In his acceptance speech, Oppenheimer mentioned that an earlier president, Thomas Jefferson, “often wrote of the ‘brotherly spirit of science.’ . . . We have not, I know, always given evidence of that brotherly spirit of science. This is not because we lack vital common or intersecting scientific interests. It is in part because, with countless other men and women, we are engaged in this great enterprise of our time, testing whether men can both preserve and enlarge life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and live without war as the great arbiter of history.”
