Taos

2011 Cultural Institute weekend is July 21-24.

The Secret City: Los Alamos and the Atomic Age

This signature course is recommended for first-time participants.

It once was reported that there were two great loves in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life: physics and New Mexico. The two came together at Los Alamos during World War II when he helped assemble a secret community of brilliant scientists to usher in the atomic age. This course will focus on the rich human interest of the project, the science that led to the atomic bomb’s creation and reflection on the legacy left by those uniquely gifted men and women who toiled relentlessly in the mountains of Northern New Mexico to end the most savage war of modern history. Beginning with a stop in Santa Fe on Thursday afternoon for a special introductory session, the course will continue Friday at Los Alamos and conclude Saturday in Taos.

About the Instructors
James Hopkins is a professor in the Clements Department of History in SMU’s Dedman College and an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor. Stimulated in part by his father’s role in the atomic bomb attacks on Japan, he taught for many years the course Atomic Energy and the Modern World. The course’s themes were developed into the film “The University and the Fate of the Earth,” which won first prize in the New York International Film Festival.

Cas Milner received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He has done experimental particle physics work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory. In the past, Milner has served as an adjunct professor of physics at SMU. Currently he is working at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Register Now

For more information
Contact Allison Curran at: taosci@smu.edu or call 214-768-TAOS (8267).