Copenhagen - Michael Frayn [51]
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.
1Bernstein 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
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