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How Oppenheimer addresses the paranoia around nuclear power

Oliver Stone's documentary Nuclear Now marks a big moment for nuclear technology, but it is Christopher Nolan's film that creates a perspective for us to understand the origin of our fears, says Simon Ings

By Simon Ings

9 August 2023

Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) watches a nuclear test in progress

Universal Pictures

Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan
On general release

Nuclear Now
Oliver Stone
Video on demand

RADIATION isn’t a pestilence, but read the medical studies following any accidental release of radioactive material and you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. In the UK, for instance, around 12 kilograms of uranium oxide escaped via the towers of the Windscale power station from 1954 to 1957, giving about 300 people terminal cancer. The explosion at Chernobyl in 1986, which killed over 30 people immediately, is likely to have caused terminal cancer…

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