Claim: The full name of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is credited as “the father of the nuclear bomb,” was John Jacob Oppenheimer Schmidt. A number of tweets spread the deadpan claim that Oppenheimer's full name was actually "John Jacob Oppenheimer Schmidt." The physicist's real full name was Julius Robert Oppenheimer according to Britannica, and he was often referred to as J. Robert Oppenheimer, according to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, which is a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the Manhattan Project. Actually the boy's birth certificate reads "Julius Robert Oppenheimer," evidence that Julius decided to name the boy after himself. (for nothing) Robert Oppenheimer lived the remainder of his life [after the 1945 Trinity test] in the blinding light and the crepusculine [sic] shadow of the world's first manmade atomic explosion, an event for which he was largely responsible."

Source: New York Times July 21, 2023 18:08 UTC