Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (14 August 1912-3 February 1985) was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, physics professor, and founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
Biography[]
Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was born in New York City, New York to a secular Jewish family; he was the younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer became a professional physicist, and he became involved in the CPUSA after becoming engaged to Jacuqnette Quann, a young communist economics student. Frank Oppenheimer worked at the University of California Radiation Laboratory from 1941 to 1945 while his brother worked on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, and he briefly helped with the development of the atomic bomb from 1943 to 1945, although his Communist Party membership from 1937 to 1939 made him a security risk. He was blacklisted after the war and was forced to work as a cattle rancher near Pagosa Springs, Colorado for nearly a decade before he was offered a position at the University of Colorado in 1957. He went on to found the Exploratorium in San Francisco in 1969, serving as its first director until his death in 1985.