Nobel created his prize because everyone knew him for creating bombs and he wanted to be remembered for doing something good. Awarding someone a Nobel prize for creating a giant bomb would be pretty ironic.
To be fair, had he lived longer then he would have received a Nobel prize for his work in astro physics in relation to gravitational collapse. This work would later become far more important than his other work as his contributions would lead to the discovery of black holes
Fun fact: Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite, and prior to establishing the Nobel Prize, it’s what he was primarily known for. It was an explosive that became infamous for its use in war at the time, there was even a French paper that wrote “the merchant of death is dead” to announce the death of his brother whom they had mistaken for him. Though noone knows exactly why he created the prize, some people think he did it because he didn’t want to remember as “that guy who invented the bomb”. If that’s true, then he succeeded, because nowadays most people know him as “the Nobel Prize guy”
So it would actually be extremely fitting if Oppenheimer won the prize for the atomic bomb. And if Nobel did in fact start the prize in order to rewrite his legacy, then it would still be pretty ironic, just for a different reason.
To be fair though. The bomb probably saved more lives than it killed. Soo far at least
That’s a lie that the US government has desperately been trying to push for decades. The creation and detonation of nukes was an entirely avoidale atrocity.
The truth is we can’t know for sure. There’s no way to look into an alternative timeline to see what the Cold War would have been like without nukes as deterrents.
@Zirconium said “probably” and you flat out called it a lie, so you’re more wrong than they are.
Shaun made an excellent video on the topic, although you’re going to have to invest a lot of time into watching it. It’s got a good selection of sources, too, for those of you who love to hold on to the common narrative that dropping the bomb was necessary.
I think creation of nukes is a more complicated topic, but both their detonations were only done to force Japan to surrender 1)unconditionally and 2)to USA. IIRC even US command admitted it.
Oppenheimer never won the nobel prize. He was nominated numerous times, but never won.
