History Through the Voice of Oppenheimer: AIP Releases Three Interviews with Famed Physicist
A compilation of photos of J. Robert Oppenheimer from AIP’s Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
WASHINGTON, April 9, 2026 — For the first time ever, AIP is offering open access to three interviews with J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The Oppenheimer family and AIP have a shared commitment to broader accessibility to the history of science, and AIP is offering these resources for noncommercial, not-for-profit use.
“In collaboration with the Oppenheimer family, AIP is pleased to make these oral histories widely available,” said Trevor Owens, AIP’s chief research officer. “Part of our mission is to preserve the history of the physical sciences, and this gift from Oppenheimer’s family ensures that his work in science and society can be heard in his own voice.”
Three Historic Interviews
The first interview , conducted by Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Cahn and recorded in February 1960, was for an article in the Saturday Evening Post titled “Behind the First A-Bomb.” In this interview, Oppenheimer provided his unique insights into events leading up to and after the Trinity test.
The second oral history , recorded in November 1963, was conducted with historian and philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project . In these conversations, Oppenheimer tells more of his personal story discussing his family and early influences, while also weaving in his perspectives on the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics.
The final oral history , recorded in November 1966, focuses on Enrico Fermi’s contributions to the physics community and Oppenheimer’s reflections on the physics community of his time. This interview was recorded by science historian Charles Weiner.
In a blog post on Ex Libris Universum, AIP’s digital archivist Allison Buser explores the background of these oral histories and how they came to be in AIP’s repository.
A Joint Commitment to Broadening Access
The Oppenheimer family released a statement expressing their excitement to work with AIP to preserve and promote these important oral histories.
“The archive’s mission of increasing access to and promoting research of the history of science aligns with the family’s interest in making Oppenheimer’s historical role in science more broadly accessible by presenting Oppenheimer’s thoughts and recollections from his own perspective,” they said in a statement to AIP.
“We are honored and humbled to have been entrusted with these historical records,” said AIP CEO Michael Moloney. “At AIP we strive to link past and present to establish building blocks with which to create a better future. And I cannot help but be struck today that Dr. Oppenheimer spoke in favor of such work in September 1962 at the opening of AIP’s library and archives. There he emphasized that the discoveries in science constitute ‘great epics’ that must be documented, preserved, and made available as part of human tradition.
“I am deeply grateful to the Oppenheimer family for their ongoing trust in AIP as we strive to make good on his urging more than 60 years ago.”
The transcripts and recordings are hosted on AIP’s Niels Bohr Library & Archives online repository . The oral histories are freely available for public research, and any requests to reproduce their contents should be sent to nbla@aip.org .
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ABOUT AIP
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, AIP is a federation that advances the success of our Member Societies and an institute that engages in research and analysis to empower positive change in the physical sciences. The mission of AIP (American Institute of Physics ) is to advance, promote, and serve the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity.
ABOUT THE AIP NIELS BOHR LIBRARY & ARCHIVES
NBLA is a premier library focused specifically on the history of the physical sciences, drawing scholars, students, and researchers from around the world to access its specialized and unique resources. It offers an outstanding collection of textbooks, monographs, oral histories, and archival records of AIP and member societies that capture the history of physics, astronomy, geophysics, and allied fields.
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