The real relationship between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein

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In 1947, Albert Einstein meets with J. Robert Oppenheimer. The men were colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

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The thought is almost fanciful: Two of history’s most famous scientists living right down the street from each other. But it really happened, and the lives of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein intersected more than one might think. For approximately eight years, Oppenheimer and Einstein were Princeton neighbors, and a lakeside meeting there between the two men features prominently in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” 

 

Einstein moved to New Jersey first. In 1933, while on a tour of the United States, he realized the rise of Adolf Hitler made a return to his home in Germany impossible. Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, a center for theoretical research, offered Einstein a position as a resident scholar. He accepted and moved into 112 Mercer St.

 

After Einstein learned three German scientists had split the uranium atom in 1938, he wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt warning him that the Nazis were now on their way to creating a superweapon. Although Einstein wasn’t actively involved in the Manhattan Project, there was no one more famous in the world to ring the alarm bell about the danger of Hitler getting an atomic bomb.

 

Actor Cillian Murphy is seen on the set of “Oppenheimer” on April 13, 2022, in Princeton, N.J. 

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Once the world learned Oppenheimer had helmed the Manhattan Project, science departments around the nation were desperate to recruit him. He ended up picking Princeton after one of its trustees, a businessman named Lewis Strauss, met him in late 1946 to offer him the directorship of the Institute for Advanced Study. Oppenheimer accepted and moved with his family into Olden Manor, a pretty, New England-style home about a half mile from Einstein’s. 

 

There was some awkwardness with two geniuses in the same field — but from two different generations — working in the same department. During the selection process for the institute directorship, Einstein was asked whether he preferred Oppenheimer or Wolfgang Pauli. Einstein wrote that Oppenheimer seemed “too dominant,” so much so that his students “tend to be smaller editions of Oppenheimer.” 

 

Along with their personality differences, the men fundamentally disagreed over quantum physics. The Oppenheimer biography “American Prometheus” speculates that a 1948 Time magazine piece calling Einstein a “landmark, not a beacon” got the phrase anonymously from Oppenheimer. While Oppenheimer viewed quantum physics as the bible of modern theoretical physics, Einstein spent much of the end of his life trying to poke holes in it. As such, the men were not scientific collaborators; they were merely polite colleagues and neighbors.

 

Exterior view of 112 Mercer St., the former home of Albert Einstein in Princeton, N.J.

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Oppenheimer, however, did attempt to entertain Einstein socially. They visited each other’s homes and, on Einstein’s birthday one year, Oppenheimer secretly had a radio antenna installed on Einstein’s home. The surprise genuinely touched Einstein, who loved listening to classical concerts but couldn’t previously get broadcasts from Carnegie Hall. 

 

When Oppenheimer was summoned to a 1954 government security hearing over his alleged communist sympathies, Einstein was outraged. He reportedly told Oppenheimer that he had “no obligation to subject himself to the witch hunt,” and if that was the “reward” the United States had for his service during the war, “he should turn his back on her.” Oppenheimer ignored Einstein’s advice and subjected himself to one-sided interrogation; at the end of it, Oppenheimer had his security clearance revoked.

 

When Einstein heard the news, “American Prometheus” said he responded with a laugh. “The trouble with Oppenheimer,” Einstein said, “is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him — the United States government.”

 

Albert Einstein in his study at Princeton, N.J., in 1951.

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In 1955, Einstein fell ill at his Princeton home. He was rushed to the university medical center, but the 76-year-old declined treatment. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,” he reportedly said. “I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” He died the next day.

 

In 1966, Oppenheimer stepped down as institute director, but he kept living with his wife Kitty at Olden Manor. That year, the lifelong chain smoker was diagnosed with throat cancer; Oppenheimer died in his Princeton home on Feb. 18, 1967.

 

Remarkably, both Einstein and Oppenheimer’s Princeton homes are still private residences today. Olden Manor remains set aside for the institute director.

 

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