"Copenhagen": A Quantum Observation Experiment in the Depths of Human Nature
Don’t worry about spoilers; the greatness of this work does not lie in its narrative.
It’s like poetry—what is there to spoil about poetry?
The Mystery of Copenhagen
History may become increasingly elusive as more historical materials emerge; we should focus on the constants within human nature beneath the surface.
In 1941, German scientist Werner Heisenberg traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, which was then occupied by Germany, to visit his former teacher, Niels Bohr. However, this reunion after four years apart ended rather unpleasantly and abruptly, completely severing their nearly two-decade-long deep friendship and, perhaps, forever altering the fate of the world.
This is the famous “Mystery of the Copenhagen Meeting.”
For decades, people have debated the truth of this event. After the declassification of relevant archives following the Cold War and the release of more firsthand accounts from Heisenberg, Bohr, and scientists from various countries associated with them, it has become possible to roughly determine what happened during this meeting and what Heisenberg said to Bohr that caused Bohr to become furious, ultimately leading to their parting of ways.
“The conversation took place during an evening walk. I knew Bohr was under surveillance by the German authorities, so I tried to conduct the conversation in a way that would not endanger myself. The conversation likely began with my question: ‘Is it right for physicists to devote themselves to uranium fission research during wartime?’ because progress in this field could lead to serious consequences for the war. Bohr immediately understood the meaning of the question and looked somewhat frightened. I remember him asking in return: ‘Do you really think uranium fission can be used to make weapons?’ I may have replied: ‘In principle, it is possible, but it requires tremendous technical effort. We can only hope it won’t be achieved during this war.’ Bohr was shocked by my answer, clearly thinking I was conveying a message that Germany had made significant progress in developing atomic weapons. Although I later tried to correct this misunderstanding, I may not have fully regained Bohr’s trust, especially since I spoke with extreme caution (which was undoubtedly my mistake) because I feared certain words might be used against me later. I was very dissatisfied with the outcome of this conversation.”
Excerpt from Heisenberg’s 1957 letter to writer Robert Jungk.
“I am particularly thinking of our conversation at the institute. During that conversation, the topic of ‘war’ came up, and I remember every word we said clearly. You began by saying that you were convinced that if the war lasted long enough, it would be decided by atomic weapons, which left a deep impression on me. At the time, I knew nothing about the preparations underway in America. Just as I was somewhat skeptical, you added that I should understand one thing: you had been almost entirely preoccupied with this problem in recent years and had no doubt it could be solved. Therefore, I cannot understand at all your later claim that you ‘hinted to me that German physicists would do everything possible to prevent the application of atomic technology.’ During this brief exchange, I was very cautious and thought a great deal.”
In 1961, on Heisenberg’s sixtieth birthday, Bohr wrote a letter to Heisenberg but never sent it. The letter was finally made public in 2002.
Historians of natural science generally agree that the outcome of the conversation likely had a profound impact on the direction of atomic bomb development and deployment by the two major warring factions during World War II, the nuclear threats facing the world today, and the future development of science and human survival.
However, the declassification of historical materials has not resolved the core mystery of this puzzle: Why did Heisenberg go to Copenhagen? What was his motive?
In my view, compared to the uncertain historical truth, the uncertainty of human behavior and motives caused by the superposition of multiple identities holds greater research value. After all, history is a mirror. What we, as observers and the figures in the mirror, can see and feel from this mirror, how it shapes our perception of the real world, and how we use this perception to interact with the real world in turn—this is the most exquisite and fascinating value of this mirror for us.
“Copenhagen” as a Play
A profound discussion of the antinomies arising from the complexity of human nature and the limitations of the human mind.
To explore the chaotic uncertainty in the depths of human nature—the intricate and complex motives of humans—in the play “Copenhagen,” the three protagonists: Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohr’s wife, Margrethe, appear on stage as spirits in a void. Driven by their obsession with the truth of this mystery, they reenact that fateful meeting in the afterlife, unraveling the threads amidst the complex and contradictory superposition of identities and the uncertainty of human nature.
Why are “motives” complex?
Because the real world is complex, containing an overwhelming amount of information, and participants interact within a collective unconscious. History is complex, evolving amidst countless contradictions, blending chance and necessity. We cannot adopt a mechanistic materialist approach to dissect history, the people who constitute it, the environments that shaped them, their decisions and thoughts, and their relationships with one another, hoping to divide and conquer and arrive at any meaningful answers.
Structure itself contains vast amounts of information. When the various parts of a whole organically combine, countless unexpected new phenomena emerge.
Fortunately, humans are naturally fascinated by complex information that exceeds our processing capacity. Using the complexity of reality as raw material, “Copenhagen” constructs its unique stage. By isolating and discussing various issues related to human nature in reality, “Copenhagen” performs an exquisite quantum experiment on human nature.
It highly condenses the most heart-wrenching and conflict-ridden parts of real history to form its solid stage foundation:
First, war—the most devastating war in human history places the three protagonists in opposing camps. Then, knowledge is involved—the grand edifice of theory has just been built, and the discovery of nuclear fission makes the development of nuclear weapons possible, raising suffocating moral challenges. Finally, human connections bind it all together—father and son, teacher and disciple—placing the relationship between Heisenberg and Bohr, who are at the very eye of the storm, at the center, constructing its most simple yet magnificent stage.
Upon this grand and solid stage foundation, the three vivid protagonists make their entrance. With extreme care and caution, their lives, values, achievements, and emotions are restored in the work. With the experimental conditions ready, the most crucial energy element is added—Heisenberg’s mysterious motive for going to Copenhagen initiates this breathtaking experiment. Maintaining a scientific attitude throughout the experiment, contradictions are allowed to develop freely, and intense collisions between participants produce dazzling sparks. Through lines that are casual, everyday, intense, or gentle, the play profoundly discusses topics such as ethics, morality, human nature, and fate, ultimately presenting the audience with an unparalleled masterpiece overflowing with information.
The Quantum Laws in the Depths of Human Nature
As the old saying goes, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.”
The role of good literary and artistic works is not to state a fact or provide specific solutions to certain problems. In my view, their value and significance lie precisely in using a poetic, ambiguous imagery to reach the human soul, allowing people to gain some form of enlightenment. And this enlightenment, like a mirror, allows each person to observe different things—whether it’s a discussion of ethics and morality, a critique of reality, an interrogation of human nature, or emotional resonance, a knowing smile, trembling tears, fear, anxiety, anger, warmth, fascination… It seems like an infinite source of energy, adding many colors and a certain weight to the course of our lives.
In the summer of 2018, the company where I interned was located in Wudaokou. I had just graduated from university, like a blank sheet of paper. Dragged by a fellow intern senior to Peking University to watch this graduate performance of “Copenhagen,” since then, this play, resonating with real-life experiences, has echoed in my mind with increasing intensity, like a chain reaction.
This photo even has me in it
For me, that poetic enlightenment began with the following lines:
While reviewing the establishment of the “Copenhagen Interpretation,” Bohr says to Heisenberg:
Bohr It works, yes. But it’s more important than that. Because you see what we did in those three years, Heisenberg? Not to exaggerate, but we turned the world inside out! Yes, listen, now it comes, now it comes .… We put man back at the centre of the universe. Throughout history we keep finding ourselves displaced. We keep exiling ourselves to the periphery of things. First we turn ourselves into a mere adjunct of God’s unknowable purposes, tiny figures kneeling in the great cathedral of creation. And no sooner have we recovered ourselves in the Renaissance, no sooner has man become, as Protagoras proclaimed him, the measure of all things, than we’re pushed aside again by the products of our own reasoning! We’re dwarfed again as physicists build the great new cathedrals for us to wonder at—the laws of classical mechanics that predate us from the beginning of eternity, that will survive us to eternity’s end, that exist whether we exist or not. Until we come to the beginning of the twentieth century, and we’re suddenly forced to rise from our knees again.
Heisenberg It starts with Einstein.
Bohr It starts with Einstein. He shows that measurement—measurement, on which the whole possibility of science depends—measurement is not an impersonal event that occurs with impartial universality. It’s a human act, carried out from a specific point of view in time and space, from the one particular viewpoint of a possible observer. Then, here in Copenhagen in those three years in the mid-twenties we discover that there is no precisely determinable objective universe. That the universe exists only as a series of approximations. Only within the limits determined by our relationship with it. Only through the understanding lodged inside the human head.
Are we the masters of all things?
If people measured themselves by strictly discernible quantities… we would need a novel quantum ethics.
The chaos and complexity inherent in us, the masters, mean that people do not always understand each other. Even we ourselves are sometimes unknowable. So we are always searching, trying to unravel the mysteries left in the past.
We are still searching when our lives end.
The world will not end with humanity.
Everything was spared, very likely, precisely because of that brief moment in Copenhagen, that forever unlocatable and indefinable event, that ultimate core of the essential uncertainty of all things.
Postscript
Like many poems I love, I devoured this play whole. Then, at certain moments in life, it always sparks into my mind in fragments. I begin to savor, chew, and ponder it, absorbing some wisdom or at least gaining a bit of pleasure.
But is that enough?
For years, I’ve had the urge to write this article. But one day in 2019, after writing the title in front of my computer and staring blankly for several hours, I almost trembled and gave up. What depth, wisdom, and breadth must a person possess to write a review of this play that wouldn’t be self-humiliating? I was too young; I had none of these things. I wasn’t worthy of writing it.
But is retreating with such an attitude acceptable? Then, to continue recklessly and indiscriminately devouring all sorts of good things without seeking deep understanding, wasting precious gifts, all the way until age 90, hoping for sudden enlightenment to turn the mundane into the miraculous?
No, that is a waste of life. It makes the flavor of everything too bland, and a life too bland is not worth living.
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed. But Death’s intenser – Death is Life’s high meed.
So, before death, live as intensely as possible. But what is “intense”?
It is the rich aroma of life; It is the radiance of human nature; Perhaps it is the Olympic spirit, challenging oneself and pushing limits; It is making oneself a bridge on the path to the Übermensch; It is the tree on the mountain, rooted in the darkest depths, growing toward the highest sky, and then awaiting the thunderclap.
Thus, we welcome the highest reward of our lives, and death thereby becomes intense.
Life is toil; death is rest. Only an intense life deserves an even more intense death.
Today, compared to the depth, wisdom, and breadth required to write that perfect review, I am still impoverished, young, and shallow. But perhaps what matters is not “perfection,” but the determination to squeeze every drop of meaning. Perhaps it is precisely each act of squeezing that can increase a person’s depth, wisdom, and breadth. Perhaps only in this way does life become more intense.
References
- BBC Radio Drama Version of “Copenhagen” Michael Frayn Copenhagen : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
- National Theatre of China’s Introduced Version of “Copenhagen” https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14s411Z79g
- English Original Script Copenhagen - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)
- Chinese Translation of the Script by Hu Kaiqi Michael Frayn Plays Collection - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)