Julius Robert Oppenheimer’s identification badge at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1940s (Wikimedia Commons)
“Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” Those words are regularly attributed to the charismatic and controversial nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer – the subject of a much-anticipated Christopher Nolan biopic being released this weekend – upon witnessing the world’s first nuclear test on July 16, 1945. The episode, however, is somewhat disputed; others present in the New Mexico desert that day do not recall him saying that. Oppenheimer himself recounted the following in a 1965 documentary, The Decision to Drop the Bomb:
We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince [Arjuna] that he should do his duty, and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or the other.1
The phrase has nevertheless entered popular lore. References and allusions to it abound, whether in television shows (NBC’s Heroes), comic books (Alan Moore’s Watchmen), or movies (Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton starring George Clooney). But its origins, its meaning, and its significance in Oppenheimer’s life are less readily understood or appreciated. More significantly, Oppenheimer and other leading scientists’ interest in ancient Indian philosophy and literature is a testament to the centrality of the liberal arts for contending with the complex ethical and logical dilemmas presented by the frontiers of scientific research.
Folio sampling a part of verse 20, and the beginning of verse 21 from the opening chapter of the Bhagavad Gita (Creative Commons).
Oppenheimer’s association with the Bhagavad Gita (which might be loosely translated as “The Lord’s Song”) was characteristic of his own intellectual curiosity and non-conformity. Although a physicist, Oppenheimer had a lifelong fascination with poetry, and even tried his hand at writing some doggerel. Trinity, the name given to the first nuclear test, derived from the poetry of John Donne, while the works of Charles Baudelaire and T.S. Eliot also were important influences in his life. In the 1930s, Oppenheimer was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was faculty with the linguist Arthur W. Ryder. Ryder was a prolific translator of the ancient Indian language Sanskrit, including of the Panchatantra fables and the plays of the Indian poet and playwright Kalidasa. Oppenheimer began taking weekly tutorials in Sanskrit from him. Although introduced to several ancient Sanskrit texts, the Bhagavad Gita struck a particular chord with Oppenheimer, who described it as “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”2
Given turbulence in his romantic life, his unorthodox political views, and what some of his colleagues described as neuroses, Oppenheimer found himself drawn to the Gita’s mysticism and romanticism. But he was equally inspired by its fatalism and call to action. The Bhagavad Gita describes a pivotal scene in the Hindu epic The Mahabharata, although it is often treated as a stand-alone text. The Mahabharata recounts a conflict between two branches of a family, with great warriors and coalitions arrayed on each side. The Bhagavad Gita, told in verse (ślokas), begins with the Pandava warrior prince, Arjuna, feeling doubt and remorse at having to face members of his family, his beloved teachers, and other well-wishers in battle. Lord Krishna, an avatar of the god Vishnu, who has assumed the role of his charioteer, dispenses advice to the prince of his duties and responsibilities, his dharma. For Oppenheimer, the idea of morality less as a question of black and white, but more of a personal struggle in a world largely outside of one’s control, was an appealing one.
In fact, the scientist’s interest in the Bhagavad Gita bordered on obsession, and was the subject of some amusement among his colleagues and acquaintances. He would hand out copies of the Gita to friends and even named a Chrysler automobile his father bought for him “Garuda,” after the mount of the god Vishnu.3 Oppenheimer’s personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita, translated by Ryder, is one of only two personal objects of his kept by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Oppenheimer was the first director, the other object being his office chair.4 The actor Cillian Murphy, who portrays Oppenheimer in the forthcoming film, says that he read the Gita in preparation for the role. “I thought it was an absolutely beautiful text, very inspiring” he said, assessing that “it was a consolation for [Oppenheimer], he kind of needed it…all his life.”5
The “Jumbo” device, being prepared for the Trinity test, 1945 (Wikimedia Commons).
Indeed, at difficult junctures in his life, Oppenheimer invoked lines from the Gita, either from Ryder’s translation or his own. Upon hearing of the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, he incorporated some lines from the Gita into his eulogy. Two days before the Trinity test, a nervous Oppenheimer shared a translation with Vannevar Bush, director of the U.S.’s Office of Scientific Research and Development: “In battle, in forest, at the precipice in the mountains, / On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows / In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame, the good deeds a man has done before defend him.”6 Another passage that Oppenheimer later recounted going through his head upon seeing the Trinity test: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.”7
The most famous phrase uttered by Oppenheimer, and its translation, is the subject of considerable dispute beyond the question of its utterance. “Now I am become death…” benefits considerably from Oppenheimer’s creative license. The original line is Bhagavad Gita 11.32: कालोऽस्मि लोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धो (kaalo’smi loka-kshaya-krit pravriddho).8 The rather poetic phrasing employed by Oppenheimer (“I am become”) may have been inspired by a line from Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (“I am become a name”), a work with which he was likely familiar.9 Of greater significance, the use of “death” is itself subjective, as “kaal” would more naturally be translated as “time.” “I am time, the mighty source of everything’s destruction,” may be a more literal translation, but is certainly less evocative.
Robert Oppenheimer (left) and General Leslie Groves (right) at Ground Zero of the nuclear bomb test site, 1945 (Wikimedia Commons).
When popularly invoked, Oppenheimer’s phrase is most often associated with the daunting realization of his own omnipotence: a mortal having achieved god-like powers. But the context makes clear that it is in fact the opposite. Instead, Oppenheimer saw himself as Arjuna in the parable, having to carry out a mission that was both necessary for the American war effort but one that also would cause great suffering and sorrow. It reflects, more than anything, his own ambivalence about his life’s achievements. A more cynical interpretation is that it represents an attempt at justifying his role in realizing the atomic bomb’s destructive potential or simply his projecting responsibility for the perils of the new nuclear age.
Oppenheimer’s experience with ancient Indian philosophy was not unique among American or European scientists of his day. In fact, ancient Hindu scriptures inspired and mesmerized a number of great scientific minds in the United States and Western Europe. The inventor Nikola Tesla was intrigued by the relationship between matter and energy in ancient Indian texts and befriended Swami Vivekananda, the celebrated Hindu spiritual leader. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr was also fascinated by the interrogations of Indian philosophy, imbibed through the work of German Indologists such as Paul Deussen, which informed his larger worldview.10
Among the closest to Oppenheimer in terms of his deep and pervasive personal interest in Indian philosophical treatises was the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, of “Schrödinger’s cat” fame. His particular fascination lay with the Upanishads, among the foundational texts of classical Hinduism, having been introduced to them through the work of the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The Upanishads, Schrödinger felt, described the simultaneous singularity and multiplicity of the world – and the thorny questions of reality, consciousness, and perspective that they raise – in ways that were reflected in quantum physics.11 Some of the unusual features of quantum physics – superposition, entanglement, and interference – are central to ongoing innovations and applications in quantum computing.
Oppenheimer and Schrödinger’s deep interest in millennia-old Indian literature and philosophy was not just curious eccentricity on their parts. These unexpected intellectual endeavors helped them make sense of observable puzzles and ethical quandaries at the frontiers of science. Creativity has often been necessary to surmount seemingly impossible scientific obstacles: it took the invention of imaginary units (i) to reveal certain naturally occurring patterns in the real world. The same can be said for technological applications: Steve Jobs credited a college course in calligraphy for an aesthetic appreciation that drove Apple’s successes. As the academy moves towards the relentless promotion of STEM disciplines in an age of machine learning, automation, and augmented reality, Oppenheimer’s esoteric pursuit for truth in an ancient Indian poem is a reminder of the criticality of the liberal arts to the scientific temper.
J. Robert Oppenheimer with his successor, Norris Bradbury, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1964 (Wikimedia) Commons).
- The Decision to Drop the Bomb. Directed by Fred Freed and Len Giovannitti. New York: NBC News, 1965.
- Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Knopf, 2005), 99.
- Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, 100.
- Patty Templeton, “Plutonium and Poetry: Where Trinity and Oppenheimer’s Reading Habits Met,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, July 14, 2021, https://discover.lanl.gov/news/0714-oppenheimer-literature/
- Sucharita Tyagi, “Oppenheimer Interview,” YouTube, July 14, 2023.
- Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, 290, 305.
- Lincoln Barnett, “J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Life, October 10, 1949, 133.
- Bhagavad Gita (New Delhi: Prakash Books, 2022), 272.
- Alfred Tennyson, The World of Alfred Lord Tennyson (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1994), 147-148.
- Vernon Katz and Thomas Egenes, The Upanishads: A New Translation (New York: Penguin Random House, 2015), 6; Stephen Prothero, God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 168.
- Walter Moore, A LIfe of Erwin Schrödinger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 83-88.
