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Oppenheimer, by rights, was a long shot. He was just thirty-eight, and junior to many of the people whom he would have to manage.
選擇奧本海默，確實是大膽的嘗試。當時奧本海默38歲，比格羅夫斯手下的很多人都要年輕；
He was a theorist, and this was a job that called for experimenters and engineers.
奧本海默是一個理論學家，而這是一項需要實驗人員和工程師的工作；
His political affiliations were doggy: he had all kinds of friends who were Communists.
奧本海默的政治關系足以讓人敬而遠之：他很多形形色色的朋友都是共產主義者；
Perhaps more importantly, he had never had an administrative experience.
更令人驚訝的是，他沒有一丁點的管理經驗。
"He was a very impractical fellow," one of Oppenheimer's friends later said.
“他是一個不切實際的家伙，”奧本海默的一個朋友后來說，
"He walked about with scuffed shoes and a funny hat, and, more important, he didn't know anything about equipment."
“他穿著一雙已經磨破的鞋子，戴著一頂怪異的帽子，而且，更重要的是，他對設備一竅不通。”
As one Berkeley scientist put it, more succinctly: "he couldn't run a hamburg stand."
伯克利的一位科學家說得更是切中要害：“他甚至不知道怎樣推動一個漢堡包攤子。”
Oh, and by the way, in graduate school, he tried to kill his professor.
哦，這里順便補充一下，在大學時候，他還差點殺了他的指導老師。
This was the resume of the man who was trying out for what might be said, without exaggeration, to be one of the most important jobs of the twentieth century.
但現在他迎來了一個新起點，他正在努力做一件——毫不夸張地說——一件20世紀最為重要的工作。
And what happened? The same thing had happened twenty years earlier at Cambridge: he got the rest of the world to see things his way.
結果如何？同樣的事情曾經發生在20多年前的劍橋：他讓世人見識了他的做事風格。
Here are Bird and Sherwin again: "Oppenheimer understood that Groves guarded the entrance of the Manhattan Project, and he therefore turned on all his charm and brilliance.
再看看博德和舍溫為他寫的傳記：“奧本海默知道曼哈頓計劃由格羅夫斯把關，因此他開始竭盡所能，充分發揮自己的才華。
It was an irresistible performance."
這確實是一件不可抗拒的工作。”
Groves was smitten. "‘He’s a genius,' Groves later told a reporter. ‘A real genius.'"
格羅夫斯也深有感觸，“‘他是一個天才，’格羅夫斯后來對一位記者說，‘一個真正的天才’”。
Groves was an engineer by training with a graduate degree from MIT, and Oppenheimer's grate insight was to appeal to that side of Groves.
格羅夫斯是一位從麻省理工大學畢業的工程師，奧本海默的遠見卓識得到了格羅夫斯的青睞。
Bird and Sherwin go on: Oppenheimer was the first scientist Groves has met on his tour (of potential candidates) who grasped that building an atomic bomb required finding practical solutions to a variety of cross-disciplinary problems....
博德和舍溫繼續寫道：“奧本海默認為原子彈的設計必須在多個學科中找出一條切實可行的操作方法，他是格羅夫斯發現的第一個（在眾多的候選者中）提出這種觀點的科學家......
Groves found himself nodding in agreement when Oppenheimer pitched the notion of a central laboratory devoted to his purpose,
為了達到這個目標，奧本海默提出建立一個中心實驗室，（格羅夫斯）發現自己不知不覺就認可了他的觀點，
where, as he later testified, 'we could come to grips with chemical, metallurgical, engineering and ordnance problems that had so far received no consideration.
正如他后來證實的那樣，‘一開始，我們就必須考慮化學、冶金學、工程學和軍火等方面的問題，但很多問題依舊難以預料。’”
