Theory will take you only so far. The thunderous epic about the world’s most crucial politics, loss of empathy, and impending doom, Oppenheimer, flaunts this watchword in every half an hour of the 180-minute thriller. Although what seemed to us might just be a brilliant dialogue, it instilled a conflicting passion to go further beyond within two greatest minds in the world: Dr. Julius Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. The minds that changed the course of history for the entire mankind as it is. 

This cold story of young blood humanity neatly portrays how the two gifts of Science mirrored and opposed each other. But only ended up meeting with the same fate of drowning in the quagmire of regret and despair. The man who has been bestowed with the chance to perform the miracle, Oppenheimer, justified by Cillian Murphy, finds himself dragged through the mud before creating history. And this is exactly when Einstein casually appears outside his Princeton home to chip in some heavy words of advice.

Some serious conversations followed by some crucial decisions, and science as it is saw an uprising of the unimaginable. 

Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and the extension of physics 

The theoretical physicist and the father of the atomic bomb did stand at different footings. However, their trajectory throughout the movie and in real life remained the same. As Oppenheimer dug deeper into quantum physics, Einstein had already laid the foundation for him through his theory of relativity. Although he never directly indulged in the invention of the bomb, the movie does show how his unintended contribution acted as a driving force for the brilliant minds at Los Alamos that brought to life the atomic bomb. 

And thus as Newton’s physics altered the Western culture, the expansion of science by these two scientists together forced change of what human beings were and are capable of. It served as one of the main characteristics that thereafter marshaled for destructive ends.

Were the two scientists on the same page?

United by physics, but divided by the emotions they harbored for their borders. Einstein and Oppenheimer did not run lines when it came to serving their nations. Coming from someone who had to escape his homeland, Albert Einstein had all the reasons to turn his back on Germany. However, New-York born Oppenheimer happened to love his America a little too much even if it meant being held hostage post-detonation. 

In the brief conversation at the Princeton grounds, Einstein shares some words of advice with Oppenheimer. As reasonable as it was, Oppenheimer walked the opposite path instead of what Einstein paved before him. Undoubtedly, the decision cost Oppenheimer his reputation, diligence, and loyalty to his nation. Nonetheless, he did give mankind the power that they should have feared. After all, decisions that go otherwise define what humans are. 

And thus, with Oppenheimer’s intricate work in the field of quantum electrodynamics, long-lived the discovery of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Portrayed in the Magnum opus of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, this story single-mindedly reminds us that great catastrophes often creep up on us in hours of sudden impulse. It demonstrates how slowly and inexorably a catastrophe unfolds. How the accretion of individual acts can prevent mass bloodshed or can hurl an entire civilization into the nothingness of an abyss. 

Have you seen the movie yet? If not, you are missing out on life.