He led a team that created the most awesome, and yet horrendous, tool ever created by mankind. Get to know the “father of the atomic bomb,” at the exclusive Books on Film premiere of the cinematic spectacle about J. Robert Oppenheimer titled, simply, OPPENHEIMER on Friday, July 21.
The Books on Film series is presented by the Jefferson County Library Foundation (JCLF) and will be held at the Regal United Artists movie theatre at the Colorado Mills Mall on West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood, Colorado. Tickets are limited and should be purchased in advance. Visit: https://jeffclf.org. The fundraiser helps the Jeffco Library Foundation provide direct financial support to free Jefferson County Library programs like 1000 Books Before Kindergarten, the Library Summer Challenge and Raise a Reader!
Opening night tickets for this much-anticipated summer film will include a soda, popcorn and opportunity to win a door prize. The film will be introduced by Denver 7 TV’s meteorologist Lisa Hidalgo, and post-film discussion will be led by John (Grizz) Deal, former Los Alamos National Lab “Entrepreneur in Residence,” co-founder of the Hyperion Nuclear Power Company, and current CEO of the Los Alamos Lab spin-out company IX Power Clean Water.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, PhD, an American theoretical physicist, was selected during World War II to lead the Manhattan Project for the United States, the effort which created the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the purpose of forcing Japan to surrender and end the conflict. Born in 1904, he attended Harvard, Cambridge, and the University of Gottingen, where he received his PhD. Before being tapped to lead the U.S. National Laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1943, he held academic positions at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. Recognized for his significant contributions to quantum mechanics and
nuclear physics, his leadership and scientific expertise were instrumental in the success of the Manhattan Project. After the war ended, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He lobbied for international control of nuclear power, to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
At an elevation of 7,320 feet, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico is the most famous of the 17 federal government laboratories in the U.S. Oppenheimer suggested the lab be built at its current site because he thought the Sangre de Cristo mountains were remote enough for the highly secretive work that needed to be done there.
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