Frank Oppenheimer - Later Life

Later Life

In 1965, Oppenheimer was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the history of physics and conduct bubble chamber research at University College, London, where he was exposed to European science museums for the first time. Inspired, Frank devoted the next years of his life to creating a similar resource in the United States.

Four years later, the Exploratorium opened its doors for the first time — an interactive museum of art, science, and human perception based on the philosophy that science should be fun and accessible for people of all ages, set next to the stately Palace of Fine Arts of San Francisco. Until his death at his home in Sausalito, California on February 3, 1985, Frank Oppenheimer served as director to the museum and was personally involved in almost every aspect of its operations.

Interviewed by director Jon Else, Frank Oppenheimer appears throughout The Day After Trinity (1980), an Academy Award-nominated documentary about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the building of the atomic bomb.