Comments

by Gunnar Tibell

My first acqaintance with the play was when I saw it in London in the beginning of 1999. Soon after I was called from the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and asked if I would like to serve as consultant in their setting up of the play. I accepted and a very interesting time started with a careful perusal of the manuscript, meeting the ensemble to explain the physics contained and, later, to organise three seminars on 20th century physics development as well as on the Manhattan project and its aftermath. After having seen the play four times in Stockholm I also had a chance to see the Gothenburg version which was very different indeed.

The fact that the play Copenhagen was so successful and drew so many people is of course a triumph for the author, Michael Frayn. It is a superb example of science dissemination and of the work behind the progress of science. It looks beyond the formulas to the persons doing the job and to the struggle for finding a way of describing reality which holds for future tests and leads to new scientific discoveries. In addition, it brings out the ethical dilemmas which could be the consequence of working on applications of the results obtained in research.

Through the play we are also reminded of the fact that scientists, as well as other contributors to our cultural environment, like artists and authors, give complimentary descriptions of reality, and that the meeting between the different actors in this work can be very creative. We all work in the borderland between the known and the unknown; this in part explains the fascination of our activities but it also gives us a special responsibility for the consequences. Another thing that was brought out so beautifully by Frayn's play is the fact that we all work with "models" for explaining what happens or for understanding what happened in the past. The models must be tested by looking at their implications. In some cases it is obvious that it will be very difficult to find out which alternative is the best, or closest to some ultimate truth. This happens in science as well as in relations between human beings.

In connection with the opening of Copenhagen on Broadway there was a seminar with two senior physicists present, Hans Bethe and John Wheeler; both had known Bohr and Heisenberg personally. The seminar and the success of the play made somebody make a comment which very well describes the situation regarding the effect on the public: "Physics has made it!" It is a strong, in my opinion quite true, statement which points to the importance of drama as science dissemination.