Copenhagen
by Michael Frayn

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Book Reviews of Copenhagen

Book Review: A Brilliant Exploration of the Uncertainty of Human Motives
Summary: 5 Stars

Heisenberg's role in Germany's effort to develop atomic weapons has been the topic of much speculation, historians tending to place him on one side or the other of the moral dividing line. There are those who paint him as an evil tool of the Nazis, someone who willingly devoted himself to Germany's scientific efforts to develop an atomic weapon. From their perspective, there has been a tendency to read Heisenberg's 1941 visit to Bohr as an effort to recruit Bohr to the German scientific fold. There are others who see the visit as more enigmatic, who do not ascribe such clear intentions to Heisenberg, and who see in the historical record evidence that Heisenberg was a passive opponent of the Nazis' objectives, a scientist who quietly undermined the German scientific effort while ostenbibly remaining a "good" German.

Frayn brilliantly depicts the uncertainty of Heisenberg's motivations, as well as the uncertainty of what occurred at the meeting between the two scientists, using the theory of these physicists to illumine not the physical world, but the psychological world of human motives. "Uncertainty" thus describes not merely the behavior of the atom, but also the behavior of individuals living in ethically difficult historical circumstances. As Frayn notes in his Postscript to the text of this play, "thoughts and intentions, even one's own-perhaps one's own most of all-remain shifting and elusive. There is not one single thought or intention of any sort that can ever be precisely established."

"Copenhagen" is lucidly and sparely written, a play of dialogue among only three characters-Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife, Margrethe. There are, of course, numerous references to the esoteric world of theoretical physics, particularly as it developed in the 1920s, and the Postscript to the text is therefore especially helpful in understanding both the scientific and historical frames of reference for the play.

Read this little play-better yet, see it if you can-because "Copenhagen" is a dramatic work that truly deserves to be recognized as one of outstanding plays of recent years.

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