J. Robert Oppenheimer (* April 22th, 1904 in New York City) is a US-American theoretical Physicist of German-Jewish descent.
In 1926, he became a Ph.D. student at the University of Göttingen, then the worldwide leading center of nuclear physics. Here, young Oppenheimer was able to exchange ideas with the great nuclear scientists of their time, like Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Paul Dirac, and Edward Teller. In 1927, Oppenheimer got his doctorate under Max Born. Afterwards, he got a job as an Assistant professor in Berkeley, California.
In 1930, he essentially predicted the Existence of the Positron, an Antimatter particle - two years later, it was discovered. In 1938/39, he predicted the Existence of White Dwarfs, Neutron stars, and Black Holes in Astrophysics.
In 1939, he began a relationship with Katherine ("Kitty") Puening, after having parted ways with Jean Tatlock.
In 1933, he learned Sanskrit and afterwards read the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishades in the Original.