Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up

Frank and Robert were incredibly close brothers in their younger days, but Robert was not supportive when Mccarthyism spelled the end of his brother's career in physics. Frank blatantly lied to his dean at the University of Minnesota claiming the pat: "I am not now and I never have been a member of the communist party." He had, he was and it signaled the end of his career. It was later conjectured that he lied to protect his brother, but Robert's illustrious career went up in smoke not long after, despite his efforts to help. He couldn't get a job in physics if he tried. Blackballed was the word of the day and Frank didn't wear it well. He didn't need "a tie for haying." Frank Oppenheimer, "the gentle Jewish intellectual from Manhattan," landed in Pagosa Springs in a primitive cabin without electricity. It was a long, difficult fall into obscurity, but he and his wife Jackie settled in with their two children and were determined to learn to ranch. Later, Frank's daughter claimed that she "had two very depressed parents." As the years went by the ranch began to succeed and take hold and later Frank obtained a teaching job at a local high school. In the meantime, "Robert Oppenheimer was effectively obliterated." The glorious days of the Oppenheimer brothers were a thing of the past. Frank struggled to reach his students and tried by any means he could to interest them. At first they balked and then they flocked to his side with enthusiasm and excitement to dabble in physics. Later, when the Exploratorium was in full swing, they recognized many of the experiments they themselves had embraced. Years later, the timing was right and Frank was able to finagle San Francisco into seeing his dream. For a one dollar-a-year lease of the "Palace" in May 1969 his dream of a museum, or the Exploratorium as it was so named, was going to be a reality. Frank "imagined it as a place where both art and science could be used as vehicles for understanding." It was a place of discovery and wonder where people could come in off the streets, explore, wonder, discover and even break things at their leisure. It started off small, but began to grow and thrive and brought the gentle man from Manhattan, Frank Oppenheimer, back to life. I was utterly enthralled by this biography and after I read it, it was one of those books I thought about for a long time. Not about the writing per se, but about the man that almost disappeared after the onslaught of the shameful Mccarthyism era. I liked the way the author, who knew Frank well, was able to impart to the reader his dedication to his work at the Exploratorium. I would have preferred to hear more about what made Frank tick, instead of how he could make things tick. This is, on one level, more of a biography of the Exploratorium than of Frank because they really were one and the same. This wonderful biography is one of those books I usually tuck away to reread when I want to rediscover the magic in it all

K.C. Cole is quietly establishing herself as a leading author of general interest books about science, mathematics, and the people who do science and mathematics. Something Wonderful Happens won't disappoint Cole's growing readership. Frank Oppenheimer (Robert's brother) worked on the Manhattan Project, but after he was caught in the politics of the Red Scare, he became an enthusiastic proselytizer of science to the young, first in Colorado and then in California, where he founded the Exploratorium. The book is especially concerned with this latter part of his career, which constitutes his most lasting legacy. I'll confess that I had never heard of Frank Oppenheimer before reading this book, although I had heard of his brother and of the Exploratorium. My suspicion is that plenty of other readers are in the same boat, and K.C. Cole has done a great service in drawing attention to his life and ideas. Also recommended: The Universe and The Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty, and Mind over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos.

Robert Oppenheimer was an extremely controversial figure following his stewardship of the Manhattan Project. His work as head of the effort to build the first atomic bomb lasted some three years. Years in which many of the world's most talented physicists worked in secret while the most expensive engineering project in human history was built from scratch around them. Oppenheimer stroked their egos, assuaged their guilt and acted as a liason between the unruly scientists and the strait-laced, infinitely more rigid military men and government agents who constituted the security apparatus. It was their job to crack the whip and to keep a distrustful eye on them. Oppenheimer had pre-war left-wing sympathies but kept aloof from joining any organizations. He was never a Communist. Unfortunately for him, his mistress, his brother Frank and Frank's wife all were. Too valuable to remove, he was tolerated until after the war when fear of the Russians and the drive to build the 'super' or hydrogen bomb spurred the government to revoke his security clearance after several infamous hearings behind closed doors. Frank Oppenheimer, also a physicist, had worked on the atomic bomb as well. He was caught in the crossfire, outed as having been a communist in the 1930s and his career as a scientist shattered. He felt as if his life had ended. Frank spent ten years in exile working on a Colorado ranch. Eventually he found his way back to an academic career teaching physics at the University of Colorado. Devising increasingly more sophisticated and visually arresting physics experiments for the students, he housed them in a laboratory that was open most days from 8:30 to 5. He called it his 'library of experiments'. The success of this method of teaching by scientific showmanship gave Frank the idea for a museum of science in which these wonderful experiments and fascinating demonstrations could be open and available to all. The idea for the Exploratorium had been born. The Exploratorium in San Francisco has been a great success and is now the model for museums all over the world. Frank Oppenheimer wound up changing the world for the better. In many ways it was his answer to the atomic bomb. This wonderfully informative and often quite moving book is Frank's story. It is a story whose delay in being told is mitigated by the expert way that author K. C. Cole, a science writer and friend of Frank Oppenheimer's for many years, has told it in simple unadorned prose. The book is candid, unflinching and wide-ranging in its scope. The Oppenheimer brothers lived brilliant, privileged lives that might have ended in tragedy. Due to Frank Oppenheimer's perserverance, integrity and imagination, their legacy is more than that terrible flash and vast explosion that roiled the desert on that long ago July evening in 1945. This is an inspirational book in many ways.

Subtitled "Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up", this is a biography of the brother of the more famous Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who help develop the atomic bomb and was later stripped of his security clearing during the witchhunts of the McCarthy era. Frank was also a physicist and played a smaller role in developing the atomic bomb, but he was also persecuted in the 1950s and lost his professorship at a leading university. His story, however, is a much more positive one than his famous brother. The author of this book, K.D. Cole obviously adored this man. She met him when she was a young writer in the early 1970s and he was just developing his world-renowned Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. He inspired her to learn more about science and physics and, through the years, she has written seven books and numerous articles on scientific topics. The first part of the book deals with the Oppenheimer brothers and the Atomic bomb. This was familiar to me especially since I had recently read "American Prometheus" which is the story of Robert. This book puts more focus on Frank however and it is especially interesting that after Frank could no longer teach anymore, he and his wife and two children bought a cattle ranch in Colorado. This was a whole new lifestyle for them and they all worked hard physically to keep the ranch going. But Frank had a great need to teach the love of science to young people. At first he taught children in a one-room school house. Later, he became a high-school science teacher in his little town. He was wonderful at inspiring his students, many of whom went on to become scientists in later life. In the 1970s Frank and his family moved to San Francisco, where he was the impetus for a new kind of groundbreaking museum, the Exploratorium. This was a place where science came to life and museum goers were encouraged to touch, feel and experiment. It took a while but the museum is a now a tremendous success and, even though Frank passed away more than 20 years, ago, it stands as a testimony to the greatness and the vision of the man. At 327 pages, this book is packed full of the essence of who Frank Oppenheimer was. Not only did I enjoy it as a good read, I also learned a lot about science, and physics in particular. One doesn't have to be a scientist to enjoy this book. Having an open and inquiring mind is enough.

SOMETHING INCREDIBLY WONDERFUL HAPPENS by K.C. Cole is 380 pages long. The pages are good quality bright white paper, not beige newspaper-type paper. There are no photographs or diagrams, aside from photos of Mr. Oppenheimer on the front cover and the author (with reflection of Mr. Oppenheimer) on the back cover. Excellent source documentation is found, as the section on footnotes and bibliography is lengthy (pages 328-380). The book is a biography of Frank Oppenheimer, younger brother of the reknowned Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. The narrative begins with Frank's childhood in New York, where he found an interest in art and flute playing. We learn of his undergraduate years (1930-1933) at Johns Hopkins University, and graduate years at Cal Tech to study physics. We learn of Frank's interest in communism (pages 46-50) and consequent extended scrutiny by the FBI (pages 75-127, 139). In effect, this scrutiny came to an end when Frank finally succeeded in securing a full-time research position at the University of Colorado in 1959 and eventual promotion to full professor in 1964 and attainment of professor emeritus in 1979 (pages 128-147). We learn of Frank's contribution to the atomic bomb effort, where he supervised the refinement of U235 from U238, and calculations of radioactive clouds, which involved working in Pittsburgh, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos (pages 51-65). Frank easily obtained a faculty position at the University of Minnesota, where he made discoveries in particle physics with high-altitude experiments using balloons (pages 76-92). But Frank was eventually fired in 1949 and subjected to inquisitions from HUAC and the FBI. Frank went into exile as a rancher in rural Colorado, funded at least in part by selling his family's paintings by Van Gough and Picasso (page 103-116), and eventually gained the trust of his neighbors. Frank took a high school teaching job and acquired a reputation for producing high-quality students. As mentioned above, Frank eventually made his way back to the University (Univ. of Colorado) where this was aided by letters of recommendation from a number of physicists who continue to be "household words," e.g., Hans Bethe and George Gamow (page 130). As it turned out, Frank's interests turned to science teaching, and he received two Guggenheims for funding visits to science museums in Europe (page 141). Thus, up to this point, the book conctains plenty of INTRIGUE, as the narrative concerns atomic bombs, communists, spies, high-altitude balloons landing in weird places around the world, Picasso and Van Gough paintings, and exile in a remote spot in Colorado. 1968 marked a big turning point for Frank, as he formed a board of directors for initiating a science museum in San Francisco, later called the Exploratorium (page 151). The rest is history. The rest of the book concerns the development and funding of the Exploratorium (page 151-321). The following concerns the literary style. The reade