Unpacking Oppenheimer’s cordial yet complicated relationship with Albert Einstein, who once called him a ‘fool’ for not turning his back on the US govt

“Einstein surely was ‘great’ by virtue of his extraordinary scientific accomplishments; Oppenheimer was deserving of the description by virtue of what he accomplished as a teacher in Berkeley during the 1930s and as director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory during World War II. For both Einstein and Oppenheimer, science, and physics, in particular, had a special meaning. Both were outstanding physicists and becoming outstanding physicists was a necessary condition for their becoming ‘great’ in Berlin’s sense,” Silvan S Schweber noted in the introduction of his book Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius.

According to RadioTimes.com, Oppenheimer and Einstein were initially at odds regarding the field of quantum mechanics and the development of nuclear weapons. It is believed that they had their first encounter when Einstein was on a world tour in 1932 and visited Caltech (where Oppenheimer was based at the time). They interacted several times before Oppenheimer started working on the Manhattan Project, the report stated.

Nevertheless, one of the most widely talked-about anecdotes featuring both physicists was the moment when Oppenheimer faced scrutiny due to his previous Communist affiliations, and Einstein stood by his side. Einstein reportedly chided Oppenheimer for not heeding his advice during that challenging period, referring to him as a ‘fool’.

Oppenheimer was summoned to a security meeting where he had to account for his past associations with communists. Einstein urged Oppenheimer not to give legitimacy to what was referred to as a ‘kangaroo court’ by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, who wrote Oppenheimer’s biography, American Prometheus. Instead, he advised Oppenheimer to quit his post as he himself had done in Germany during the rise of the Nazis. Einstein told Oppenheimer that he had “no obligation to subject himself to the witch hunt,” and if that was the “reward” that the United States had for him for his service during the war, “he should turn his back on her”, an SFGATE.com report mentioned.

Oppenheimer, however, dismissed Einstein’s advice. Upon learning this, Einstein said: “There goes a narr (fool in Yiddish),” to his assistant, nodding in the direction of Oppenheimer, according to The Guardian. “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him—the United States government,” he told a friend, per Bird and Sherwin, a Vanity Fair report mentioned. Einstein, however, expressed his support in a more palatable manner and told the press: “I admire him not only as a scientist but also as a great human being.”

Einstein and Oppenheimer might have been friends and fellow travellers, but their personalities were also sharply divergent. Oppenheimer wasn’t afraid to rub people up the wrong way when he needed to (and often when he didn’t), and he had his fair share of psychological troubles and self-destructive tendencies as a younger man, but he was also an inspirational and dynamic leader, as reported by The Telegraph.

The men also disagreed over quantum physics fundamentally. While Oppenheimer viewed quantum physics as the bible of modern theoretical physics, Einstein spent much of the end of his life trying to poke holes in it, SFGATE.com, said.