Oppenheimer, Technology, and Humanity with Kai Bird & David Nirenberg | Institute for Advanced Study

Kai Bird is a historian, journalist, and executive director and distinguished lecturer at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Leon Levy Center for Biography. In 2006, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for ‘American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer’, a biography of the famous theoretical physicist and past IAS Director. In this conversation with current IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg, Bird explores Oppenheimer’s complex legacy. The discussion touches on Oppenheimer’s attempts to create an interdisciplinary space at IAS through the recruitment of Faculty from diverse fields, and the alignment between technology and humanity. For Oppenheimer, this was not a matter that could be left solely to scientists but instead required integrated communication between disciplines. Wolfensohn Hall, Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ May 18, 2023