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In Jurassic Park, computer programmer Dennis Nedry has a picture of the famous physicist (and "father of the atomic bomb") J. Robert Oppenheimer taped to his computer monitor. Above the photo is a piece of paper, with a doodle of a mushroom cloud.1

enter image description here

Why? What is this supposed to mean?



1 Note: Later, after Nedry has sabotaged park security and absconded with the dinosaur embryos, we see another note above the Oppenheimer photo; this one reads "Beginning of the Baby Boom". This note makes some sense, since Nedry is going to be selling potential dino-babies; however, it doesn't explain why he has a photo of Oppenheimer.

enter image description here

Wad Cheber
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1 Answers1

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Upon completion and testing of the first bomb, Oppenheimer famously recalled the text from the Bhagavad Gita - "I am become death. The destroyer of worlds". Possibly a subtle shout out to the fact that Nedry, in this situation, was indeed the bringer of death.

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Movies/Movie8.shtml

Video of Oppenheimer and the above text:

Further drawing a parallel between Oppenheimer's work on the bomb and the themes of Jurassic Park is his quote:

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/oppenheimer-transcript/

and how that parallels Ian Malcolm's line:

Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Credit to this site for explicitly calling out that parallel in terms of the two quotes:

NKCampbell
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    Actually, that quote (and the video in which it appears) is the primary reason I recognized him in the photo. I'm not quite convinced by your answer, but it is interesting. +1 – Wad Cheber Mar 08 '16 at 21:22