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Here's What 'Oppenheimer' Gets Right--And Wrong--About Nuclear History

60-Second Science

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Harry Truman's Oppenheimer

I think it was a big misconception about Oppenheimer, that he regretted his activities and killing so many people. He always maintained that he didn't regret it and that it was important to do at the time. His view was that the best thing you could do with the first nuclear weapons was make their use so horrible that maybe nobody would want to use them again. But I think he would have felt unsuccessful because he felt that the worst-case scenario would be a world in which nuclear weapons are made by the thousands of megatons.

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