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Universal's J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER & THE ATOM BOMB directed by Christopher Nolan (TBD)
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Started by Bosco685,

261 posts in this topic

fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Fantastic Wired interview with Christopher Nolan:

https://www.wired.com/story/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-ai-apocalypse/

I have long considered the Manhattan Project humanity's largest, most ambitious, and most impactful project, but Nolan's claim in the interview that Oppenheimer is the most significant figure in human history is bold.  I don't know a lot about the guy so maybe he's right, but I'm skeptical.  Germany was already out of the war by the time the Manhattan Project completed, and Japan would have inevitably been eliminated even without the bomb.  And if Oppenheimer had never worked on the project there were half a dozen other scientists working with all of the major nations who likely would have figured it out as well.

Certainly he saved millions of lives though given that the casualties in taking Japan down would have been in the millions without the bomb.

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theCapraAegagrus

theCapraAegagrus

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Oppenheimer may be the most significant figure in applied sciences. There are 'more significant' figures overall, regarding religion and theoretical science, etc. I suppose the guy to supplant Oppenheimer will be the one who manages to accomplish nuclear fission as clean energy source. (Oppenheimer builds the largest man-made destroyer, the next guy builds the largest man-made creator.)

Edited by theCapraAegagrus
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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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I'd pick Einstein as the most significant scientist.  The impact of the Manhattan Project is far more significant socially and politically than anything Einstein did though since it ushered in the longest period of relative world peace in human history.  Fusion is my favorite future technology, but even with the incredible advancements that will bring it's hard to imagine it being more significant than what Oppenheimer's bomb has done.

It's not obvious that nukes have led to peace, but that's the effect it has had.  Before 1945 there is no period in all of recorded human history where the most powerful nations went more than 30 years without going to war with each other, but since 1945 it hasn't happened at all.  The closest we got was during the Korean War with China and the US being the backing powers that were taking each other on through North and South Korea, but luckily China backed down and it didn't escalate.

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Gatsby77

Gatsby77

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On 7/18/2023 at 9:45 AM, fantastic_four said:

Fantastic Wired interview with Christopher Nolan:

https://www.wired.com/story/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-ai-apocalypse/

I have long considered the Manhattan Project humanity's largest, most ambitious, and most impactful project, but Nolan's claim in the interview that Oppenheimer is the most significant figure in human history is bold.  I don't know a lot about the guy so maybe he's right, but I'm skeptical.  Germany was already out of the war by the time the Manhattan Project completed, and Japan would have inevitably been eliminated even without the bomb.  And if Oppenheimer had never worked on the project there were half a dozen other scientists working with all of the major nations who likely would have figured it out as well.

Certainly he saved millions of lives though given that the casualties in taking Japan down would have been in the millions without the bomb.

Japan was ready to surrender after Hiroshima - it was a communication breakdown that caused the delay.

But...the U.S. largely anticipated that. The second bomb wasn't targeted at the Japanese - but at showing Stalin we had more.

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awakeintheashes

awakeintheashes

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On 7/18/2023 at 5:15 PM, Rip said:

I reserved my tickets for the 70mm IMAX.

I guess the film stock is 11 miles long and weights 600 pounds. 53 reals to assemble.
Only 19 theaters in the US will have the IMAX 70mm and 30 in the world.

I worked at a local movie theatre in college before everything went digital. I would run the projector as well build movies into a single large reel from the multiple smaller reals and vice versa.

When a movie moved to a smaller/different theatre at the cinema we would have to physically move the movie to its respective “platter.”  Some of the longer movies were huge, and it wasn’t uncommon to move a movie between theaters during a day. Sometimes there were accidents that delayed a start time lol  

I dreaded the day Gettysburg, with a run time of over 4 hours, had to move. I still get anxiety thinking about it. Something like this would probably give me nightmares.

 

Edited by awakeintheashes
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