Oral Histories

Edward Gerjuoy was a graduate student of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s at Berkeley. He went on to become an eminent scholar of atomic physics and a Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. In this interview, Gerjuoy discusses his relationship with Oppenheimer, how he felt about Oppenheimer from a student’s perspective, and why he did not go to Los Alamos or participate in the Manhattan Project.

David Kaiser is the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of the award winning book “Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics,” and more recently published “How Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival.” His discussion with Atomic Heritage Foundation President, Cindy Kelly, focuses on the birth of nuclear physics and the nuclear bomb, but ranges across scientific developments in the early-to-mid 20th Century. Kelly and Kaiser also deliberate on the facets of innovation, and connect the scientific legacy of the Manhattan Project to current scientific research.