Oppenheimer
Dan Snow's History Hit
00:00
The Myth of the Manhattan Project
The Bhagavad Gita is a medieval Hindu scripture in the formal poetry, which Oppenheimer discovered during his time in California. It has these key moments where it talks about duty and how doubts or fears about consequences are not a good enough reason not to act. So even though to commit crimes, to commit murder, for example, is ethically unacceptable, still dharma might override that. The most famous quote that everyone thinks they know about Oppenheimer is when he said that he was reminded of a piece of Hindu scripture at that point. Now I am become death, the destroyer of the world.
Transcript
Play full episode
