“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”.

Bhagavad Gita

Initially, I wasn’t all that interested in either the long non-fiction book, nor the film.

BUT finally got around to both.

The movie is better. Not perfect, but a fantastic job telling a difficult story.

I streamed it on Prime over 3 nights as it is LONG.

 Cillian Murphy would seem to be the best possible actor to play the brilliant, complicated J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Robert Downey Jr. is excellent.

Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, as well.

Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr is perfect. He has the gravitas to bring depth to Oppenheimer’s hero.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I read American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005) by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Surprisingly, I was quite engaged in his early years. The beginnings of the theoretical Physics that would lead to the nuclear bomb.

Once it got to his downfall due to his security hearing in the McCarthy era. The efforts by Lewis Strauss and the FBI to undermine Oppenheimer — I got restless.

Always conflicted, I wished Oppenheimer had simply walked away from the controversy.

I also read The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert J. Sawyer, the author being a friend of my brother.

It’s an interesting alternative history of the Manhattan Project historical figures.