I understand that Russell reached out to Oppenheimer to join an international group of scientists whose goal was to mitigate the ongoing hazards of nuclear weapons – can you tell me about that? In this Q and A, Kenneth Blackwell, Russell’s original archivist, Andrew Bone, the Russell Centre’s senior research associate, and Nicholas Griffin, the Russell Centre’s Library Scholar in Residence, reflect on the contrasts between the two - and what renewed attention on this part of history can teach us today. The release of this summer’s biopic Oppenheimer has had the researchers at McMaster’s Bertrand Russell Research Centre thinking about the connections between Russell and Oppenheimer - and while their direct correspondence is, in fact, limited to a few letters, their intellectual connections and their individual lives provide some interesting insights into the years following the detonation of the first atomic bombs in 1945. Read about Bertrand Russell’s life and work on the Bertrand Russell Research Centre’s websiteĪ surprising correspondence, perhaps? What could the two possibly have in common? Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb” and director of the Manhattan Project, to Bertrand Russell, one of the 20 th century’s towering intellectuals and a prominent opponent of nuclear proliferation, on the occasion of Russell’s 90 th birthday in 1962. For those of my generation, our world would have been far emptier of these great qualities without your presence and your work.” “I remember how would pause with a smile before a sequence of theorems and say to us, ‘That was a point that Bertie always liked.”įor all the years of my life, I have thought of this phrase whenever some high example of intelligence, some humanity, or some rare courage and nobility has come our way.
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