4 ms·

I can't read the article but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves book "Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The

I can't read the article but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves book "Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project" documents it well The Oppenheimer movie was a much more personal biopic, rather than about the project itself, unlike some other older movies.

pests 3y ago
Well, the movie was titled Oopenheimer and not "Atomic Bomb" or "Manhattan Project" for a reason. Some of my favorite parts of "the story" like the details of all the factory build outs for enrichment or the sabotage of the Nordic heavy water plants were completely skipped over but that's okay I think. That was a movie about a man, not a bomb.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  The movie was based in large part on the book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" Which is a life of the man, as you say. The main difference from the movie is that, aside from being much more lengthy, as book vs. movie always is, it dwells more on pre-WW2 California leftist politics. Whereas the downfall of Lewis Strauss gets only a brief mention. And of course it covers the life of J R Oppenheimer from birth to death in detail, in parts exhaustive detail.
  - pests 3y ago
    Oh interesting, thanks. I missed Oppenheimer in IMAX the first time around but saw it finally a month or two ago when it was re-released. I had originally been reading Rhodes's "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" leading up to the release - I timed it to where I stopped reading right at the part Trinity went off at, saw the movie, and just recently finished. So thanks for the rec.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
      TBH there were parts of that book where I felt I had had my fill long before the book let go - (e.g. the above-mentioned pre-WW2 California leftist politics) but YMMV, and it's a true history book, not a novel designed to thrill. And there were fascinating engineering problem-solving details that were entirely absent e.g. the lengths gone to to get the shaped charges for the implosion device correct, and to run the punched-card computing for that. See Feynman's anecdotes on it instead. But on the whole, it's a fascinating book if you're into that sort of thing.

pests 3y ago

Well, the movie was titled Oopenheimer and not "Atomic Bomb" or "Manhattan Project" for a reason. Some of my favorite parts of "the story" like the details of all the factory build outs for enrichment or the sabotage of the Nordic heavy water plants were completely skipped over but that's okay I think. That was a movie about a man, not a bomb.

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
The movie was based in large part on the book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" Which is a life of the man, as you say. The main difference from the movie is that, aside from being much more lengthy, as book vs. movie always is, it dwells more on pre-WW2 California leftist politics. Whereas the downfall of Lewis Strauss gets only a brief mention. And of course it covers the life of J R Oppenheimer from birth to death in detail, in parts exhaustive detail.
- pests 3y ago
  Oh interesting, thanks. I missed Oppenheimer in IMAX the first time around but saw it finally a month or two ago when it was re-released. I had originally been reading Rhodes's "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" leading up to the release - I timed it to where I stopped reading right at the part Trinity went off at, saw the movie, and just recently finished. So thanks for the rec.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    TBH there were parts of that book where I felt I had had my fill long before the book let go - (e.g. the above-mentioned pre-WW2 California leftist politics) but YMMV, and it's a true history book, not a novel designed to thrill. And there were fascinating engineering problem-solving details that were entirely absent e.g. the lengths gone to to get the shaped charges for the implosion device correct, and to run the punched-card computing for that. See Feynman's anecdotes on it instead. But on the whole, it's a fascinating book if you're into that sort of thing.