"When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success."
— J. Robert Oppenheimer
When You See Something That Is
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.
About this quote
J. Robert Oppenheimer said this during his security hearing in April 1954, when asked why he had not raised moral objections to the hydrogen bomb program earlier. The statement became one of the most quoted acknowledgments of the tension between scientific curiosity and ethical responsibility. His security clearance was revoked following the hearing — a decision the U.S. government formally reversed in December 2022.
Source
Testimony at security hearing, 1954