Dartmouth College’s department of physics & astronomy hosted a public lecture on Thursday that featured K.C. Cole, a science journalist who has written over a thousand articles for various publications. Cole gave a presentation titled, “The Uncle of the Atom Bomb: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up.” In the presentation she described how he was an inspirational friend and figure in her life.

Cole studied political science before meeting Frank, but after being assigned to interview him she was amazed by the world of science. With this influence Cole changed directions and went to work for him in the field of science.

Frank Oppenheimer was the brother of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. They grew up in a wealthy, intellectual and artistic family in New York, and both brothers excelled in science even as children. They eventually teamed up to develop the atomic bomb in hopes of creating the weapon that would end all wars.

Unfortunately, the atomic bomb was even more devastating than anyone imagined, and Robert tried to use his fame and influence to protest the development of the hydrogen bomb, one thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb, but failed zorb balls for sale.

Frank, having been banned by the government from teaching and working in physics because of his previous affiliation with the Communist Party, eventually opened up the first Exploratorium in San Francisco in the old Palace of Fine Arts, merging science and art to promote learning. It was there that Cole met Frank and became inspired by the noisy, chaotic, and playground-like museum.

Frank designed and built his Exploratorium on his belief in play and intuitive learning—education that cannot be measured or tested. He placed art and science on the same level, believing aesthetics were just as important in reflecting human senses and behavior. He called scientists and artists the “noticers” of society and often argued that the discoveries artists made could be validated just like scientific hypotheses.

There were no rules to follow in the Exploratorium and Frank purposely did not post signs for the bathroom in order to encourage people to talk to each other. He wanted to inspire people to love learning by allowing them to play freely within his museum.

Frank was a romantic who had many philosophies for changing the world for the better. He believed in symmetry, and disregarded frivolous differences such as the color of a person’s skin.

When others pointed out the constraints of the real world, Frank would dismiss the notion and reply that there is no real world, but “a world we made up.

After the lecture, Cole, along with professor Marcelo Gleiser of the physics department and Nobel-prize wining theoretical chemist Roald Hoffmann, held a panel to discuss the moral responsibility of scientists in destructive technology and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to research.

When asked to sum up Frank Oppenheimer, Cole said, “Frank believed that if we stop trying to understand things, we’ll all be sunk. He thought we needed really new and radical ideas to deal with the world’s problems.”