Cast members Oppenheimer it’s mostly men. This is not strange, because we are talking about a real story conducted by scientists in 40s of the 20th century. It was not the time when women were easy. women scientists. In fact, most of the women who appear in the film Christopher Nolan pair of scientists, including one of his own Robert Oppenheimer. Now, even though it was a time when science was predominantly male, there are three physicists whose names were recorded for different reasons when Manhattan Projecton which the film is based.
one of them was Lily Hornigwhich appears in Oppenheimeractress plays Olivia Thirlby. rest Lise Meitner and Elda Emma Anderson. In fact, Meitner did not participate in the Manhattan Project, although his name will always be associated with him. As for Anderson, he worked closely with many of the physicists who starred in Nolan’s new film.
After all, they were all great physics whose names are worth mentioning, especially now that Oppenheimer brought the history of the Manhattan Project back to the table.
Lise Meitner and her refusal to work with Oppenheimer
yeah Lise Meitner does not appear among the main characters Oppenheimer For obvious reasons: because it wasn’t part of the Manhattan Project. However, it had a lot to do with him.
In 1938 he was part of the group of physicists who discovered Nuclear fissionNear Otto Robert Frisch and Otto Hahn. All three did an invaluable job on this find, but only the last one was honored. Nobel Prize.
Despite this, the scientist was highly regarded by some modern physicists, such as Albert Einstein, who called her German Marie Curie.
The original goal of both Meitner and his colleagues was not to have nuclear fission used for military purposes. However, it didn’t take long to find the potential it should be producing. nuclear weapon. So when Oppenheimer began recruiting scientists for the Manhattan Project, his name was naturally one of those under consideration. But she was the only one of those in contact with physicists who declined the invitationclaiming he wants nothing to do with the bomb.
Unfortunately, despite her opposition to this application of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner is today known to many as “mother of the atomic bomb”. This is very sad, because she has always shown herself to be a pacifist person, very critical of those who wanted to use science to wage war.
Elda, Emma Anderson and Kid Fuel
When Oppenheimer and his team met to decide what kind of bombs they would make, they chose ballistic-type weapons. Thus the Thin Man bomb was born. However, given how little was known about nuclear fission, mistakes were initially made with the fuel. Attempts have been made with plutonium, but it could cause dangerous spontaneous fission when used with ballistic bombs. Therefore, it was decided to change to uranium. The problem was that a large number uranium-235 isotope for use as clean fuel. It was very difficult to separate it from other isotopes that could complicate the fission reaction. And here comes the physicist Elda Anderson, who became the first person in the world to obtain a pure sample of uranium-235.
With this fuel change, Thin Man no longer made sense, so a new ballistic-type bomb was developed: a little boy which shortly thereafter will affect Hiroshima. Like Oppenheimer and other scientists involved in the project, she did not know what would happen to the weapon, which was supposedly intended for protection.
Lily Hornig, a scientist who appears in Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer tells the story of several scientists who came to the Los Alamos laboratory of the Manhattan Project along with their partners. But there was one such pair in which both members were scientists: Donald and Lily Hornig. He was an explosives chemist. She, a freshly graduated chemist who has not yet job vacancy because of her status as a woman.
In fact, his first work in Manhattan Project it was like a typist. However, once they saw his great ability in chemistry, he began to work with other scientists. He first explored the possibilities plutoniumbut she was separated from that department when she discovered that said element can harm the female reproductive system. He later continued his studies detonation mechanisms.
When he saw the first test explosion of one of the bombs he was working on, he was horror for his potential, as did most of his fellow scientists. For this reason, he joined a petition asking the United States government to hold a public demonstration of the potential of nuclear weapons before launching them at real targets. Thus, perhaps the population could deter the army from abusing the bombs. But scientists were ignored. They have already done the hard work. Later, as Meitner predicted, expert opinion didn’t matter when it came to running the pumps.
Source: Hiper Textual
