Mar 25
The Frida Cinema Santa Ana, CA
Dr. Jacob Barandes
Lecturer and Co-Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Physics at Harvard University
moderated byAtalia Lopez
Instructor, Chapman University
Oppenheimer— Quantum mechanics and the structure of reality
Program Description
This event is part of our 2025 National Evening of Science on Screen.
Presented At
The Frida Cinema Santa Ana, CA
Film Synopsis
The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Academy Award® winner for Best Picture Oppenheimer is an epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. The film stars Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Academy Award winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Academy Award winner Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures
About the Speaker
Dr. Jacob Barandes completed his PhD in the Department of Physics at Harvard University, where he currently serves as Lecturer and Co-Director of Graduate Studies. He is also an Associated Faculty Member with the Department of Philosophy, and a Faculty Affiliate with the Harvard Black Hole Initiative. Dr. Barandes' research resides at the intersection of philosophy and physics -- “physical philosophy,” which involves examining what our most successful physical theories tell us about traditional questions in philosophy, and “philosophical physics,” which involves using the methodological tools of philosophy to make progress on open problems in physics -- and the foundations of quantum mechanics, the metaphysics of causation, the philosophy of probability, field theory, general relativity, and formal methods in mathematical physics. He founded and organized the Foundations of Physics @Harvard seminar and workshop series, as well as the New England Workshop on the History and Philosophy of Physics.
Atalia Lopez is an Australian transplant, Letterboxd devotee, and Frida Cinema board member. She teaches classes on the intersection of film, literature, and the urban environment at Chapman University, and is proudly responsible for exposing hundreds of students to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Atalia completed her undergraduate studies in literature at Chapman University and holds a master’s degree from the University of Oxford. You may also know her as the host of The Frida’s monthly Film Trivia Nights, where she invented the celebrated “fourth round stretch.”