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Atomic Bombs and the Mineral Collector

The scientist heading up the top-secret World War II “Manhattan Project” that built the atomic bomb got an early start in science collecting minerals. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) progressed from minerals to chemistry and physics. Described by some as the “American Prometheus,” Oppenheimer became a world-renowned theoretical physicist and was tapped to lead the atomic bomb project.

Started collecting minerals

Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer began collecting minerals at the age of five when his grandfather, in Germany, presented him with a “starter” mineral collection, complete with labels in German. Oppenheimer credits the collection with inspiring his interest in science. Toward the end of his life he remembered taking up mineralogy with a “collector’s interest” at first. He then developed a “fascination with crystals, their structure, birefringence, what you saw in polarized light” and his growing passion for minerals blossomed into what he described as a “scientist’s interest.”

Mineral collectors helped Oppenheimer along the way. The curator of minerals at New York’s American Museum of Natural History tutored the brilliant young boy in mineralogy. Oppenheimer built a respectable collection and studied minerals and crystals, trying to understand their underlying structures.

With Kunz and the New York Club

In 1920, Dr. George F. Kunz (for whom “kunzite” is named) was president of the New York Mineralogical Club and the teen-age Robert Oppenheimer was proposed for membership. He had joined the famous society as an honorary member at age eleven and one year later he made his scientific debut delivering a paper on minerals at a club meeting to the amazement of the members.

Uranium from Joachimsthal

Before heading to Harvard to study chemistry, seventeen year-old Oppenheimer spent a summer in Europe and collected minerals in the famous Joachimsthal (“St. Joachim’s Dale”) region in Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic). Interestingly, given Oppenheimer’s later leadership of the atomic bomb project, Joachimsthal is the location from which uranium was first discovered.

In 1789, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German apothecary, took pitchblende from Joachimsthal and extracted a dense grayish metal. He named the new element “uranium” in honor of astronomer William Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus. Pitchblende is a massive (meaning that it occurs as agglomerations of mineral grains – not as discrete crystals with well-formed faces) variety of the mineral uraninite (UO2). In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the elements radium and polonium from pitchblende as well.

Where is his collection today?

Later in life, Oppenheimer gave portions of his mineral collection to Linus Pauling, who went on to win the Nobel Prize twice (Chemistry in 1954; Peace in 1962). Although he himself never won a Nobel Prize, Oppenheimer made significant discoveries in atomic physics that – along with his leadership of the Manhattan Project – rank him among the 20th Century’s most important scientists. Some of Oppenheimer’s minerals are preserved with the special collections of Linus Pauling’s papers at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.

Ref: Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Touchstone, New York, 1986). Pg. 118-119.

© Andrew A. Sicree, 2007

Also, please share my academy idea in any other ways that seem fitting, either on your website or elsewhere:
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2009/11/nasa-academy-of-physical-sciences-obama.html

As I state in my document, the original incarnation of my academy idea was named “Linus Pauling Academy of the Physical Sciences,” which is a name that I will go back to if NASA rejects me. The NASA fit is so perfect for the idea that I made the name change to “NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences,” but I did preserve the Linus Pauling tribute in the very important senior year Colloquy, which very specifically honors Linus Pauling, and which awards The Linus Pauling Medal to those young scholars who most exemplify the characteristics for which Linus Pauling earned his 1962 Nobel Peace Prize: coupling scientific insight with tenacious grit in the difficult political process of effecting positive change.

Though I am proud of my academy idea in its entirety, I am especially proud of the Colloquy honoring Linus Pauling. I believe the Colloquy will be the most inspiring and life-changing learning experience of all for some academy scholars, and I look at it as something Linus Pauling would be proud to have his name on. Being awarded The Linus Pauling Medal at a “NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences” will be a high distinction that will certainly earn some academy scholars significant university scholarships.

If you have not read through the Colloquy description in my document, please do so. And then remember back to being in high school. The academically-minded high-achieving grade-driven student who will be the typical academy scholar will be entirely flummoxed by the Colloquy in the beginning, because all of the usual motivations are gone: it is Pass / No Pass with no need whatsoever to please or impress the teacher, but with every need to impress and influence peers with clear thinking, precise articulation, and persuasive argument in achieving a growing agreement toward a common goal of identifying and advancing an idea for the good of humanity.

A careful read of the Colloquy description reveals the telling endgame decision that will seriously challenge some academy scholars: Do you abandon the growing consensus of the group effort when the rules allow you to revert to being a lone wolf again, or do you stick with the group effort (even if only in a supportive role) to make the shared solution the best that it can be?

In the world of ideas, there are those who create, invent, or form ideas, and there are those who make ideas happen — the doers. The idea people need the doers more than the doers need the idea people; the doers can muddle on because they will always accomplish something in the process, but the idea people and their ideas will die lonely deaths if they cannot persuade the doers to actually make things happen. The Colloquy will identify both the idea people and the doers, and sometimes the doers will be those who are most deserving of praise and recognition — and should be those who sometimes receive The Linus Pauling Medal for their efforts.

Again, I think Linus Pauling would be proud.

Steven A. Sylwester