Editing J. Robert Oppenheimer (section)

=== Teaching ===
[[File:University of California Radiation Laboratory staff on the magnet yoke for the 60-inch cyclotron, 1938.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|University of California Radiation Laboratory staff (including [[Robert R. Wilson]] and Nobel prize winners [[Ernest Lawrence]], [[Edwin McMillan]], and [[Luis Walter Alvarez]]) on the magnet yoke for the {{convert|60|inch|cm|sigfig=3|adj=on}} cyclotron, 1938. Oppenheimer is the tall figure holding a pipe in the top row, just right of center. |alt=A group of men pose in front, around, and on a large metal structure.]]

Oppenheimer was awarded a [[United States National Research Council]] fellowship to the [[California Institute of Technology]] (Caltech) in September 1927. Bridgman also wanted him at Harvard, so a compromise was reached whereby he split his fellowship for the 1927–28 academic year between Harvard in 1927 and Caltech in 1928.<ref>{{harvnb|Cassidy|2005|pp=115–116}}</ref> At Caltech, he struck up a close friendship with [[Linus Pauling]]; they planned to mount a joint attack on the nature of the [[chemical bond]], a field in which Pauling was a pioneer, with Oppenheimer supplying the mathematics and Pauling interpreting the results. The collaboration, and their friendship, ended after Oppenheimer invited Pauling's wife, [[Ava Helen Pauling]], to join him on a tryst in Mexico.<ref>{{harvnb|Cassidy|2005|p=142}}</ref> Oppenheimer later invited Pauling to be head of the Chemistry Division of the [[Manhattan Project]], but Pauling refused, saying he was a pacifist.<ref name="Cassidy 2005 151–152">{{harvnb|Cassidy|2005|pp=151–152}}</ref>

In the autumn of 1928, Oppenheimer visited [[Paul Ehrenfest]]'s institute at the [[University of Leiden]] in the Netherlands, where he impressed by giving lectures in Dutch, despite having little experience with the language. There, he was given the nickname of ''Opje'',<ref>{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|pp=73–74}}</ref> later anglicized by his students as "Oppie".<ref>{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|p=84}}</ref> From Leiden, he continued on to the [[ETH Zurich|Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich]] to work with Wolfgang Pauli on [[quantum mechanics]] and the [[continuous spectrum]]. Oppenheimer respected and liked Pauli and may have emulated his personal style as well as his critical approach to problems.<ref>{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|pp=75–76}}</ref>

On returning to the United States, Oppenheimer accepted an associate professorship from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where [[Raymond Thayer Birge]] wanted him so badly that he expressed a willingness to share him with Caltech.<ref name="Cassidy 2005 151–152" />

Before he began his Berkeley professorship, Oppenheimer was diagnosed with a mild case of [[tuberculosis]] and spent some weeks with his brother Frank at a New Mexico ranch, which he leased and eventually purchased. When he heard the ranch was available for lease, he exclaimed, "Hot dog!", and he later called it ''Perro Caliente'' ("hot dog" in Spanish).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ohst.berkeley.edu/oppenheimer/exhibit/text/ch1page1.html | title = The Early Years  | access-date=May 23, 2008 | year = 2004 | publisher = [[University of California, Berkeley]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015123633/http://ohst.berkeley.edu/oppenheimer/exhibit/text/ch1page1.html |archive-date = October 15, 2007}}</ref> Later, he used to say that "physics and desert country" were his "two great loves".<ref>{{harvnb|Conant|2005|p=75}}</ref> He recovered from tuberculosis and returned to Berkeley, where he prospered as an advisor and collaborator to a generation of physicists who admired him for his intellectual virtuosity and broad interests. His students and colleagues saw him as mesmerizing: hypnotic in private interaction, but often frigid in more public settings. His associates fell into two camps: one saw him as an aloof and impressive genius and aesthete, the other as a pretentious and insecure poseur.<ref>{{harvnb|Herken|2002|pp=14–15}}</ref> His students almost always fell into the former category, adopting his walk, speech, and other mannerisms, and even his inclination for reading entire texts in their original languages.<ref name="Bird&Sherwin, pp. 96-97">{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|pp=96–97}}</ref> [[Hans Bethe]] said of him:

{{blockquote|Probably the most important ingredient he brought to his teaching was his exquisite taste. He always knew what were the important problems, as shown by his choice of subjects. He truly lived with those problems, struggling for a solution, and he communicated his concern to the group. In its heyday, there were about eight or ten graduate students in his group and about six Post-doctoral Fellows. He met this group once a day in his office and discussed with one after another the status of the student's research problem. He was interested in everything, and in one afternoon they might discuss quantum electrodynamics, cosmic rays, electron pair production and nuclear physics.<ref name="BetheNAS">{{harvnb|Bethe|1968a}}; reprinted as {{harvnb|Bethe|1997|p=184}}</ref>}}

Oppenheimer worked closely with [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel Prize]]-winning experimental physicist [[Ernest Lawrence]] and his [[cyclotron]] pioneers, helping them understand the data that their machines were producing at Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory, which eventually developed into today's [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]].<ref>{{harvnb|Bird|Sherwin|2005|p=91}}</ref> In 1936, Berkeley promoted him to full professor at an annual salary of $3,300 ({{Inflation|US|3300|1936|r=-3|fmt=eq}}). In return, he was asked to curtail his teaching at Caltech, so a compromise was reached whereby Berkeley released him for six weeks each year, enough to teach one term at Caltech.<ref>{{harvnb|Conant|2005|p=141}}</ref>

Oppenheimer repeatedly attempted to get [[Robert Serber]] a position at Berkeley but was blocked by Birge, who felt that "[[Jewish quota|one Jew in the department was enough]]".<ref name="Bird 2005 104–107" />