“but still he didn’t really know what was going on!” And he was often perplexed by Oppenheimer as a man, his odd combination of philosophical detachment and driving ambition. He thought of Oppie as the kind of person whose worst temptation was to “conquer the Demon and then to save mankind.” Dyson saw Oppie as guilty of “pretentiousness.” Sometimes he simply couldn’t understand Oppenheimer’s delphic pronouncements—and this reminded him that “incomprehensibility can be mistaken for depth.” And yet, despite it all, Dyson found himself attracted to Oppenheimer.
