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Theatre

Copenhagen

Our new film columnist has discovered an exciting new type of movie: there’s no screen and the parts are played by live actors, in real time. Thomas Wartenberg reports on the play Copenhagen by Michael Frayn.

Look, I know this is supposed to be a film column, but I can’t resist the opportunity of commenting on a play that I saw recently, for Copenhagen is one of the most philosophically interesting plays that I have ever seen. Michael Frayn’s play, now playing on Broadway after a long run in London, concerns a meeting that took place in September 1941, between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Both men were pioneers in the development of quantum physics during the early decades of the twentieth century: Bohr is best known for his model of the atom as a microscopic solar system, with electrons circling the nucleus in determinate energy positions, as well his as account of quantum theory known as the Copenhagen Interpretation; Heisenberg is known for the famous principle that bears his name according to which you cannot simultaneously determine the position and momentum of a particle.

When quantum theory was first discovered, it caused a great sensation among philosophers and philosophically inclined scientists. At base was the question of what the philosophic ramifications of a theory that denied causality a crucial role in the understanding of physical phenomena.

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