Philosophical question

[Apache]

Maybe.

When Robert Oppenheimer wrote 'I am become death, shatterer of worlds'

Was he just not that good with grammar?
Was he just so shocked by what he had created that he couldn't string his words together properly?
Was he being a bit arty?
Or was he from Birmingham?


Been reading a huge tome called 'The building of the atomic bomb' and his statement struck me as odd.

[Osborne]

Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life. Upon witnessing the world's first nuclear test in 1945, he quoted "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" based on verse 32 from Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.


The exact quote from the Bhagavad-Gita is:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.


Guess it all boils down to how the original is translated and by whom.

[Apache]

Ah OK, so it was something he read rather than made up on the spot.

Just noticed the title of a great Killing Joke album in there too.

'Brighter than a thousand suns'

I expect Jaz Coleman is into that stuff, though these days he's deeply up his own arse judging by some of the cr@p he comes out with.