 |
| The enormity of the nuclear bomb's destructive power made Robert Oppenheimer quote from Bhagawad Gita |
Staff correspondent, August 6, 2015, NewsCrunch
Seventy years after Hiroshima was bombed, the world still shudders at the destructive power of the atomic bomb.
The US physicist Robert Oppenheimer reacted with horror quoting from Bhagavad Gita after seeing the potential of the nuclear bomb he had helped create.
Julius Robert Oppenheimer earned the epithet Father of Atomic bomb for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II initiative to develop the first nuclear weapons.
The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, at New Mexico. In his recorded response to the terrifying devastation, Robert Oppenheimer said a few of the scientists cried while some laughed, but most were silent looking at what they had created.
The enormity of the destruction power, Robert Oppenheimer says, brought to his mind two lines from Bhagawad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
For those who did not know about the Holy Book, Robert Oppenheimer introduced it as a Hindu scripture, in which Vishnu urges the Prince (Arjuna) to do his duty by taking on a divine form and uttering, I am become death....
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shook up Robert Oppenheimer and turned him into a peace activist.
After the war he became a chief adviser to the United States Atomic Energy Commission and lobbied for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation.
But in the US, he was targeted as a communist agent. His security clearance was revoked and he was forced to lead the life of a recluse.