Day 116: Some Physics Lore for You

I finally got a good seat to watch Oppenheimer this weekend. I was looking forward to it because I'm a huge sucker for anything physics, and the same goes for anything Christopher Nolan. It really was a great combo. I'm sure you've read a thousand reviews of this movie by now, and it certainly lives up to all the hype. Nolan's nonlinear style develops further with every film, and I thought this one made particularly good use of the multiple time frames he is so fond of. I'm always looking forward to Nolan's next film, so I hope he continues to outdo himself as the years go on. He's easily my favorite director, and the best ever in my opinion. Even if I didn't care about the development atomic bomb, I wouldn't want to miss out on the theatrical release of any of Nolan's films for a second.

I'd rather not give yet another review of the movie, so instead I wanted to talk about one part I wish they had given a little more attention to. For a story where the advent of quantum physics played such a big role, they didn't give my favorite physicist Richard Feynman very much screen time at all. Of course Feynman didn't do as much for the war effort as the others, seeing as he was a junior physicist at the time, so I can see why he wasn't granted all that much screen time, but still. The guy barely had a line.

A major theme in the movie was the holes in operational security at Los Alamos, culminating in the realization that Klaus Fuchs was spying for the Soviets the whole time. This could have been an easy in to give Feynman a little more screen time because Fuchs actually said Feynman was the most likely spy at Los Alamos when asked. That was, before admitting he himself was a spy. But why would he say that you ask? Well because of Feynman's propensity for snooping. Apparently he very much enjoyed cracking the combination locks on the other physicists' secure desk drawers and lockers, going so far as to leave them notes signed 'Feynman the safecracker,' and returning reports that his coworkers hadn't given him yet. After the security team upgraded all the locks, he relearned how to open each and every one of them again, just to prove the point. I can just imagine him telling some security official this line from 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.

"I opened the safes which contained all the secrets to the atomic bomb: the schedules for the production of the plutonium, the purification procedures, how much material is needed, how the bomb works, how the neutrons are generated, what the design is, the dimensions–the entire information that was known at Los Alamos: the whole schmeer!"

The best evidence against Feynman being a soviet spy is that if he were, the Soviets probably would have gotten a grasp on the design a whole lot sooner than they did. I bet if he hadn't been so blatant with his mockery of their security protocols (and if Fuchs was never revealed) Feynman probably would've been imprisoned in the McCarthy era. But there's no way a real spy would do anything so brazen. Right?

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley