The distinguished public lecture for the Oppenheimer Centennial addresses chemical, nuclear, and biological warfare. It takes up the impact of scientists on those arenas of national security and the effect of national security concerns back on their work, contextualizing Oppenheimer in a larger sweep of historical relations between scientists and the military.

Professor Daniel J. Kevles writes about issues in science and society past and present. He is the author most recently of The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character and, as a coauthor, of Inventing America: A History of the United States. His previous books include In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity and The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in scholarly and popular journals, including The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

Professor Kevles received his B.A. in physics and Ph.D. in history from Princeton University. From 1964 to 2001, he taught at the California Institute of Technology, where he was the Koepfli Professor of Humanities and directed the Program in Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. In 2001 he joined the faculty of Yale University as the Stanley Woodward Professor. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Society of American Historians. His works have been honored with a National Historical Society Prize, a Page One Award, and the Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society. In 2001 he received the Society's George Sarton Medal for career achievement.