Talk:Copenhagen (play)

In the discussion of the play, shouldn't the very question that Frayn posits to have caused Bohr's abrupt return be mentioned? I think it should be included when the 'walk' is described. - Saket (talk) 23:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else confused about the past-tense used to describe the play? I thought that when writing about literature, you write it in the present-tense. When describing the play's plot, present-tense should be used I think. But in the 'historical controversy' past tense is fine. -Saket (talk) 23:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This article is more about the "historical debate" than about the play! Something needs to be moved, really. 86.131.92.151 18:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've just read an 2-yr old exclusive interview in Croatian with (unfortunately deceased in 3/2007) professor and academician Ivan Supek (a student of Heisenberg, very respected so probably this is true) in the Jutarnji newspaper, it's here: Komentari Supek claims that when he visited Bohr (they were good friends), his wife Margretha secretly told him a different story: that Von Weizsaecker's idea (his father was Ribbentrop's deputy) was to convince Bohr to negotiate peace between Germany and UK! The interesting part is that both Heisenberg and Von Weizsaecker came to him wearing German military unifroms.

Good work, FastFission. DJ Clayworth 04:57, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I saw it twice a few years ago and have done some work with the historical material, hopefully I didn't make in errors though, not having it in front of me... --Fastfission 05:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I notice that there are now at least three articles with sections on the Copenhagen meeting: this one, Werner Heisenberg, and Niels Bohr. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to consolidate all this information in a single place (which would be easier than keeping three+ articles in synch, and would save the readers some work as well). The question is: what title should it be put under? (Does Wikipedia accept long titles like 1941 meeting in Copenhagen between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg ?) --Paul A 06:06, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I think they can all be consolidated to the play page under a "historical controversy" section. I probably wrote the individual ones under Bohr and Heisenberg anyway before there was a page play, and each of the people pages could just be turned into "A 1941 meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg has in recent times ignited significant historical controversy, as well as a Tony Award winning play. See Copenhagen (play)." Or something like that. --Fastfission 00:11, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * As noted above, the section about the facts should not be on a page about the play - they should be on a separate page - 1941 meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg or Heisenberg's meeting with Bohr, Copenhagen 1941 ? -- Beardo 00:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Thinking of doing this as soon as I finish the other two projects of mine.
 * TomyDuby (talk) 06:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Contribution of User:Insertpenname
Wow, what an analysis! However, where does it come from? It will need some format adjustment especially with references. TomyDuby (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding this analysis, I have removed much of it because it is clearly original research and frequently violates the neutral point of view by expressing unsourced opinions. I have left in sections that are primarily descriptive in nature, but deleted those which were unsourced analysis and interpretation – quite probably the views of the editor who inserted them, since none of the listed sources would have had that level of detail concerning this play. The deleted sections can be re-inserted, but only if they're properly sourced -- and not just at a general level: they need specific citations from a reliable source that says those specific things about this particular play. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Vandilism!
It's gotten bad suddenly, i don't know how to fix it all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Footfoe (talk • contribs) 16:48, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of change to main article.
I just removed a sentence about Niels Bohr being called the Pope in real life, as I can find no direct source for it. Actually Enrico Fermi was called the Pope by his students/colleagues in Rome . If someone finds a direct source for Bohr being called the Pope in real life, I'd be interested. Thanks! Ofermi (talk) 19:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC) Olivia Fermi

Violation of NPOV
The initial historical section (specifically the analysis) blatantly violates NPOV. It is honestly embarrassing that this can be left up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.19.34 (talk) 07:44, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Responsible Revisions
This was one of the worst Wiki articles I've come across. Including historical debate over the history covered in the film is perhaps fine. But this part, when I saw it, was deeply opinionated, in support of Heisenberg's relative innocence. Why someone feels inclined to use Wikipedia to diminish Heisenberg's possible desire to gain information from Bohr for the Nazi weapons program is beyond me. But whomever feels this impulse should reassess their motives.

After the last long Bohr quote, the article stated "The The Bohr letters are significant here, because they do eliminate some of the more sinister motives that had been postulated.[citation needed] For example, in a 1998 book, Heisenberg and the Nazi atomic bomb project: a study in German culture[6] Paul Lawrence Rose had speculated that Heisenberg had visited Bohr as "an intelligence-gathering mission." The release of Bohr's letters disprove that claim, showing that Heisenberg had not come to elicit information from Bohr[citation needed] and did not even want to discuss the technical issues of building a bomb:"

The Bohr letters prove no such point. Bohr didn't know why Heisenberg visited. He grew so disturbed by Heisenberg's pro-Nazi comments, and his leadership of the Nazi bomb project, that he cut off the discussion. To claim that Rose speculated Heisenberg had sinister motives exaggerates. Bohr believed Heisenberg had chosen a sinister path and held sinister opinions. Occum's razor suggests it's more logical to assume he also had sinister motives, than his purpose was somehow to obtain peace.

I change the paragraph to read "Bohr's letters do not clarify whether Heisenberg was on an intelligence-gathering mission, as suggested in a 1998 book, Heisenberg and the Nazi atomic bomb project: a study in German culture[6] by Paul Lawrence Rose."

The original Wiki article: "Heisenberg said explicitly that he did not wish to enter into technical details but that Bohr should understand that he knew what he was talking about as he had spent 2 years working exclusively on this question." My change "Heisenberg tried to impress Bohr that he knew about the potential for weaponizing uranium fission, because he had spent 2 years working exclusively on this question."

The original Wiki article: "This shows that Heisenberg wanted to move the discussion into another area of nuclear weapons, not the technology. This passage also appears to counter the arguments of some Heisenberg critics (such as Rose and Bernstein)[citation needed] that Heisenberg's errors in 1940 had led him to conclude that building nuclear weapons was not possible." Only the second sentence can be verified. I cut the first.

I edited the opening line of the last paragraph, which read "Supek's statements about Bohr's recollection of "the Bohr – Heisenberg meeting" mixes up the visit and in so doing, suggests the reason why the meeting did not achieve its purpose." This is the Wiki writer's syllogism, which is mere speculation. The new sentence is "Supek's statements about Bohr's recollection of "the Bohr – Heisenberg meeting" mixes up the visit."

The next phrases read "Because Heisenberg could only visit Bohr in occupied Denmark on behalf of the German government, Heisenberg was obliged to make public lectures on behalf of the Government which were monitored by German government officials. Heisenberg had hoped to convey his concerns later during private discussions with Bohr." I changed "hope" to "tried," and "concerns" to "opinions", because hope and concern both express an empotional urgency that can't be determined.

The rest of the paragraph was a mess. The first part read: "Heisenberg's contemporaneous letters to his wife and later correspondence with Jungk place the private conversation on Wednesday evening during a walk at Bohr's house away from Weizsäcker.[3] ("This talk then took place on an evening walk in the city district near Ny-Carlsberg,")[7] ("Late at night I walked under a clear and starry sky through the city, darkened, to Bohr.")." These two quotes conflict, one claiming he and Bohr talked on the walk, the other saying he walked to the talk. Without the full letters, the later of which has no link, I edited the sentences to read "Heisenberg's letters to his wife and later to Jungk place his conversation with Bohr on Wednesday evening. Either he talked with Bohr on a walk, or at his residence. [3][7]"

The second messy part read "That Supek stated that Margrethe believed that Weizsäcker was present and that Bohr recalled this private meeting as taking place "in my room at the Institute",[9] where Heisenberg and Weizsäcker had made their public statements may suggest that Bohr blurred two events and did not distinguish between the public statements Heisenberg made and the private message Heisenberg hoped to convey to Bohr later that evening at Bohr's house." This is pure speculation. Why is it assumed Bohr's memory is at fault, and not others? I replaced it with "Bohr, Supek, and Heisenberg describe the meeting differently."

-Brian M. Coyle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 08:26, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Quotiation about historical correctness
In the paragraph "Characters" there is a quote that Frayn feels confident claiming "The actual words spoken by [the] characters are entirely their own." This sounds to me as if he claims that the words in the play are the exact words, that the historical characters have used. The sentence that is quoted by Frayn is also in the postscript of the book, where - in my opinion - it is based in a different setting and therefor has a different meaning. To give you an idea of the context:

"But the account of the German and American bomb programmes, and of the two physicists' participation in them, is taken from the historical record; so is the fate of Danish Jewry; Heisenberg's experiences in Germany before and during the war, his subsequent internment, and the depression that clouded his later years. I have filled out some of the details, but in general what he says happened to him - at the end of the First World War, on Heligoland, during his nocturnal walk in Faelled Park, during the Berlin air-raid and his internment, and on his ride across Germany, with its near-fatal encounter along the way - is based very closely upon the accounts he gave in life. The actual words spoken by my characters are of course entirely their own. If this needs any justification then I can only appeal to Heisenberg himself. In his memoirs dialogue plays an important part, he says, because he hopes 'to demonstrate that science is rooted in conversations.' But, as he explains, conversations, even real conversations, cannot be reconstructed literally several decades later. So he freely reinvents them, and appeals in his turn to Thucydides. (Heisenberg's father was a professor of classics, and he was an accomplished classicist himself, on top of all his other distinctions.) Thucydides explains in his preface to the History of the Peloponnesian War that, although he had avoided all 'storytelling', when it came to the speeches, 'I have found it impossible to remember their exact wording. Hence I have made each orator speak as, in my opinion, he would have done in the circumstances, but keeping as close as I could to the train of thought that guided his actual speech.'"

(Sorry, it is a lot, but English is not my mothertongue, therefor I want to make sure, you can check for any misunderstanding on my side). In this context, I understand his quote mmore as: The actual words spoken by the (fictional) characters, are fictional, but the meaning is probably what the historical characters said.

So I guess this is nearly the opposite of how the quote is used in the text. Would you agree here or do I have a wrong interpretation on one of these cases? Franks22 (talk) 23:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

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Farm Hall
Should mention be made, in this Wikipedia article, of the German scientists being incarcerated (and surreptitiously recorded) in Farm Hall, as recorded in the article Operation_Epsilon? Farm Hall occurs a few times in the play. Note: I'm unlikely to make such additions, so if you agree, please go ahead. 2603:6010:4E42:500:D8A2:2925:629C:C58B (talk) 21:48, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Original research problem
The main part of the "historical debate" section is an original research analysis that is deeply at odds with WP:PRIMARY and how primary sources are supposed to be used. While I'm sure someone can find reliable sources agreeing with the interpretation, it's also problematic in that it's at odds with mainstream historical opinion AFAICT. This has been pointed out in the talk page it seems several times over a period of > 10 years and the issue hasn't been corrected. I've tagged this accordingly in the hope that someone can start sourcing these arguments used. I'll give it a month, and if there's no improvement I'll be bold and start deleting some of this stuff outright. Fangz (talk) 20:25, 17 May 2024 (UTC)