Robert Oppenheimer

What Hacker News says

1. stonlybJan 2025
   list of (most of) the books mentioned in this thread so far. I tried reading every comment but used chatGPT instead.

   1. The Big Rich - Texas oil boom.

   2. Barbarians at the Gate - Private equity origins.

   3. Masters of Doom - John Carmack and Id Software.

   4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson - Einstein's discoveries.

   5. Houdini!!! - The escape artist and magician.

   6. The Double Helix - DNA discovery.

   7. Stress Test by Tim Geithner - Financial crisis.

   8. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - Concentration camp survival.

   9. The Chariots of Apollo - NASA's space program.

   10. Across the Airless Wilds by Earl Swift - Development of the moon buggy.

   11. Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox - Apollo missions.

   12. The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr - Food supply chains.

   13. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry evolution.

   14. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson - Ambitious wreck divers.

   15. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - Manhattan Project.

   16. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin - Robert Oppenheimer.

   17. Conquistador by Buddy Levy - Hernán Cortés and the Aztecs.

   18. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner - Water infrastructure in the American West.

   19. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - The invention of flight.

   20. Walt Disney by Neal Gabler - Vision and innovation in entertainment.

   21. Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant - Invention of radar.

   22. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.

   23. The Logic of Failure - Understanding and avoiding failure.

   24. The Big Short by Michael Lewis - 2008 financial crisis.

   25. The Box by Marc Levinson - Shipping container revolution.

   26. Latitude by Nicholas Crane - Cartography innovations.

   27. When the Heavens Went on Sale by Ashlee Vance - Space startups.

   28. The Founders by Jimmy Soni - PayPal's early days.

   29. The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester - Precision engineering.

   30. The Little Engine That Could - Children's classic.

   31. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - Success mechanics.

   32. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Founding of Nike.

   33. Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin - Building LIGO.

   34. Freedom’s Forge - WWII industry mobilization.

   35. Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes - Electrification by Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse.

   36. The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough - Panama Canal construction.

   37. Annapurna by Maurice Herzog - Climbing a Himalayan peak.

   38. Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - Data General engineers.

   39. Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary - Development of Windows NT.

   40. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - WWII survival.

   41. The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder - Defining the meter.

   42. The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll - Tracking a hacker.

   43. The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel - Srinivasa Ramanujan.

   44. The Power Broker by Robert Caro - Robert Moses and New York infrastructure.

   45. How Big Things Get Done - Large-scale project execution.

   46. Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik - Xerox PARC.

   47. Built by Roma Agrawal - Civil engineering insights.

   48. The Will to Keep Winning by Daigo Umehara - Competitive gaming.

   49. Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold - Low-temperature physics.

   50. Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins - Apollo 11.

   Show morethread
2. cambalacheJan 2021
   Yeah, Isaacson revered as a great biographer, is like Jobs being lauded a great engineer.

   Anyway, here are some recommendations, hopefully you can pick one or two you still dont have:

   Einstein -> Subtle is the lord, Abraham Pais (Already mentioned)

   Newton -> Never at rest, Richard Westfall (Already mentioned)

   Galileo -> Galileo, John Heilbron

   Oppenheimer -> Inside the centre (Ray Monk), more technical: "Robert Oppenheimer, a life" A. Pais

   Euler -> Euler: The Master of Us All, William Dunham (This is less a biography more like a compedium, still recommended)

   Archimedes -> Archimedes, E.J Dijksterhuis(As many on this list, this is considered the seminal biography)

   Dirac -> The strangest man ,Graham Farmelo (This is a popular account by a good writer). Dirac: A Scientific Biography, Helge Kragh. More technical.

   Show morethread
3. tashoecraftDec 2018
   Reamde - Neal Stephenson - Really enjoyed this one, though I’m a sucker for Neal Stephenson books.

   Nexus (1, 2 and 3) - Ramez Naam - Great scifi exploring human -> cyborg transformations across the world. An OS for the mind had me very excited and scared for the future of computing.

   The City & the city - China Miéville - A weird sci fi based that I had no idea what to expect going into it. Enjoyed it, but not as much as some of the others.

   The Righteous Mind: Why Good people are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt - Great read for this current climate. Allowed me to understand those around me better and to improve relations with family members who are far over on the right side of the political spectrum better.

   Robert Oppenheimer - Ray Monk - Enjoyed it, but it was quite long. Oppenheimer was an interesting person who didn’t actually make many direct contributions to the world of physics, but was extremely well read and knew everyone in the industry. And you know, lead development of the atomic bomb.

   The Phoenix Project - Gene Kim - Great CI/CD book disguised as a novel, inspired me to push heavily for an improved build/release pipeline at work.

   Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow - Yes, the book the play is based on, but it goes into such great detail of the life of an incredible person. It’s hard to fathom what the United States would become without Hamilton.

   It Doesn’t have to be Crazy at work - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson - Great, short read about why our corporate/entrepreneur culture is just crap. All this hustle, burnout, and destructive ideas are unnecessary and don’t really bring much improvements.

   Hitler - Ian Kershaw - Really great biography into the rise and fall of Hitler and the third Reich. It’s horrifying for all the reasons you know, but also with how much is rhyming with the world right now.

   Team of Rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin - Great biography into Lincoln and his cabinet. He was truly a unique president who was able to convert people who hated him into his biggest admirers.

   Show morethread
4. gjkoodApr 2015
   I was blown away after reading this book. It is by far the best book on general physics I have read. I recommend it to all parents to give their children the opportunity to read this book. I think it will change their lives and channel them to a love of physics (if they are so inclined). It is an example of how so few could influence so many.

   Personal anecdote. I met Robert Oppenheimer's grandson a few years back and he mentioned that this book is one of the few books that treated his grandfather fairly.

   Show morethread
5. DaniFongFeb 2009
   This article reminded me of the story of Robert Oppenheimer. In that case, at least, I think the story of how we destroy our heroes rings true.

   If any of you enjoy biographies, stories of scientific and engineering heroism, and haven't read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," please do. It is an extraordinary story.

   thread
6. gwbas1cJan 2025
   American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Marin J. Sherwin

   It is based on ~20 years of research about Robert Oppenheimer, and is the inspiration for the movie Oppenheimer. Robert Oppenheimer is the scientist who lead the development of the first atomic bomb.

   > Less interested in people and character studies. More interested in the mechanics of how things that we take for granted actually got built and what the world they were made in was like.

   In this case, the "people and character studies" are very critical to understanding "the mechanics of how things that we take for granted actually got built and what the world they were made in was like". The early part of the book goes in depth to Oppenheimer's social ties to communist groups, which is critical to understanding the reason why he was forbidden from continuing research in the latter part of his life.

   https://www.amazon.com/American-Prometheus-Triumph-Tragedy-O...

   (To make a long story short, the American Communists, and their sympathizers, in the 1930s were blissfully unaware that the Soviet Union was an authoritarian hellhole. Many of the people involved in the Manhattan project had ties to those American Communists, and thus scientists in the Soviet Union. Because, for them, the Manhattan project was an academic endeavor, they wanted to share their results with their Soviet collogues. And that's how the nuclear race started... Information was leaked to the Soviets in the name of science. Oppenheimer was a victim of the resulting witch hunt; which requires understanding the "people and character studies" part of the book.)

   Show morethread