The Story of the Real Lilli Hornig, the Only Female Scientist Named in the Film Oppenheimer

Lost Women of Science

Lilli Hornig was only 23 years old when she arrived at Los Alamos to contribute to the development of an atomic bomb that would end World War II. A talented chemist, Lilli battled sexism throughout her career and remained a steadfast advocate for female scientists like herself.

Lilli is the only female scientist named in Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer. But the character is a blur, popping up here and there to say they didn’t teach typing in her graduate chemistry program at Harvard, when asked whether she could be a typist, or to rib a colleague, telling him that her reproductive system was better protected from radiation than his. The real Hornig worked closely on plutonium research and was part of the team that developed and tested the mechanism for the plutonium weapon in the Trinity test.