the USSR. With this, it became clear to Oppenheimer that an armsrace was unavoidable, due to the mutual distrust of the U.S. and the USSR.

　　While still Chairman of the GAC, Oppenheimer lobbied vigorously for international arms control andfunding for basic science, and attempted to influence policy away from a heated arms race. Whenthe government questioned whether to pursue a crash program to develop an atomic weaponbased on nuclear fusion—the hydrogen bomb—Oppenheimer initially recommended against it,though he had been in favor of developing such a weapon in the early days of the ManhattanProject. He was motivated partly by ethical concerns, feeling that such a weapon could only beused strategically against civilian targets, resulting in millions of deaths. But he was also motivatedby practical concerns; as at the time there was no workable design for a hydrogen bomb,Oppenheimer felt that resources would be better spent creating a large force of fission weapons;he and others were especially concerned about nuclear reactors being diverted away fromproducing plutonium to produce tritium. He was overridden by President Truman, who announceda crash program after the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb in 1949. Oppenheimer andother GAC opponents of the project, especially James Conant, felt personally shunned andconsidered retiring from the committee. They stayed on, though their views on the hydrogenbomb were well known.

　　In 1951, however, Edward Teller and mathematician Stanislaw Ulam developed what becameknown as the Teller-Ulam design for a hydrogen bomb. This new design seemed technicallyfeasible, and Oppenheimer changed his opinion about developing the weapon. As he later recalled:

　　“ The program we had in 1949 was a tortured thing that you could well argue did not make agreat deal of technical sense. It was therefore possible to argue that you did not want it even if youcould have it. The program in 1951 was technically so sweet that you could not argue about that.The issues became purely the military, the political, and the humane problems of what you weregoing to do about it once you had it.”

　　Oppenheimer's critics have accused him of equivocating between 1949, when he opposed thedevelopment of the hydrogen bomb, and 1951, when he supported it. Some have made this acase for reinforcing their opinions about his moral inconsistency. Historian Priscilla McMillan hasargued,[50] however, that if Oppenheimer has been accused of being morally inconsistent, then soshould Rabi and Fermi, who had also opposed the program in 1949. Most of the GAC memberswere against a crash hydrogen bomb development program then, and in fact, Conant, Fermi andRabi had submitted even more strongly worded reports against it than Oppenheimer. McMillan'sargument is that because the hydrogen bomb appeared to be well within reach in 1951,everybody had to assume that the Russians could also do it, and that was the main reason whythey changed their stance in favor of developing it. Thus this change in opinion should not beviewed as a change in morality, but a change in opinions purely based on technical possibilities.

　　The first true hydrogen bomb, dubbed "Ivy Mike", was tested in 1952 with a yield of 10.4megatons, more than 650 times the strength of the weapons developed by Oppenheimer duringWorld War II.

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