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Loading... Copenhagen (original 1998; edition 2012)by Michael Frayn (Author)
Work InformationCopenhagen by Michael Frayn (1998)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Important subject and literary does not equal a great play... ( ) Fascinating what-if about the mysterious meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in 1941, when Heisenberg was leading the German nuclear effort and he came to see his old teacher and wife in Copenhagen. Bohr later escaped to Sweden, and eventually to Los Alamos where he was a part of the team that built the atomic bomb. If you have studied quantum physics, there's a lot to enjoy here. In the end, however, despite the various hypotheses in the play, it is still rather difficult to know what actually happened. But you do feel that perhaps you understand these personalities a bit better--and their role in the 20th century's most momentous discoveries and events. For a recorded theatre production where you can't see the actors, it works well. The two male characters speak quite differently, so there is no confusion. I understand that the print version of the play contains a lot of background information, which will be very helpful if you haven't read much about this event before. An audio production of the play which explores the relationship between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, rotating around the mysterious meeting between the two during the height of WWII in 1941. All three cast members are equally strong and the play works hard to make the physics comprehensible to the audience. The play is cyclical as the characters continue to come back to the meeting in 1941 while going on tangents about the relationship between the two scientists and the orbital role played by Bohr's wife, Margrethe. The stellar voice cast for this production makes the play but it wasn't a runaway favourite. What a play. As I watched it I knew I had to see it again but wouldn't be able to as the season was booked out. As it was, the night we went our seats were on the stage. A peculiar experience. Still, it meant I bought the book the next day. Gleefully grabbed by one of the people I went with before I could blink, so I hope that gives you an idea of how dense and yet magnetic this play is. no reviews | add a review
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In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and close colleagues, and they had revolutionised atomic physics in the 1920s with their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. But now the world had changed, and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. The meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment, and ended in disaster. Why the German physicist Heisenberg went to Copenhagen in 1942 and what he wanted to say to the Danish physicist Bohr are questions which have exercised historians of nuclear physics ever since. In Michael Frayn's new play Heisenberg meets Bohr and his wife Margrethe once again to look for the answers, and to work out, just as they had once worked out the internal functioning of the atom, how we can ever know why we do what we do. 'Michael Frayn's tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session.' Sunday Times No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)822.914Literature English & Old English literatures English drama 1900- 1900-1999 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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