ANSTO scientists turned film critics on the weekend to provide some reviews of Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer. It’s the story of the director of the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic weapon during World War II.
As the operator of Australia’s only nuclear reactor, ANSTO owes part of its origins to the arrival of the atomic age, the discovery of fission as a source of nuclear energy, the response to the development and testing of atomic weapons, and the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear.
Both the United Nations and the IAEA were formed as the world and scientific community grappled with the catastrophic consequence of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the commencement of the arms race.
It is also now known that there were damaging effects both on the local population of New Mexico and more broadly across the continental United States.
Nolan is not one to shy away from science, as his fans know well from the blockbuster Interstellar, where he went to great lengths for scientific accuracy in depicting a black hole. Nobel physicist Kip Thorne acted as a scientific adviser and published a paper on his calculations to accurately provide an image of a black hole.
The ANSTO critics diverged in their assessments, but all were struck but the depiction of the profound impact of using the device and the geopolitical ramifications …
“The Trinity demonstration was a seminal moment in history, and it’s no surprise Nolan gave this anything less than the ‘magnum opus’ treatment,” said nuclear analyst Dr Mark Ho.
“This he did compellingly, in this three-hour biopic, centred around Oppenheimer – encapsulating science, socialism, political intrigue and all the moral dilemma which followed. To tell the tale with any less complexity would seem cheap and ignore the important moral, scientific and geopolitical fallout which followed from Hiroshima.
“Under ordinary circumstances, the likelihood of engineering an atomic device from scratch would have taken longer than three years, and many scientists would have refused the task.
“It is Oppenheimer who stands central to the scientific effort and who must negotiate with both officers and scientists alike to fulfil an exciting yet horrifying task under the threat of annihilation: to create a device that was both a salvation and burden.
“Being an engineer, I would have liked to see more of the Manhattan Project portrayed – the K-25 enrichment facility or the X-10 graphite reactor which bred the plutonium or that the atomic explosion was more faithfully portrayed in violet hues.
“But only on reflection, I am wiser in that Nolan wanted to make a movie to elevate the social conversation around the dilemma of the nuclear age and the importance of continued international efforts to maintain nuclear non-proliferation.”
“I really enjoyed the movie,” said Helen Maynard-Casely, who is an expert in science communication. “Like the book that it is based on, it presented the scientists involved as complex humans rather than just aloof geniuses.
“The film fundamentally focused on the human interactions, with science being the driving tool for the goal of much of the movie – Oppenheimer leads a team that ends the war only to be persecuted in the USA later.
“The movie showed the rapidity of developments at the time really well, the timescale between the first fission experiment in 1938 in Berlin to the first reactor, Chicago Pile-1 in 1942 in the USA, was extraordinary, comparable to the space race occurring over 20 years later.
“Hot on the heels of the Chicago pile was the X10 reactor, going critical in 1943, which though only mentioned in the film, was the first reactor that was used for neutron-scattering experiments.
“It would be nice to imagine a world where the first thought on splitting a uranium atom would have been ‘ooo this would be good for energy’ rather than ‘this could make a bomb’, but the lasting legacy – from morality, global politics to technological – of the Manhattan Project cannot be denied.”
“It was an exciting, suspenseful film but I felt the science was left a bit abstract in Oppenheimer,” said Dr Kirrily Rule, who is the former national secretary of the Australian Institute of Physics.
“As Christopher Nolan intended, the focus was more on the ethical questions and the personal dramas. I feel that the science was brushed over in such a high-level way and that Nolan wanted to use it as a confusing element. To be honest, I lost track of who was who and which part of the project they were working on. There was such a large cast!
“Some characters even made comments like, ‘Quantum mechanics is hard’, which I disagree with – it’s only hard if someone hasn’t explained it properly. As a physicist watching the movie, I think they could have been much clearer on the science involved, but again, I believe Nolan used such high-level jargon as a confusing element to the film intentionally. It made the audience feel separated from these scientific giants. As a scientist and teacher, I think this is a poor way to represent science – it just continues to give people the impression that ‘science is too hard’.”
Instrument scientist Dr Rachel Williamson, who undertook some postdoc work at Los Alamos National Laboratory using stable isotope analysis earlier in her career, said: “I wasn’t focused on the nitty-gritty of the science (I’m a chemist, not a quantum physicist!), but I did enjoy watching a science, or rather, a scientist-centred movie with a strong emphasis on how pivotal scientific events, whether for good or bad, shape our world. The Atomic Age, which we all live in today, began with Oppenheimer and his team’s successful test at Trinity Site.
“I had a particular interest in seeing the movie because of the time I spent working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Oppenheimer loomed large in the mythos of Los Alamos, along with the unfairness of his treatment after his incredible efforts in the Manhattan Project era. It was uniformly agreed that no one apart from Oppenheimer could have brought together and led that team to achieve such an outcome within the timeframe that they had.
“I did enjoy the depiction of science leadership in the film, and how much depends on building the right team, such as knowing who you need to bring in and when, and trying to remove any barriers in the way. Interestingly, to this day, Los Alamos National Laboratory recruits scientists from all over the world.
“For me, Nolan’s film packed a truly emotional punch when depicting the political machinations involved in tearing Oppenheimer down and rescinding his Q clearance, effectively shutting down his career and removing his platform. I thought the film did a great job of showing the tension between politics and science (and how inconvenient we scientists can be).
“A lighter moment in the film was when Oppenheimer talked about combining New Mexico and physics. New Mexico is a beautiful area filled with incredible scenery. Whilst at Los Alamos, I made the long journey down to the south of New Mexico to Trinity Site, a place with its own strange empty beauty, and I stood at ground zero.
“Where a tower containing a bomb once stood, there is now a slightly underwhelming stone obelisk. It does seem odd to me that Oppenheimer chose to detonate the gadget in New Mexico, a place so dear to his heart. But he was a man of contradictions, and I think Nolan’s film was brilliant at conveying just how complicated and contradictory he was.”
Dr Ceri Brenner, leader of the Centre for Accelerator Science, said that she enjoyed and appreciated the snippets of science that were included in the script and the visuals to explain some of the main physics themes that are central to this story.
“They were short but sweet and got the right balance of inclusivity while maintaining flow and pace needed for a film that packed a lot in. For example, the explanations of fission and fusion, and the introduction to the paradox of light being both a particle and a wave that Oppenheimer gave to the one student who turned up for his first lectures in the US were key to the story.
“This underlying principle of quantum physics was striking within the physics community at the time and still remains a mysterious idea for those outside that have never come across it before (which is most people who haven’t studied physics, maths and chemistry).
“I also enjoyed the discussion of theory v experiment and another aspect of science that came across but not often gets airtime: that when we are doing something for the first time, it’s often that you get it wrong 100 times before you get something right and make progress. The process of discovery and innovation is a winding road, full of dead ends and potholes, and certainly not a smooth straight line.
“Group discussion, such as peer review, is our process in science for challenging ideas and findings, so it was good to see this included in the storyline.
“The only thing that I would have liked to see, and would have been a key science communication opportunity, is that when the device went off, we got the flash of light and the silence, but I didn’t notice anyone reacting to the immediate experience of heat that accompanied the visual of the flash.
“The energy emitted from fission is radiative and carried long distances via electromagnetic radiation, which travels at the speed of light, compared to conductive or convective heat that propagates more like the sound wave boom that arrived shortly after that travels at the speed of light. I saw a documentary where someone described it as being similar to opening an oven door and feeling the immediate bath of heat emerging.”
Dr Mitra Safavi-Naeini saw the film in Japan, where she is undertaking research relating to the anti-cancer therapy treatment NCEPT she co-developed.
“The movie ends with a dialogue between Oppenheimer and Einstein, the essence of it summarised by another one of Oppenheimer’s quotes from the Bhagavad Gita: ‘I have become death, the destroyer of worlds’.
“We do not get a primer on fission, quantum mechanics or particle physics. Instead, Nolan depicts the real-world experience of theoretical physicists convincingly, focusing on both their individual journeys and their collective dynamics. The film captures Oppenheimer as an intellectually curious individual, captivated by quantum mechanics and deeply engaged with various areas of science, including astrophysics, spectroscopy and nuclear physics.
“In an interesting cross-reference, Nolan has used models developed by Oppenheimer and his student, Snyder, to illustrate star collapse and the creation of a black hole – an aspect we’ve seen in his earlier movie Interstellar.
“I was struck by how well the movie handles the influence of external events on personal trajectories. Oppenheimer, initially an academic, is thrust into a leadership role by the onset of World War II. The story doesn’t shy away from depicting his humanity, showing him as a complex individual with many facets.
“The film sets its drama against a background of a world in turmoil. With the rise of Nazi Germany, many renowned physicists, including Einstein and Born, were forced to flee (a few, like Heisenberg, stayed behind). These refugee scientists, exiled and concerned, played a pivotal role in alerting the world to the growing Nazi threat.
“[Then there’s] the depiction of the kangaroo courts, which handled the theme of suspicion and guilt by association, using the example of Oppenheimer’s security hearing.
“In my opinion, Oppenheimer asks an important question: ‘Should decisions with cataclysmic potential be left to individuals with their own agenda?’
This article was published in two parts on the ANSTO website.
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