Oppenheimer: The Shape of Genius
August 15, 2013
Freeman Dyson
Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center
by Ray Monk
Doubleday, 825 pp., $37.50
"It allows a massive star to keep falling permanently into a black hole without ever reaching the bottom.
Einstein never imagined and never accepted this consequence of his theory. Oppenheimer imagined it and accepted it. As a direct result of Oppenheimer’s work, we now know that black holes have played and are playing a decisive part in the evolution of the universe. That is the historical fact. The mystery is Oppenheimer’s failure to grasp the importance of his own discovery. He lived for twenty-seven years after the discovery, never spoke about it, and never came back to work on it. Several times, I asked him why he did not come back to it. He never answered my question, but always changed the conversation to some other subject."
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