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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 18, No. 2. March 18, 1954

Atom Physics and Poetry

Atom Physics and Poetry

The well-known atomic scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was in Brazil recently. During a press reception there, the representative of "Correia da Manha" asked him—for a poem. Nonplussed, Oppenheimer said: "Really, this kind of thing hasn't happened to me at any press reception in all the world so far." Yet he sat down at a table, lit a pipe, and jotted down the following lines:

Crossing

It was evening when we came to the river
with a low moon over the desert
that one had lost in the mountains
forgotten.
Wet with the cold and the sweating
and the ridges barring the sky.
And afterward remember,
we had the hot winds
against us.
There were two palms by the landing
and the vines by the hut were in flower,
Far off a dog barked.
Then we heard the oars creaking and later
the [unclear: Voatman] called to us.
We did not look back at the mountains.

—J. Robert Oppenheimer.

When he was later questioned on the relationship between atom physics and poetry, Oppenheimer said, "Physics seek to express in a simple language something that nobody knows; poetry seeks to say things that everybody knows in a language which nobody understands."