J. Robert Oppenheimer cleared of “black mark” in opposition to his identify after 68 years

Close up of a young Oppenheimer

Enlarge / A younger J. Robert Oppenheimer in April 1945. He led the Manhattan Undertaking throughout World Conflict II to develop the primary atomic bomb. (credit score: Getty Photos)

There’s hardly ever time to jot down about each cool science-y story that comes our manner. So this 12 months, we’re as soon as once more working a particular Twelve Days of Christmas sequence of posts, highlighting one science story that fell by way of the cracks in 2022, every day from December 25 by way of January 5. In the present day: The US Secretary of Power lastly nullified the 1954 revocation of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s safety clearance, acknowledging that the controversial resolution resulted from a “flawed course of” that violated its personal laws.

Almost 70 years after having his safety clearance revoked by the Atomic Power Fee (AEC) attributable to suspicion of being a Soviet spy, Manhattan Undertaking physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer has lastly obtained some type of justice simply in time for Christmas, in accordance with a December 16 article within the New York Occasions. US Secretary of Power Jennifer M. Granholm launched an announcement nullifying the controversial resolution that badly tarnished the late physicist’s popularity, declaring it to be the results of a “flawed course of” that violated the AEC’s personal laws.

Science historian Alex Wellerstein of Stevens Institute of Know-how instructed the New York Occasions that the exoneration was lengthy overdue. “I’m certain it doesn’t go so far as Oppenheimer and his household would have wished,” he stated. “However it goes fairly far. The injustice accomplished to Oppenheimer doesn’t get undone by this. However it’s good to see some response and reconciliation even when it’s many years too late.”

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