There's a little bit of Oppenheimer in all of us

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

For a lifetime I'd wanted to experience the home of mankind's first atomic blast. Trinity Site opens just two days a year, but I was lost in the remote New Mexico desert. Finally, a distant caravan led to the gates. That only a few dozen of us shuffled inside the barbed wire surprised me. I expected a crowd.

Now, with the film "Oppenheimer," moviegoers are experiencing Trinity Site, huddled together in the dark around a bright screen. Just as the real J. Robert Oppenheimer huddled with his team of scientists, waiting for humanity's brightest flash to bleach the night sky.

What compels millions to witness this onscreen re-creation? Historical curiosity? Sure, we're interested in the enigmatic physicist.

But could it be there's a part of the atomic bomb's father in all of us?

Back inside Trinity's gate, I make my way to the stone obelisk marking Ground Zero. A humbling privilege akin to walking a neighborhood walloped by an F5 tornado. Except instead of obliterated houses across the ground, a secret haunts the desert sand.

Warning signs remind visitors that pocketing Trinitite is illegal. Fat chance. Decades ago the government hauled away or bulldozed it all underground. Yet, ants occasionally nudge pieces to the surface.

After a few photographs, I headed toward a table of Geiger counters. In the sand, something green sparkled. Radioactive Trinitite. Dangerous if ingested, but safe enough for a shelf in the garage.

With a clandestine glance I knelt down, feeling a mix of exhilaration and trepidation, picked up the small treasure, and slipped it into the recesses of my suede boot. The remnant carried the delineation of a world transformed. The technological equivalent of Before Christ and A.D.

Oppenheimer is remembered for quoting the sacred Hindu Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Forgotten is what he said next: "I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." It took more than one man to create a weapon capable of mankind's annihilation. It took a village called Manhattan Project. Called Los Alamos. And in a way, called America.

During my "Oppenheimer" IMAX matinee, the packed audience watched in popcorn-drop silence. Restrained. Waiting. For what? The film's nude scenes were hyped, but the moviegoers anticipated a bigger tantalizing moment. Much bigger.

As Nolan's relentless soundtrack score paused, I turned to observe the crowd. Not a twitch. A theater of unblinking eyes. What if the onscreen characters did not activate the button? And, instead, each seat had its own detonator installed? What does it say about us that we would, excitedly or reluctantly, nevertheless push that button?

We came for the blast in all its slow-motion terrifying glory. Maybe our fascination means we recognize the power of the atom to awe. And appreciate the ferocious beauty of an atomic chain reaction, even if the fallout is a lingering sense of shame.

Puzzling that we grasp the nuclear bomb's correlation with artificial intelligence in a very Oppenheimer-ish way but stop short of reining in AI's spread. Tech geniuses tout their latest AI advancement as they warn it might destroy us.

Why can't we stop ourselves from racing inexhaustibly towards cliffs of the scientific unknown, from bombs to virus gain-of-function to AI even as we bemoan the risks?

We plod forward on a planet made radioactive from our own endeavors. Whether or not you harbor a bit of Oppenheimer, if born after 1951, you do harbor radioactive isotopes within your body. From over 2,000 nuclear bombs exploded worldwide. Call it mankind's telltale signature.