Oppenheimer

 Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

Is history predefined, and scientists and explorers merely revealing what is written, or do we have agency? In other words, Oppenheimer fathered the atomic bomb but feared the Russians were making similar process, and that the Germans were further ahead. This points to the bomb as a stepping stone on the path on which technology was travelling anyway. It just happened that Oppenheimer was leading the way at the time. How does this apply in general? Where are we headed? Are our possibilities predefined? Are we unlocking achievements and discoveries, video game style? Or is there a world without Oppenheimer, where weapons of mass destruction remained in the comic books and sci fi? It is simplistic to state it was his work alone, rather than the culmination of centuries of academic progress in physics, but the same point stands, in my opinion, for each achievement and discovery made on the way. Personal brilliance or inevitability?

Coincidentally, I found myself coming across these three quotes from CS Lewis:

Human life has always lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself.

Men propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.

On why we must study the past:

Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods.

Taking these quotes as a whole inspires a type of hope that particularly resonates in Oppenheimer’s new world. A world in which your city can be annihilated in an instant; one in which you can survive an explosion, climb out rubble, and die days later because of the radiation; a world that relies on the sanity and good faith of a select few people for its survival. It is human nature, after all, to live on the edge of a precipice. What’s more, Lewis poetically describes that we don’t just live under this shadow, we thrive, create, love, seek more, push things further, and generally ignore the existential threat in favour of things that are fundamentally human.

This brings me full circle to the link between the last quote and the point with which this started. The past is important as it provides perspective. It provides us with a yard stick. It tells us how far we’ve come, or haven’t come. It is helpful. However, I disagree that we cannot study the future. After all, isn’t that what science is? Our technological advances are uncovering the future bit by bit. Each discovery reveals a stepping stone ahead of our time. We are studying the future with everything we have. Is this future predetermined? We cannot know. What does the future hold? We definitely cannot know. At times we head into darkness, at times we become death. At other times, we heal, we create, we are wonderful, we spread light. Regardless of this, one thing we know for certain is that humanity does not care, for it thrives on the precipice and under the shadow of doom. We will dance in the rain, make jokes on scaffolds, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities. We will find beauty, even in destruction. There are always flowers for those who want to see them. And if I find myself standing in front of Xerxes I, I better not have a hair out of place.