Under observation, we can change, become more polite or even more hostile. We take a breath and decide our outcome, predict the probability of success. We create things and share it, hoping for the right outcome. But what can we do if what we make is used in a different manner? What can we say about the consequences outside of our control? Would you accept it as your duty or become conflicted, never realising that whatever happens next is not random, is not predicted, and is essentially out of your hands? Everything is connected, and it’s only through consequences do we eventually realise this.
This is Two Takes and this is One Shot. An analysis of the film Oppenheimer.
The American Prometheus
We somewhat know the story of Prometheus; the Greek Titan that was best known for defying the Olympian Gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge and more generally civilization. He was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock and everyday an eagle came and ate part of his liver, and every nig ht his liver would regrow, which meant Prometheus had to endure his punishment for eternity.
But why do I bring this up?
Because Oppenheimer himself has been called ‘The American Prometheus’ which in itself, creates the connection between this mythological god, and a man who created a bomb and then gave it to the government. There is more, and it is here that my interest in peaked. Now, think about the aftermath of both stories. They both had unintended consequences. Prometheus thought that by bringing humanity a useful tool, it would make their lives better. This was the same for Oppenheimer. Perhaps by building something as a somewhat statement, it would encourage no outcome of violence. But both powerful technologies must be used responsibly. And by both Prometheus’ and Oppenheimer’s hand, creating something and giving it to someone else, the outcome is never what the creator intended. Things can become warped, or used for different means. And this is what happened in both scenarios. By giving fire to humans, by giving a bomb to the government, it also meant giving that person or people a moral choice; to use the tool for good or evil. And it was here, from giving that power to someone else, that it was out of the creator’s hands.
Basing it from the film, it can be understood that Oppenheimer made the bomb to be used as a scare tactic, and nothing more. It’s intention was for other countries to understand the importance of such power and to essentially back down. It was to put a stop to a war.
But by the time it was used, the enemy was someone else, and the destruction that followed killed thousands, marked the landscape, and brought about a sense of foreboding, with many countries understanding that this technology is not to be messed around with.
But like Prometheus and his punishment, the regeneration of his liver, and the eagle that followed day and night, Oppenheimer had the same sort of punishment within his mind.
He revelled in his success in the Trinity Test, but 11 days after the bombing in Hiroshima, he expressed in writing to the US Government his desire for nuclear bombs to be banned.
His punishment was understanding the heavy importance of such knowledge when shared with the world.
And like the story of Prometheus that is used as this example, there are more examples that come to mind based on what Oppenheimer researched in the realms of religion and science. Stories from the past and theories of the future can sometimes intermingle to present the same conclusion, the same moral, the same connection.
Fission
The idea of fission and fusion energy is placed within the film when first introducing the different timelines of what happened within Oppenheimer’s life before, during and after the Trinity Experiment. The ‘fission’ timeline is in colour, and portrays the individual story of Oppenheimer and his subjective experiences of the world. This is more from the source, and fission energy, the splitting of a heavy, unstable nucleus into two lighter nuclei can represent his viewpoint and how it can be split because of other people’s accounts on his actions.
The splitting of of an atomic nucleus, in this scenario, can also represent the splitting of ideas, of thoughts, separating everything when really, Oppenheimer knew, in a small strange way, that things are connected, even through the ramifications of it. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. Let me explain the connection that Oppenheimer has between his life’s work and his beliefs.
“I Am Death, Destroyer of Worlds”
From a young age, the influence of the Hindu philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita, has had a powerful influence on Oppenheimer, to the point where it’s teachings have helped him find a way to make sense of his actions.
This 700-verse Hindu scripture, written in Sanskrit, centres around a dialog between a great warrior prince named Arjuna and his charioteer Lord Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. Like what was briefly talked about in my episode exploring the film Chronicle, Vishnu is the second god of the Hindu Triumvirate (consisting of three gods) that are all responsible for the creation, upkeep and destruction of the world; in this aspect, Vishnu is the god of Preservation, the restorer of the balance of good and evil on the human plane.
In this scripture, Vishnu convinces Prince Arjuna that he must go to war, something he refuses to do because it would involve killing his own relatives and friends.
Dr. Stephen Thompson, a Sanskrit scholar who has taught the Bhagavad Gita, explains further:
“Arjuna is a soldier, he has a duty to fight. Krishna, not Arjuna, will determine who lives and who dies and Arjuna should neither mourn nor rejoice over what fate has in store, but should be sublimely unattached to such results…The faith argument in the Gita is really that death is an illusion, that we’re not born and we don’t die. That’s the philosophy, really. That there’s one consciousness and that the whole of creation is a wonderful play”
Dr. Stephen Thompson
In verse 32, Krishna says the famous line “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds”. In it, “death” literally translates a “world-destroying time”, and with the idea that in Hinduism has a non-linear concept of time, it’s meaning is simple: irrespective of what Arjuna does, everything is in the hands of the divine. And this is the same for Oppenheimer. In this philosophy, everything is connected and whatever we do is just an action in the great course of events. There is this faithful knowledge of knowing that everything is connected. A great quest of realisation for some, if you will.
As it can be presented in religion, there is also a search or a quest of sorts to connect everything together in science. The Theory of Everything is one such example that leads physicists still scratching their heads. In the past few centuries the two closest theoretical frameworks that resemble the Theory of Everything rests on general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity focuses on gravity and understanding the universe in regions of both large and high mass, such as planets, galaxies etc. Quantum mechanics only focuses on non-gravitational forces in regions of both very small scale and low mass, such as subatomic particles, atoms, molecules etc.
Both theoretical frameworks have been repeatedly validated in their own respective fields of study, however placing them together have considered them incompatible in the regions of extremely small scale – the planck scale – which exists within a black hole or during the beginning stages of the universe (right after the Big Bang). There is research to resolve this, leading to the framework that reveals a deeper underlying reality that harmoniously integrates the realms of general relativity and quantum mechanics into a seamless whole. This theory, the Theory of Everything, would be capable of describing all physical phenomena in this universe. And hence, another great quest for realisation and faithful knowledge of connectivity. Whether through science or spirituality, there are overlapping ideas and concepts that lead to the same path.
But like fission energy can be separated to create new theories and thoughts that link back to the source, there is the aspect of fusion energy, which was also featured in the film to represent a different objective viewpoint.
Fusion
Within the film there is the black and white timeline named ‘fusion’, telling the story surrounding Oppenheimer with a more objective point of view, mostly by Strauss. The fusion process is when two light nuclei combine together, releasing vast amounts of energy, and in a way, like two thoughts colliding to make a whole, fusion can represent a black and white viewpoint of others’ thoughts and feelings about Oppenheimer and the events that follow, that testify and join to present the story of one man.
These differing thoughts could represent the separation of ideas, breaking down the connectivity that I had discussed based on one not really thinking about the outcomes, the consequences of such actions.
Quickly linking it back to the story of Arjuna and Vishnu, both Arjuna and Oppenheimer did not shun their obligation, their greater duty, but the difference lies in Oppenheimer not finding the peace afterward, like Arjuna, in knowing that the cycle of life and death and the larger scheme of things is outside of his hands. Oppenheimer could not be indifferent about the people that were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer said himself, two years after the Trinity Test:
“In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humour, no overstatements can quite distinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose”
Oppenheimer
In the Bhagavad Gita, it is a story with a moral conclusion of sorts. Stoic thoughts on consciousness, that everything is as one and there is no such thing as death. But how can one place so much faith in the divine that holds the balance? Oppenheimer could not. And even in science, there are conflicts of simply just accepting something without question.
“God Doesn’t Play Dice With The World”
Let’s explain these conflicts with the use of Einstein’s experiment.
Einstein’s double-split experiment suggests what we call ‘particles’, such as electrons, somehow combine characteristics of particles and characteristics of waves. That’s the famous wave particle duality of quantum mechanics.
This conclusion emerges as a response to how the experiment was set up. If we have light passing through narrow slits, it will diffract like a wave. If it collides with electrons, it will scatter like a particle. So, in a way, it is our experiment, the question we are asking, that determines the physical nature of light. It’s the observer’s interaction with the observed. And we all know that when something or someone is observed, they act or react differently to when they are not being observed. Like people in their jobs, in conversations, in their every day lives, this is the same in the realm of quantum mechanics. The behaviours of particles and waves, combining them, or being neither, is based on the experimental circumstances.
We might be welcoming, indifferent, or cautious based on circumstances outside of oneself, based on the powers of observation. This can be said for Oppenheimer’s time being observed with the hearing that questions his loyalty to the United States Government. He acted differently, especially when his clearance was denied. He was never the same again.
“God doesn’t play dice with the world”, a quote that eclipses a metaphorical god and Einstein’s reflections that physics must provide deterministic, not random, and observer-free descriptions of reality. That the universe is governed by probability, how likely something is going to happen.
Einstein’s double-split experiment led him to believe that quantum mechanics was not complete based on the experiments that lead it to record randomness as a fundamental feature of any theory. And now with the understanding that particles can react differently under different conditions (being observed or not), led to whether or not nature (let’s say an assemblage of particles) is real even when it’s not being observed.
There is a reason things react in certain ways in certain conditions. And it is here, we can question even our own reality. Every chance, every consequence, has a probability of coming true.
There are so many variables related to the end result, and it’s the same here with Oppenheimer. Whilst building the bomb, the constant meetings, arguments and discussions related to the how and when of the building blocks of the bomb.
And then, when he built the bomb, and even after, when it was dropped, Oppenheimer could not predict the outcome it would have on the world.
Even to this day, he says he does not regret it, but its the aftermath, the consequence (and not even his own, remember), that leads to him saying he has blood on his hands, even though he was not the one that pulled the trigger. Like in quantum mechanics with randomness and deterministic outcomes, it is the same in this life. Oppenheimer might have made a bomb, gave us a creation that can destroy us, much like Prometheus with fire, but it is up to us and what we choose to do with it that creates the next reaction, the next reality.
The Human Equation
Bigthink.com says:
“The quantum nature of the Universe tells us that certain quantities have an inherent uncertainty built into them, and that pairs of quantities have their uncertainties related to one another. There is no evidence for a more fundamental reality with hidden variables that underlies our observable, quantum universe”
bigthink.com
Things happen that we cannot control. There are quantities in life, whether that’s on a quantum level, or based on mythology or life altering decisions, that we can make, but the outcome, the consequences, are always outside of our control. This is the nature of our universe, whether its observed or not. No-one can prepare for every outcome outside of oneself and sometimes things can snowball into results we cannot even predict.
In Nolan’s own words:
“I view Oppenheimer as the most important person that ever lived. Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable. By unleashing atomic power, he gave us the power to destroy ourselves that we never had before, and that changes the human equation”
Christopher Nolan
The human equation is the balance, the factors of human strength and weakness that needs to be considered when predicting the outcomes of any kind of process (social, political, economical etc). Oppenheimer is somewhat more than just a physicist, he was a creator that gave his creation to others. The factors of balance, the human equation, was then also given to those that held the creation in their hands. Much like how faith has created a stoic way of thinking in some respects, and how science has opened the doors of theory linking everything together, the outcomes of these thoughts said aloud to the masses would never have been predicted. Oppenheimer did his duty, like Arjuna, and he believed in creating something powerful and giving it to the government, much like Prometheus and fire to humans. He was excited in his project, linking the most powerful minds and being consumed in his ideas and thoughts, much like the search in The Theory of Everything. Oppenheimer changed the course of history by connecting things together, like fission, but what he couldn’t predict was what would happen when it had all finished. The collision of differing ideas, like fusion, led to his creation becoming more than he bargained for in the hands of others. It wasn’t his anymore.
Like Alan Cerny from vitalthrills.com says
“Oppenheimer is about men who cannot see the future because they must make their marks on the present, and often the film is so breakneck paced that our attention is not allowed to think of the ramifications of what is happening – that is, until it happens and we are forced to live in the fallout”
Alan Cerny
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