The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Rhodes

Out of curiosity in 1940, while visiting Berkeley to deliver a lecture, Enrico Fermi attended a seminar one of Oppenheimer’s protégés led in the master’s style. “Emilio,” Fermi joked afterward with Segrè, “I am getting rusty and old. I cannot follow the highbrow theory developed by Oppenheimer’s pupils anymore. I went to their seminar and was depressed by my inability to understand them. Only the last sentence cheered me up; it was: ‘and this is Fermi’s

theory of beta decay.’ ” Although Segrè found Oppenheimer “the fastest thinker I’ve ever met,” with “an iron memory . . . brilliance and solid merits,” he also saw “grave defects” including “occasional arrogance . . . [that] stung scientific colleagues where they were most sensitive.” “Robert could make people feel they were fools,” Bethe says simply.1713 “He made me, but I didn’t mind.