I watched Openheimer in a IMAX movie theater today, it was not bad I liked it, especially the cinemography.
But somehow - probably because I didn’t do enough research before going - I was expecting a lot of nerdy physics science like in the Martian, but it was mostly politics.
Is this partially down to the way you personally view the event? If you’re comfortable with the use of the bomb, then your interest is in the “how?”.
If you’re not that way, your interest is in the “why?”. Personally I found the film called into question the justification. I’d never really appreciated that the race was so explicitly against the Nazis, but by the time it was complete they were defeated.
Truman’s decision to use it against Japan led to the world knowing (rather than just suspecting) it existed, and the Russians making sure they could do the same. Russia was always going to be enemy after the war, but now it was enemies with a country that showed it would use the bomb. That decision shaped the next 100 years, which we’re still living through.
The film also showed that Oppenheimer himself was naive, thinking that “better I do this than evil men” assumes you can control what you build after you build it. The politics was the battle for control of the bomb, and the realisation that he lost that control as soon as it was complete.
I think the film raises a lot of questions that engineers should think about more often. The ethics around these things is often overlooked in favour of “that’s an interesting problem” and we dive in head first.
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I though Pugh was wasted honestly.
I agree that that one event is done, but viral research might be another example of scientists asking themselves “can we do this” and not “should we do this”. The atomic bomb was one example, but we still need to evaluate and learn the lesson.