J. Robert Oppenheimer
McLuhan
includes a quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer in his book , The Medium is the Massage. The
quote reads, “ There are children playing in the street who could solve some of
my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that
I lost long ago.” McLuhan included him
in this book because he was such an expert, but realized the value of being an
amateur. It is the catch 22 of growing up and investing your time in something
you are passionate about. You become
prolific up to a point to when you can’t realize the simplicity in things that
can be used to explain the things not known.
Oppenheimer was one of the brightest Theoretical physicists of our time, and was one of the head designers of the first atom bomb that America used to destroy the town of Hiroshima. He went to schools like Harvard and Cambridge, and found he was not good at the application of physics and turned to theory. This made him the perfect guy for the Manhattan job, and he found his niche mediating the crew of 1,500 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This site was one he visited in his youth after being diagnosed with dysentery. He felt remorse after the events and was accused of spying soon after. Although not found guilty, Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance for the Government and was disregarded in the society anymore, thereby leaving him a shell of the brilliant man he used to be, unable to progress the future of science to help our Nation's policies.