The “father of the atom bomb”, American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, had an explosive love life. It was portrayed in Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer, starring Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy, which featured some raunchy sex scenes.
Oppenheimer would go on to have two kids with his loving wife Katherine, whom he nicknamed “Kitty”. Peter and Toni Oppenheimer would go on to have very different lives as their dad, but were incredibly proud of what he had done for them.
But he wasn’t alone in being a top scientist with a rather colourful love life. Here is a look at some startling secrets about his love life and those of other top researchers.
Nothing fruity
Legend has it that Sir Isaac Newton came up with his theory of gravity after seeing an apple fall from a tree. But the British scientist didn’t have a clue when it came to losing cherries.
He never married and once fell out with a friend who tried to “embroil me with women”. It’s widely believed Newton died aged 84, in 1727, still a virgin.
Freudian slip
Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and a pioneer in studying sexual desire. It also turns out that he may have got quite hands-on with his research.
The Austrian-born neurologist wed Martha Bernays in 1886. They were married for more than 50 years and had six children. But psychiatrist Carl Jung alleged Freud had an affair with Martha’s younger sister Minna. And a Swiss hotel register from 1898 shows the pair booked into a double room – as husband and wife.
Secret flame
Marie Curie, the Polish-born pioneer of research into radioactivity, was married to French hubby Pierre for 11 years until his death in a road accident in 1906. Four years later, the 43-year-old mum-of-two − once played by Rosamund Pike on screen − began a torrid affair with younger scientist Paul Langevin, who was a married father-of-four.
When his wife found out, she exposed it, causing a scandal and nearly stopping Curie getting a Nobel Prize. In the end Langevin refused to get a divorce. She died aged 66 in 1934.
Hair-raising antics
Albert Einstein’s sex life was as wild as his locks. The German-born physicist, played by Tom Conti in Oppenheimer, is famous for his equation E = mc2 yet he never found the formula for monogamy.
He divorced wife Mileva in 1919 to marry his cousin Elsa after they started sleeping together. But soon he was cheating on her, having an affair with his secretary Betty and notching up a string of other conquests before and after Elsa’s death in 1936. Einstein died, aged 76, in 1955.
Fast mover
British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair pioneered pocket calculators but was most famous for his C5 electric vehicle, which unfortunately proved be a sales flop. However, the balding, bearded father-of-three enjoyed a runaway love life, divorcing wife Ann to marry 33-year-old lap dancer and former Miss England Angie Bowness in 2010 − when he was aged 69.
They divorced seven years later. Sinclair, who admitted a weakness for beautiful women, died in 2021 aged 81.
Sexy time
Physicist and A Brief History Of Time author Stephen Hawking lived with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years, which left him in a wheelchair and using a computer to speak. After being married to Jane for 20 years, he fell in love with one of his carers Elaine Mason and the “father-of-three divorced to marry her in 1995. But they divorced, too, in 2006.
In later life he was spotted at strip clubs and became a regular at Stringfellows in London. Hawking, who died in 2018 aged 76, admitted he found women “a complete mystery”.
Code red
Leonardo Da Vinci painted a beautiful woman for the Mona Lisa but thought sex was “disgusting”. The artist, who also came up with early designs for everything from flying machines to diving suits, never married or had children.
But in 1476, aged 24, the Renaissance genius narrowly escaped execution after being arrested and accused of sodomy with a 17-year-old male model. Da Vinci was acquitted but committed himself to celibacy for life.
Unnatural selection
Biologist Charles Darwin pioneered the theory of evolution in his book The Origin Of Species. Despite his scientific interest in natural selection, he ended up marrying his first cousin Emma Wedgwood in 1839.
The couple were happy and would have a whopping 10 kids together, but Darwin worried inbreeding was the cause of ill health among his offspring and three of his kids would die young. He even once wrote: “We are a wretched family and ought to be exterminated.”
Total bombshell
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer after his role in the US Manhattan Project, which would create the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.
But the physicist certainly had a lust for life. He slept with the already-married Kitty, played by Emily Blunt in the movie, at a scientist pal’s party, leading her to get a divorce.
Then, after their marriage in 1940 and having two children together, he rekindled an affair with former lover and psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh, who took her own life in 1944.
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