Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe...
by rurban on Friday July 21, 2023 @03:35AM
(#36811049)
We are not talking about the red scare farce (which really was political opposition to his "candor" policies and H-bomb program/genocidal opposition), but we they/are talking why he didn't win the Nobel, even when he did brilliant and ground breaking work.
He was considered the most brilliant theoreticist behind Dirac, Schroedinger, Bohr, Pauli and Heisenberg in Goettingen and early Berkeley years. But then he didn't push out that many papers as before, so he didn't win the Nobel as all his other colleagues, below him. He should have won it for the black hole paper at least, but that was too advanced and too theoretical for those folks then. Instead he was an extremely good teacher, manager and later politician, which was more important than advancing physics. E.g. Bethe and many of his students surpassed him in physics, and he was happy with delegation. This article mentions most of it, the book goes far deeper.
He was considered the most brilliant theoreticist behind Dirac, Schroedinger, Bohr, Pauli and Heisenberg in Goettingen and early Berkeley years. But then he didn't push out that many papers as before, so he didn't win the Nobel as all his other colleagues, below him. He should have won it for the black hole paper at least, but that was too advanced and too theoretical for those folks then. Instead he was an extremely good teacher, manager and later politician, which was more important than advancing physics. E.g. Bethe and many of his students surpassed him in physics, and he was happy with delegation. This article mentions most of it, the book goes far deeper.