J. Robert Oppenheimer Explains How He Recited a Line from Bhagavad Gita–“Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”–Upon Witnessing the First Nuclear Explosion
No matter how little we know of the Hindu religion, a line from one of its holy scriptures lives within us all: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' This is one facet of the legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist who left an outsized mark on history.