At the age of 5 Oppenheimer went on a trip to visit his family home in Germany, where his grandfather lives. His grandfather Ben gave him a small bag of minerals, which triggered a hobby that was to last for years "Mineralogy." Oppenheimer was to spend hours-collecting samples, and cataloguing and polishing them. By the age of 11 he had been elected a member of the New York Mineralogical Club. About a year later he delivered his first paper there. His parents said that there was no doubt that he was clever, and at school a star.

Although both his parents were Jewish, they rejected orthodox Jewish society and culture. They sent Robert, and later his brother Frank (who was 8) to the school run by the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The school's founder was another German immigrant, Felix Adler. He believed that human values did

------------------------------------------------------------------------

At about 14 years old his parents said he was much different than the average kid. He was polite, bookish, diligent, also very arrogant and snobbish. He had friends that he considered his best friends and was really not even that close to them. His studies, books, and whatever else he was interested in at the time came first. He was a very serious kid, and he hardly ever laughed (had absolutely no sense of humor). That year he had gone to camp he was harassed very badly. It got so bad that the kids there locked him in an Icehouse, naked overnight.

By the time he was eighteen his father had given him a twenty-eight-foot sloop, which he called Trimethy. Came from the name of a chemical compound, trimethylene dioxide. Oppenheimer and his brother sailed all over the area. As a teenager he developed a sense for danger. He liked to find some sort of weakness within himself, and over power, or overcome it. When a storm would come up he liked to go sailing out across the bay. He would ride the tide through the inlet at Fire Island, and take it rite out into the Atlantic.

Oppenheimer's last year of school was spent learning, and with nonstop studying. That year he ended up graduating with ten straight A's. That summer his parents took again on a trip to Germany, where he went on a mineralogical field trip in the Harz Mountains. He came back extremely ill with trench dysentery. He would have problems digesting for the rest of his life. His parents and doctors decided that he was to ill to go to Harvard that year. He had to stay home in their apartment for the year with his books and thoughts. He was so bored he started rebelling against his parents, and locking himself in his room. Next spring his father sent him west with Herbert Smith (English teacher at the Ethical Culture School) to Colorado, into the mountains to recuperate.

He had absolutely no taste for sports. He was driven everywhere as a child, attended by servants, and even teachers became critical to his avoidance of physical activity. Felix Adler once lost his patience with him, because he would not use the stairs. He would always prefer to wait for the lift. So he sent a note home that said "Please teach your son to walk up stairs; he is holding up class". In result his parents now tried to encourage him to play outdoor sports, but he had absolutely no coordination. He tried tennis, but he played very badly, he seemed to have distaste for doing anything badly. However, there was one sport that he took to become an expert at, which was sailing. The family bought a holiday home at Bay Shore, Long Island. Where he slowly became one of the best yachtsman in the area.

Around the autumn of 1929 was when he started teaching at Berkley. It took awhile to succeed as a teacher. Lots of his students complained that he went too fast and that he was impossible to follow. The students then ran to the head of the physics department to complain that they were not learning because he was too hard to understand. About 2 months later like everyone thought he began to slow down and interac

Some common words found in the essay are:
School Colorado, California Berkeley, Felix Adler, ATOMS September, Fire Island, Oppenheimer Lawrence, Shore Island, Leo Szilard, Robert Oppenheimer, Harz Mountains, robert oppenheimer, nuclear explosion, eleven-inch cyclotron, communist party, percy bridgman, german immigrant, physics department, age 11, atomic bomb, los alamos,
Approximate Word count = 2133
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)