Copenhagen

No one from the liberal arts side particularly cared about the “The Two Cultures” until the discovery and application of nuclear fission. It hadn’t started that way; Leonardo Da Vinci and Christopher Wren (just for example) were equally at home on both sides. But sometime around the middle of the 19th century it became increasingly unfashionable for “intellectuals” to take an interest in science or engineering. (There might have been some class consciousness here – many of the leading lights of science and technology – Faraday, Edison, Curie, Einstein – came from middle or lower class backgrounds). With Hiroshima that all changed. Physics and science in general were suddenly very important indeed, and there was a second show more paradigm shift with the start of the space race. Scientists and engineers weren’t invited to cocktail parties, of course – nobody wanted to go that far – but at least people talked about these things.


There were sour grapes on both sides. C. P. Snow’s watershed essay provoked an incredibly hostile reaction when he suggested that the question “Do you know the laws of thermodynamics?” was the equivalent of “Have you read a work by Shakespeare?” Isaac Asimov complained that it was OK to portray Jupiter as a bearded man on a throne who molested little boys, but not as a planet with a hurricane bigger than the Earth and enough core pressure to convert hydrogen to a metal.


There just might be some meeting of the minds here and there. More popular media is portraying scientists as something other than clueless geeks or inhuman fanatics. Little of this has been particularly successful, but at least there’s some attempt to understand why a mathematical proof or a bridge design can be as creative as a painting or symphony.


Which brings us to Copenhagen, the 2000 Tony award winner. It is, alas, not really about quantum physics or the uncertainty principle – although it’s still a very good play indeed.


In 1941 Werner Heisenberg visited his old mentor, Niels Bohr, one evening in occupied Copenhagen. After the war, they had different memories about what they talked about. Heisenberg may or may not have pumped Bohr for any information he might have about the Allied nuclear weapon program. If he did, he might have been doing this to determine if he should press ahead with the German effort or if he should deliberately stall. Maybe he did deliberately stall, by intentionally miscalculating the amount of U235 it would take for a chain reaction. Or maybe he just made a mistake. The whole thing was, and still is – uncertain. That’s the catch, of course – the first culture is too willing to jump on “The Uncertainty Principle” and turn it into an analogy for the human condition. Heisenberg and Bohr don’t actually talk about physics in the play (although it is probably the only work of literature where someone mentions numbers in scientific notation). They talk about morals and ethics and what to do when you are not sure what to do or where your loyalties are. Those, of course, are pretty timeless questions, whether they concern Heisenberg or Hamlet. Thus, well worth reading. show less

In the afterlife, Werner Heisenberg meets again with his former mentor Niels Bohr and Bohr's wife Margrethe to discuss why the two physicists met in Copenhagen during World War II when they were on opposite sides of the war -- and each contributing to the building of an atomic bomb for their side.

This play is obviously fictional but rooted in history and science. There is plenty that is factual within it, but then it moves on from there to suggest feelings and motivations, particularly Heisenberg's during his infamous Copenhagen meeting with Bohr -- one of history's great mysteries as no one knows what happened then or what the two discussed.

As it's so heavily steeped in science, this book can be a bit dense at times (especially the show more author's afterword that goes greater into detail about the factual elements) but I think it flows well and is fairly accessible even for the non-scientific (e.g., me). The human drama is what ultimately matters in this work. Overall, I found it a very compelling read and recommend it for those who enjoy messy feelings, muddy motivations, and/or historical drama. show less

I love this play. I love the visiting and revisiting of why we do what we do, turning things over and over from different people's point of view. I love the power of the background of the birth of quantum physics and the war in Europe. I love the interplay of the personal, the political and the scientific. There are heart-breaking moments, Heisenberg crouched in a hole in the ruins of Europe still clutching his reactor, and joy filled moments, the grandeur of Bohr's tour of Europe, walking and talking and discovering the fundamental structure of the universe. (It's better watched than read though, I think)

This play is a surrealistic exploration of a real event. In 1941 German physicist Werner Heisenberg traveled to Copenhagen to meet with his close friend and colleague, Danish physicist Niels Bohr, even though the war had made them enemies who were both working on an atomic bomb. To this day, no one really knows what they talked about or why Heisenberg went. In the play, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohr's wife, Margrethe, meet in the afterlife and try to remember what happened that night and why. Like the subatomic particles that they studied, their lives moved too fast for them to be able to pinpoint exactly what happened.

This was a reread for me. I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I loved this play because of the way show more Frayn meshed scientific theory with human behavior. I really liked how Frayn compared Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle with the uncertainty of war and human memory. And even though I didn't understand all of the scientific details, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the play. I also appreciate the unanswered questions about the morality of scientists creating a weapon that could kill that many people at once. I think this is one play that is better read than seen because you can take you time with the dialogue and go back and reread lines if you want to. show less

Sometimes I give books "theme songs": their themes, dialogue or storyline may remind me of a song I know (and usually like). In the case of Copenhagen, it's the Blue Rodeo tune "5 A.M. (A Love Song)", from which I quote in this review (in italics). It's about figuring out the motivations behind a relationship and sorting out how one personally feels about it.

Funny how I'm always here with you
I never meant to change your world
Or change your point of view

Werner Heisenberg paid a visit to his old friend and mentor, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen during the Second World War: 1941, to be precise. They were on opposite sides: Bohr a citizen of an occupied country, Heisenberg part of the German science program. Why did Heisenberg visit at all? show more What did he say that made their friendship go so terribly wrong? Nobody knows for sure, but the visit did actually happen. In this play, Frayn imagines Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife, Margrethe, as spirits in the afterlife discussing the meeting and trying to figure out Heisenberg's motivations.

And as we sort out the 'Who said? You said', "Who said? I said",
I only wish I came a little better prepared

This is very much a thinking/talking play. Not much actually happens, but there is a lot of discussion. In one way it is a very good introduction to the theories and achievements of the two physicists; they use analogies involving skiing or cards to describe the concepts of uncertainty and complementarity, for example. There is also an element of repetition that reinforces some of the concepts being discussed. The characters themselves have an odd, formal way of interacting, but then that could be how people talk in the afterlife when English is not their first language! It does read fairly quickly, being all dialogue, but it is also something to stop and ponder for a while.

I'll say that you're right
If you just say that I'm right
Let's hit the hay and call this case closed

Frayn also provides an excellent postscript where he describes the historical events surrounding this meeting and provides some insights into the writing process. Also interesting is his discussion of Heisenberg's paper, the one that described what we know today as the uncertainty principle. Because Heisenberg originally wrote in German, there is something lost in the translation. The word he uses in his memoirs and the final version of the paper is "Unbestimmtheit," which doesn't have an exact equivalent but could be derived from "bestimmen", which means "to determine/to ascertain". So a more precise but less familiar translation might be "indeterminacy". The first draft of the paper used the word "Ungenauigheit", meaning "inexactness." Meanwhile, Bohr tended to use the word "Unsicherheit", meaning "unsureness", which is closer to the connotations that "uncertainty" has in English. It's a very interesting conundrum that the words used to describe the uncertainty principle are themselves uncertain when rendered in another language!

As a reading experience, this was a three-star, meaning that I liked it and it met my expectations. Extra half-star for the thought provoking that led me to make the connection with the song. I suspect I will be thinking about this book for a while. If you like science and plays that make you think, this might be the ticket for you. show less

A play about Werner Heisenberg's 1941 visit to Niels Bohr in occupied Denmark and what they discussed then. Frayn uses the relevant physics about uncertainty, complementarity, and fission as conceits in the play to remarkable effect. Ultimately not really about the development of atomic weapons at all but about friendship, memory, and personal paradox. Frayn's postscript about the history and science he used in the play is a lovely overview of the subject as well. Recommended.

A fantastic stripped-down play that examines friendship, disagreement, and motive.