J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Manhattan Project. It was intended to develop the first nuclear weapons, as it would have been a Bad Thing if Hitler got them first. I don’t think the Japanese were really trying hard to get them.

By the way, they didn’t call it the Manhattan Project because they tested the first atomic bomb on Manhattan. (There are other explanations as to why it looks the way it does.) And the research took place at Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico, so I’m still trying to figure out what New York has to do with it.

Anyway, that quote from Oppenheimer is from some Hindu scripture or something (the Bhagavad-Gita). According to whoever edited Wikipedia last, it’s not even a very good translation. But it sounds cool, and that’s what he actually said, so we’ll stick with that.

Apparently he got into politics and some people thought he was goofy or rebellious or something. Then he retired.

He was a chain smoker and died from throat cancer at age 62. So don’t chain smoke; it’s even worse than eating eggs, but not by much.