Picking up the story from the Oscar winning Christopher Nolan and his three-hour epic Oppenheimer is filmmaker Brian Knappenberger. His new Netflix documentary traces how Robert Oppenheimer’s split atom led to the bifurcation of the world and has kept us all on the precipice of catastrophe for the past 80 years.

A nine-part, 10-hour series, Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War is a work of daunting scale and arresting insight built around some 100 interviews with expert historians, first-hand witnesses, political insiders, and leaders (including Volodymyr Zelenskyy). Together, they guide us through the peril, prejudice and paranoia of the postwar era, the slow decay and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the rise of Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While much of the focus is on the dangerous dance between the US and the USSR, the show takes pains to follow the global reach of the cold war and nuclear threat. There are sections on Berlin, China and Cuba, as you’d expect, but also Iran, Guatemala, Angola and even the Marshall Islands.

One should certainly be wondering what was going through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s head when he saw the great fireball of the Trinity test looming above him? 

To the surprise of many he quotes from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” 

This particular quote, with an exhausted looking Oppenheimer, was originally filmed for NBC’s 1965 The Decision to Drop the Bomb. There are other versions of the quote around — “shatterer of worlds” is a common variant — though it did not begin to circulate as part of Los Alamos lore until the late 1940s and especially the 1950s.

It’s an amazing delivery and a remarkable quote. The problem is that most of the time when it is revealed, it is done purely for entertainment and without any understanding as to what it actually is supposed to mean. That’s what we should really want to talk about: what was Oppenheimer trying to say? What was he actually alluding to in the Gita? And for many, what is the Gita?

The name, Bhagavad Gita, means "Song of the Lord," referring to one of the central characters of the narrative, Lord Krishna. The tale takes place at the Battle of Kurukshetra, fought between Arjuna's family and allies (the Pandavas) and those of the prince Duryodhana and his family (the Kauravas). It is about understanding how we can overcome difficulty, self-doubt, and ultimately live a life of truth and purpose. The Bhagavad Gita is entirely representational and highly symbolic. There is no real battlefield or fight to be won; the entire text is a representation of the battle that goes on in our minds.

It’s not clear when Oppenheimer was first exposed to the Gita. Many have seen accounts, in history, that suggested that he was quoting Gita lines even while he was a young graduate student studying in Europe. What is definitely known is that he didn’t start studying Sanskrit seriously until 1933, when he started studying with the renown Sanskrit scholar Arthur W. Ryder while he was a professor at Berkeley. In letters, he wrote about the book to his brother, and much later he quoted from it at the service held at Los Alamos in April 1945 upon the death of President Roosevelt.

The lines from the Gita (11:32) aren’t about death, but the passing of time in which all will perish. Bear in mind that Vishnu is the Preserver who presides over time, while Shiva is the Destroyer. 

Time, not death, is the destroyer of worlds. When Oppenheimer watched the Trinity fireball rise into the New Mexico sky, what he saw was time running out. Time will eventually destroy our world. The sun will inflate and consume the earth. Before that, a comet the size of Hale-Bopp may collide with the earth, or a killer virus may sweep the planet. The only world-destroying event we have control over is nuclear Armageddon; it will come when we allow it.

 Obviously, time and death are related, as in John Maynard Keynes’ famous statement, “In the long run, we are all dead.”

The Emily Dahl Foundation