Copenhagen (18 page)

Read Copenhagen Online

Authors: Michael Frayn

BOOK: Copenhagen
12.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

David Irving:
The German Atomic Bomb
(Simon & Schuster 1968)—in UK as
The Virus House
(Collins 1967). The story of the German bomb programme.

Paul Lawrence Rose:
Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project
(U of California Press 1998)

Records and Documents Relating to the Third Reich, II German Atomic Research, Microfilms DJ29-32
. (EP Microform Ltd, Wakefield) living’s research materials for the book, including long verbatim interviews with Heisenberg and others. The only consultable copy I could track down was in the library of the Ministry of Defence.

Archive for the History of Quantum Physics
, microfilm. Includes the complete correspondence of Heisenberg and Bohr. A copy is available for reference in the Science Museum Library. Bohr’s side of the correspondence is almost entirely in Danish, Heisenberg’s in German apart from one letter.

Leni Yahil:
The Rescue of Danish Jewry
, (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia 1969)

There are also many interesting sidelights on life at the Bohr Institute in its golden years in:

French & Kennedy, eds:
Niels Bohr, A Centenary Volume
(Harvard 1985)

and in the memoirs of Hendrik Casimir, George Gamow, Otto Frisch, Otto Hahn, Rudolf Peierls, and Victor Weisskopf.

For the subsequent challenges to the Copenhagen Intepretation:

David Deutsch:
The Fabric of Reality
(Allen Lane 1997)

Murray Gell-Mann:
The Quark and the Jaguar
(W H Freeman 1994; Little, Brown 1994)

Roger Penrose:
The Emperor’s New Mind
(OUP 1989)

The actual ‘two-slits’ experiment was carried out by Dürr, Nonn, and Rempe at the University of Konstanz, and is reported in
Nature
(3 September 1998). There is an accessible introduction to the work in the same issue by Peter Knight, and another account of it by Mark Buchanan (boldly entitled ‘An end to uncertainty’) in
New Scientist
(6 March 1999).

Overleaf: a diagram outlining
Copenhagen
’s scientific and historical background.

From the beginning of modern atomic theory to Hiroshima: an outline sketch of the scientific and historical background to the play
.

1
Bernstein takes the trouble to explain in his book what few other commentators do—the difference between slow and fast neutrons: ‘By definition, slow neutrons move with speeds of the order of a few kilometers a second, about the speeds that molecules at room temperature move in a gas. That is why these neutrons are also referred to as thermal. Fast neutrons, the kind that are emitted in many nuclear processes, move at speeds of tens of thousands of kilometers a second.’

Also by Michael Frayn

PLAYS

Alphabetical Order
Balmoral
Benefactors
Clockwise
(screenplay)
Clouds
Donkeys’ Years
First and Last
(screenplay)
Here
Jamie on a Flying Visit & Birthday
Look Look
Make and Break
Noises Off
Now You Know
The Two of Us
Wild Honey

NOVELS

Against Entropy
Headlong
A Landing on the Sun
Now You Know
The Russian Interpreter
Sweet Dreams
The Tin Men
The Trick of It
A Very Private Life

NONFICTION

Constructions
The Original Michael Frayn
The Additional Michael Frayn
Speak After the Beep

TRANSLATIONS

The Cherry Orchard
Exchange
Fruits of Enlightenment
Number One
The Seagull
The Sneeze
Three Sisters
Uncle Vanya
Wild Honey

AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL, AUGUST 2000

Copyright © 1998 by Michael Frayn

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that
Copenhagen
, being fully protected under copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the copyright union, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion pictures, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. All inquiries regarding performance rights to this play should be addressed to the author’s agent: Peters, Fraser and Dunlop Ltd., 5th Floor, The Chambers, Lots Road, Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 OXF. No performance may be given unless a license has been obtained.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frayn, Michael
Copenhagen / Michael Frayn
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-43306-0
    1. Heisenberg, Werner, 1901-1976—Drama. 2. Nuclear
warfare—Moral and ethical aspects—Drama. 3. Bohr, Niels
Henrik David, 1885-1962—Drama. 4. World War, 1939-1945 —
Science—Drama. 5. Nuclear physics —
Drama. 6. Physicists —Drama. I. Title.

PR6056.R3 C64 2000
822’.914—dc21
CIP

www.anchorbooks.com

v3.0

Other books

Amanecer contigo by Linda Howard
Strongbow by Morgan Llywelyn
Give All to Love by Patricia Veryan
A Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem
Reality Echo by James Axler