The widespread attention paid to Christopher Nolan’s latest film has also had an impact on bookstores, where several books about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist considered the “father of the atomic bomb,” have appeared or resurfaced in recent weeks are. One of them is Oppenheimer (Garzanti), the biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006: it is the book on which Nolan based the film’s screenplay. But there is also one whose author is Oppenheimer: It is entitled “When the future will be history” (Utet) and brings together eight lessons and conferences that the scientist gave between 1947 and 1954, i.e. after the first atomic bombs were used on Hiroshima , held and Nagasaki.
The book, for which the Post’s Emanuele Menietti wrote an introduction, shows how Oppenheimer advocated for the creation of an international body to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons and what reflections he made after that experience about the role of scientists in society in Manhattan -Project. We are publishing an excerpt from the seventh lesson, a speech from January 1, 1953, which speaks of exactly this.
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What am I particularly worried about? […] To put it with extreme and brutal simplicity: the fundamental point is that the scientist has no greater place in today’s society than the artist or the philosopher.
Of course he is paid, he is supported and even respected for reasons he often does not understand. But he is not integrated into society in the sense that his ideas, his work do not go beyond the narrow boundaries of his profession; They are not part of the intellectual and cultural life of his time. I am continually amazed at the ignorance, the incredible ignorance, of the most basic concepts of my field that exists among the historians I meet, among the statesmen I know, among my industry friends. They have no idea what is studied in physics, and I think they also have very vague ideas about the other sciences.
For my part, I know that it is only through good luck and hard work that I have a rudimentary idea of what is being studied in the other rooms of this great building called science. I read the Physical Review every two weeks and make a serious effort to understand its articles. So I think I have at least an idea of what is being done in the different areas of physics. But in general we know little about each other and the outside world knows nothing about us. I believe this condition may vary slightly from place to place. Perhaps in England, where there is a sort of national tendency to refuse to let things become obscure and inaccessible, a little more effort has traditionally been made to ensure that educated people have an idea of what mathematicians, astronomers and physicists do; that they know not only the secondary fruits of their labor, the practical applications, but also what scientists think.
This astonishing general ignorance of the latest scientific and technological ideas and discoveries is in stark contrast to what happened two or three centuries ago, and some of the reasons for this are obvious. I believe, however, that present science is sharper, richer, more important to man’s life and more useful to his dignity than that which had so great an influence on the Age of Enlightenment; an effect that influenced the forms and models, traditions and hopes – reflected in our constitution – of human society. Science does not go backwards, and there is no doubt that quantum mechanics represents a more interesting, instructive, and remarkable analogy to human life than Newtonian mechanics ever could. There is no doubt that even the theory of relativity, which has been so widely used and so little understood, could be of great interest to the general public. And that the discoveries of biology, astronomy and chemistry would enrich our entire culture if only they were understood.
– Also read: The story of Robert Oppenheimer
What is perhaps most galling is that there is a chasm, a dangerously deep chasm, between the life of a scientist and that of a man who is not a scientist. The scientific experience—of repeatedly hitting something with your foot and then realizing that you are actually hitting a rock that until recently was unknown—is difficult to convey through popularization, education, or conferences like this. Explaining to a man what it feels like to discover something new about the world and nature is as difficult as describing a mystical epiphany to a little boy who has no idea what such an experience could be.
The Enlightenment was a special historical period, full of hope but also somewhat superficial; and only a historian can rightly say how many of the ideas of this period arose from a great regard for science. But we know that the same men who wrote about politics and philosophy – albeit with not always happy results – also wrote about science, physics, astronomy and mathematics. We know that Franklin and Jefferson succeeded on two very different levels, all the way from a lively and in some cases practical interest in science to the world of business; and it is evident how much their writings are permeated with the light which one throws upon the other.
At that time, science was linked to the practical arts and was very close to common sense. and science has always consisted almost entirely in the most accurate, patient and continuous application of the practical arts and common sense. However, the chain has now stretched beyond measure. The very process of guiding a child through the elementary links of this chain takes up so much of his life and is such an arduous journey for students and teachers that the simple method of communication and understanding in the 17th and 18th centuries today it is enough, it is no longer enough.
This issue has been studied by many competent people, and I don’t pretend to talk about anything new or strange. I think the idea of setting up laboratory courses was an attempt to introduce young people to the experience of actually discovering something; However, I fear that the whole operation is no longer the same, since these are experiments to which the professor already knows the answer: it is an imitation, not something real and original.
I assume that you have all read the eloquent appeals launched by various scientists, the best known of whom is perhaps Rector Conant, to try to convey a basic idea of science through the essentially historical method . Their writings show, in my opinion, that science as a human activity can be treated using the historical method, but not that the scientific method or any scientific discovery can be communicated using the same means. I am very concerned that our educational direction is not making us a part of the world we live in, in the very specific sense that we can share ideas and experiences with our peers, but may actually be taking us in the opposite direction.
This is all very strange: we live in a world that has been heavily influenced by science and the way we think, our ideas and the terms in which we talk about things, the concept of progress, the concept of a brotherhood of disciples and scientists , which are so familiar to the Christian life – we find all these elements originally in a time when science was also understood and studied by businessmen, artists and poets. But today we live in a world where poets, historians and businessmen pride themselves on not having the slightest intention of setting out to learn even the simplest scientific idea, viewing it as the end of a tunnel which is too long for any sensible person to even begin to travel. For this reason, our philosophy – if we have one – is rather anachronistic and, in my opinion, completely inadequate for our times.
I believe that whatever one thinks of the Cartesian and Newtonian revolutions in European intellectual life, the days when they were all there was to know are long gone. A much more subtle analysis of the nature of human knowledge and its connections to the universe is now necessary if we are to do justice to the wisdom of our tradition and the brilliant and ever-diverse flowering of discovery that is modern science.
Research is action; and the problem that I would like to pose to you and greet you with is how we can transmit this sense of action to those around us who are not destined to devote their lives to the professional search for new knowledge.
© 2023, De Agostini Libri SrL
Courtesy of the publisher.
– Also read: Who’s Who at Oppenheimer