Frank Oppenheimer - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was born in 1912 in New York City. During his childhood, he studied painting and then the flute under Barrera, becoming competent enough at the instrument to consider a career as a flautist., Frank eventually followed his brother's encouragement and became a physicist as well. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 1933, he studied for a year and a half at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. In 1935, he worked on the development of nuclear particle counters at the Institute di Arcetri in Florence, Italy.

While completing his Ph.D. work at the California Institute of Technology, Oppenheimer became engaged to Jaquenette Quann, an economics student at the University of California, Berkeley who was active in the Young Communist League. Robert recommended against it, but despite this in 1936 Frank and Jackie were married, and soon had both joined the American Communist Party — also against Robert's recommendations.