Now I am Become Death: Apocryphal Quote?

As you might guess from my choice of blog banner, I am into J. Robert Oppenheimer. I am also into Hinduism, so it was only a matter of time that these two interests of mine intersected. 
In fact, it was because of Oppie that I first read the Bhagavad Gita many years ago. Being that it was the first such text I'd read and that I was rather young (and that I read it on Spring Break, which should indicate the state of sobriety I might have been in), I didn't get much out of it. I remember coming away from the experience thinking, "huh. That's it?"

Twenty years later I have, as one should, deepened my spiritual wisdom and reread the Gita a few more times, all in the past two years. In three different translations, I found a glaring absence of Oppie's famous Trinity-blast quote: "Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." I've also heard that this was apocryphal, that he never said it and that it was added later to the story. So, hi-ho, hi-ho, to the internet I go.....
The closest translation I found was "Now I am become Time, destoyer of worlds." Ok, I get that. Time equals death after all, right? Death sounds better, more dramatic. Another translation stretches it out a bit: "I am time that has aged, who makes the world perish. I have come forth to destroy worlds." Wordier, but the same idea. Wikipedia goes one step further in claiming that Oppie translated the quote himself, from the original Sanskrit. Without being a Sanskrit expert, I can't comment on the accuracy of his translation -- but since he's a supergenius and I'm not, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Semantics aside, did he really say this or not? One can quite easily find several references -- including video of Oppie himself -- saying that he thought of this line after the Trinity blast, not that he said it. In fact, his brother Frank stated that Oppie simply said, "It worked." So, if others have turned this into an actual quote in their versions, it's fantasy (but good story telling).
But what's really interesting about all this is not what Oppie did or did not say but what the Gita might have meant to him in relation to his involvement in the Manhattan Project. It's easy to look back and say, "How could they have lived with themselves for creating such a horrible device? How could they have knowingly unleashed that on the world?" And in fact this very point has been portrayed numerous times in documentary ("The Day after Trinity" is a must-see for any nuke-geek) and films ("Fat Man and Little Boy" for example): there is a large body of evidence to show that many of the scientists felt regret and responsibility to work for responsible nuclear policies after the war. It is also well-documented that Oppie felt conflicted (tormented?) for the rest of his life.

But in reading the Gita again, in its full context within the larger Mahabharata, there is a very different aspect to Oppie's story. The whole point of the Gita is that warrior Arjuna feels conflicted at his "duty" to kill his cousins in battle, and he asks Krishna's counsel. Krishna's point can be summed up as: don't worry about the outcome of your actions; just do them. "Be an instrument, nothing more" (11 v. 33). That sounds harsh, but what Krishna is saying is that to be fully free and enlightened, you can't be attached to this world -- even your own actions. Do them because you must -- because it is your dharma (fate) -- but don't do them with thought toward the fruits (results) of those actions. Everything that will happen, has happened, and it has happened because Krishna willed it so. So be his instrument of Fate (my own humble paraphrasing).

This presents an interesting view of Oppie. The Gita was a huge influence on him, by his own words. So how did it play into his role as the Father of the Atomic Bomb?

It is possible that, if he truly took the Gita to heart, he was able to hold a certain emotional distance from the Manhattan Project. That he was able to view it rationally, because it was right (to stop Hitler) or his dharma (it was his duty as a top physicist) or simply that he was riding the tide of historical events. Krishna would tell him to create the bomb, knowing it would kill many people, because it was the thing to do. Because Oppie was merely an instrument of the Cosmos.

Obviously, Oppie could only take Krishna's counsel so far -- as evidenced by the deep regret he felt for the rest of his life. But it does shed light on how he could have played his role at the time. All of this is not to say that he blindly said "oh well, it's all preordained and I'm just the hand of god" -- which is a narrow-minded and shallow view. It simply shows how one can do one's duty in life even while conflicted about it.

A simple blog entry cannot possibly do justice to the full teachings of the Gita or the complex person that was Oppie. But I hope I've at least provided some food for thought.

Oppie, Frank, and Me

What a strange circle of coincidence I just had.  Just last week  I wrote a piece for an online book group about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita.  And then just this weekend I found myself in the Exploratorium -- that most wonderful (and first) of hands-on science museums, which was created by Robert's brother Frank.  Reflecting on this coincidence, I realize how much these two brothers have influenced my life. 

I first visited the Exploratorium as a teenager -- I was maybe 14 or so.  Already a died-in-the-wool geekchick, I loved it.  I was all about bringing science to the people (that was the Carl Sagan influence, but that's another article), and this place just blew me away.  I already understood many of the concepts, but I loved the way they made them so accessible.  It was a formative moment in my life.  Without doubt, knowing how accessible science could be helped me in my future career as a park ranger and science educator.

That being the 1980's, of course I was also concerned with the idea of nuclear holocaust.  Reading about nuclear winter (again, thanks to Carl) got me interested in the history of the bomb itself.  Enter J. Robert, or Oppie.  From the moment I first saw a photo of his penetrating, haunting gaze, I felt strangely compelled.  I watched documentaries, I read books, I ate up whatever I could about the Manhattan Project.  And what really captured me was not the science part;  it was the tragedy of Oppie himself.  That he was conflicted even as he participated in the Project, and that he was further tormented and persecuted afterward.  That he was an avid reader of the Gita also caught me -- and of course I promptly read it. 

It's difficult to put into words exactly how this affected me and the course of my life, but it did.  Maybe it just gave me a deeper, non-Western philosophical bent.  One that has only grown through time;  today I most closely identify with Hinduism over other religions.  This worldview influences the way I think about everything.  I might have found this path anyhow, but I know Oppie cemented it.

In my readings about Oppie and the Manhattan Project, I learned that Frank Oppenheimer was the founder of my beloved Exploratorium.  What a wonderful bit of synergy!  The Exploratorium connected me to Frank which connected me to Oppie.  To feel such a strange, if indirect, connection was a tad profound.  (This was before Six Degrees of Separation was a common thing).

Flash forward about 20 years.  I find myself reading the Mahabharata, of with the Bhagavad Gita is a part.  So I write a discussion topic about it and Oppie.  In a matter of days, I am in the Exploratorium, watching my own children eat it up as Frank envisioned.  And finally, in the giftshop, I found a biography of the in-the-shadows Oppenheimer brother.  I can't wait to read it (though I still have a lot of Maha to go.....).

So what's the point of this article?  I don't know.  Just an homage to the Oppenheimer brothers, I guess.  They and Carl form my Trinity of Science Gurus. 

If you would like to learn more, I highly recommend the following:

"The Day after Trinity," a documentary film
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes
"American Prometheus" by Kai Bird
"Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens" by KC Cole (this is the one I just bought, but it looks like it'll be good)