Anticipating Oppenheimer debut, SEMO professor, Cape mayor weigh in

Nearly 78 years ago, an American B-29 bomber nicknamed "Enola Gay" dropped the world's first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan.

The date was Aug. 6, 1945.

The blast instantly killed an estimated 80,000 people with tens of thousands more succumbing to radiation exposure in the weeks and months following.

Three days later, a second A-bomb killed approximately 40,000 people in the Japanese city of Nagasaki, leading Japan's emperor Hirohito to agree Aug. 15 to President Harry Truman's demand for unconditional surrender.

World War II, which had ended months earlier in Europe with the Nazi capitulation, was finally and fully over.

Jonathan Kessler

Jonathan Kessler

The role of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in the A-bomb's creation has been debated ever since and is the primary focus of "Oppenheimer", a new movie opening Friday, July 21, at Marcus Theatres in Cape Girardeau.

One of those eager to see the Christopher Nolan-directed film is Jonathan Kessler, associate professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University.

"I've been a big fan of the overall Manhattan Project story since my freshman year in college," said Kessler, who is himself a 2010 SEMO graduate and joined the faculty in 2016 after graduate school at St. Louis' Washington University.

"We didn't even understand what an atom looked like approximately 25 years prior to the events of 1945. We went from Einstein's knowledge of the existence of the atom in 1905 and within a matter of a few decades, we had harnessed the atom's power to create this destructive device. That's an incredible feat accomplished in an incredible short amount of time. We haven't seen that rapid advancement in fundamental scientific achievement ever, in my opinion."

"I'm very much looking forward to seeing the movie," said Cape Girardeau Mayor Stacy Kinder, who taught physics and geometry for three years at St. Mary's Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee, and who holds a physics degree from the University of Memphis.

KinderStacy

KinderStacy

"It's a pretty heavy subject and the promotion I've seen for the film looks pretty serious and a little dark. Putting the science aside, my understanding is the production will delve into what the scientists were dealing with morally. This will be, probably, the most interesting part for me," said Kinder, who became mayor in April 2022 after serving as Sixth Ward councilwoman.

"Figuring out the technology while also weighing the moral questions is really fascinating to me," she added.

Reflection

"Building (the A-bomb) was the culmination of a massive, nationwide effort. One measure of the Manhattan Project's success, and, yes, the result was horrific in Japan, is this bomb has not been used to take life since 1945," Kessler added.

"I subscribe to the idea that the use of the bomb likely saved more lives than it took."