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American Prometheus
''American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer'' is a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Twenty-five years in the making, the book was published in 2005 and was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. It also won the 2008 Duff Cooper Prize, ''Chicago Tribune'' Best Book of the Year, and ''Discover Magazine'' Best Science Book of the Year. Background The book was compiled and researched for two decades by Martin J. Sherwin before Kai Bird was brought on to put it together in a cohesive and readable format regarding the life and impact of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The book's title refers to the legend of Prometheus, as mentioned in ''Scientific Monthly'' in September 1945: Summary J. Robert Oppenheimer, often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb", was a physicist that had a significant role in the Manhattan Project as the project head and coordinator. The project eventually led to the cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kai Bird
Kai Bird (born September 2, 1951) is an American author and columnist, best known for his works on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, United States-Middle East political relations and his biographies of political figures. He won a Pulitzer Prize for '' American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer''. Biography Bird was born in 1951 in Eugene, Oregon. His father was a U.S. Foreign Service officer, and Bird spent his childhood in Jerusalem, Beirut, Dhahran, Cairo, and Mumbai. His father named him after Kai-Yu Hsu, a refugee from Communist China he met at the University of Oregon. Kai means "mustard" in Chinese. Bird finished high school in 1969 at Kodaikanal International School in Tamil Nadu, South India. He received his B.A. from Carleton College in 1973 and an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University in 1975. Bird now lives in New York City with his wife, Susan Goldmark, a retired country director of the World Bank, and their son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weapon Of Mass Destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natural structures (e.g., mountains), or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare. Early uses of this term The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombing of Guernica, Spain: At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed. Japan conducted research on biological weapons (see Unit 731), and chemica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2005 Non-fiction Books
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on each hand. In mathematics 5 is the third smallest prime number, and the second super-prime. It is the first safe prime, the first good prime, the first balanced prime, and the first of three known Wilson primes. Five is the second Fermat prime and the third Mersenne prime exponent, as well as the third Catalan number, and the third Sophie Germain prime. Notably, 5 is equal to the sum of the ''only'' consecutive primes, 2 + 3, and is the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes, ( 3, 5) and (5, 7). It is also a sexy prime with the fifth prime number and first prime repunit, 11. Five is the third factorial prime, an alternating factorial, and an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Biographies
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as other public affairs programming. The C-SPAN network includes the television channels C-SPAN (focusing on the U.S. House of Representatives), C-SPAN2 (focusing on the U.S. Senate), and C-SPAN3 (airing other government hearings and related programming), the radio station WCSP-FM, and a group of websites which provide streaming media and archives of C-SPAN programs. C-SPAN's television channels are available to approximately 100 million cable and satellite households within the United States, while WCSP-FM is broadcast on FM radio in Washington, D.C., and is available throughout the U.S. on SiriusXM, via Internet streaming, and globally through apps for iOS and Android devices. The network televises U. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. His films have grossed $5 billion worldwide. The recipient of many accolades, he has been nominated for five Academy Awards, five British Academy Film Awards and six Golden Globe Awards. In 2015, he was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by ''Time'', and in 2019, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to film. Nolan developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. After studying English literature at University College London, he made several short films before his feature film debut with '' Following'' (1998). Nolan gained international recognition with his second film, '' Memento'' (2000), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He transitione ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oppenheimer (film)
''Oppenheimer'' is an upcoming biographical film written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film is based on ''American Prometheus'', a biography written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The supporting cast includes Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Josh Hartnett and Kenneth Branagh. It is a co-production between Universal Pictures, Syncopy Inc. and Atlas Entertainment, with Nolan producing the film alongside Emma Thomas and Charles Roven. Nolan was announced to write and direct a biographical film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, set during World War II, with Universal Pictures being chosen as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographical Film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives. Context Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in ''Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History'' (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck. On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study ''Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre'' shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atom Bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deploy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million Military personnel, personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Air warfare of World War II, Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Nuclear Weapons Program
The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It went through several phases of work, but in the words of historian Mark Walker, it was ultimately "frozen at the laboratory level" with the "modest goal" to "build a nuclear reactor which could sustain a nuclear fission chain reaction for a significant amount of time and to achieve the complete separation of at least tiny amount of the uranium isotopes." The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons. The first effort started in April 1939, just months after the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938, but ended only months later shortly ahead of the German invasion of Poland, when many notable physicists were drafted into the '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ). Over 90 percent of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
