Christopher Nolan's first biopic, Oppenheimer, is about to make its worldwide release this Friday. Based on the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was central to the creation of the first atomic bomb that wreaked havoc during the Second World War, the movie brings to life some of the main figures behind the creation of the first atom bomb ever in the period between 1942 and 1946.
Needless to say, the story of Robert Serber, who was a key figure in the infamous Manhattan Project, along with Oppenheimer, becomes an important one to tell in the movie. Robert Serber was an American physicist whose lectures explaining the basic principles and goals of the Manhattan Project became empirical in the development of the bomb, and they were printed and circulated as The Los Alamos Primer.
Robert Serber and Oppenheimer worked together at the University of California
Born on March 14, 1909, in Philadelphia, Robert Serber was a doctor of physics at the University of Wisconsin. He later moved to the University of California, Berkeley, to work with J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the duo went on to become close friends.
Serber worked as an associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, until, in 1941, Oppenheimer invited him to join him on the Manhattan Project. There he developed the first good theory of bomb disassembly hydrodynamics, and he gave a series of lectures to the technical workers on the project, which later came to be printed and circulated to all the incoming scientific staff on the project as The Los Alamos Primer, LA-1.
Serber's later life
After the terrible atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Robert Serber was the first American to assess the damage that the bombs had done. He spent five weeks on the site collecting debris for tests.
After the war was over, Serber returned to academics at Columbia University. But in 1948, he was accused of disloyalty as his wife's family was Jewish with Socialist leanings. Serber later became an advocate of arms control, but he was never a vocal critic of nuclear weapons. For most of his life, Robert Serber worked as a consultant for numerous labs, businesses, and commissions.
He retired from Columbia University in 1978, where he was later named a professor emeritus. Serber passed away on June 1, 1997.
Who plays Robert Serber in the upcoming Nolan biopic Oppenheimer?
American actor Michael Angarano will be playing Robert Serber in the movie. Angarano is a notable face from Music of the Heart (1999) and the television series Cover Me (2000–2001). He has also played a recurring role as Elliott in the sitcom Will & Grace and starred in numerous movies, including Sky High (2005), The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), Haywire (2011), The English Teacher (2013), and Sun Dogs (2017).
He is notable for his roles in I'm Dying Up Here (2017–2018) and This Is Us, which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination as an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2019. The actor has been cast in the notable role of Robert Serber in Oppenheimer, and it is undoubtedly one of the biggest films of Angarano’s career.
Don't miss the upcoming Christopher Nolan blockbuster on July 21, 2023.