Who is the author of the quote “I am become death the destroyer of worlds.”?
Answer:
The original quote is from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu religious text similar to that of the Christian Bible which describes the actions and events of the numerous Hindu gods such as Krishna and Vishnu. It does not have one individual author but is instead a collective work of millennia or oral and written tradition. This quote refers to Vishnu, who can take many forms and at one occasion becomes Death, the destroyer of worlds, in order to show a prince his power. The physicist and head of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, then used the quote in reference to the first test of the atomic bomb, which reminded him of this passage from the text.