Handwritten responses by Oppenheimer to a series of four questions from "Whole World Inquiry," one page, 8.25 x 12.25, April 24, 1958. The questions and Oppenheimer's answers are as follows:
1. Were your scientific 'debut' easy or difficult? "1. Easy at school, very hard in research."
2. Did means of living (another profession or a private income) enable you to make yourself known in science? or did you live solely through your work of laboratory? "2. My father sent me through school."
3. What work (or what discovery) made yourself more famous? which do you consider as your master-piece? "3. a) Bombs; b) position-theory."
4. What is your 'Maxim of Life'? Oppenheimer pens a quote in Greek from the ancient poet Pindar (translated): "4. Dear soul, do not pursue immortal life; exhaust the practicable technical resources, 3 Pyth." Signed at the conclusion by Oppenheimer. In fine condition, with general light handling wear.
Oppenheimer uses this Greek quote from Pindar to open chapter four, 'The Consequences of Action,' in his book Uncommon Sense, with this translation provided as a footnote. Other translations of the line include, "Oh! My soul, do not aspire to eternal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible," and "Do not crave immortal life, my soul, but use to the full the resources of what is possible." The biography J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life by Abraham Pais describes the famous physicist as 'elitist, an upper-class Manhattanite who knew Sanskrit, owned van Goghs, sailed yachts, and quoted the likes of Baudelaire, Rousseau, John Donne, and Pindar (in the original Greek) in his popular addresses.' His most well-known adopted quote—keeping in line with the succinct "Bombs" answer offered here as the response to what made him famous—comes from the Bhagavad-Gita: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
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