Tonight saw the last part of Jim Al-Khalili’s stunning three-part series on BBC Four on atomic physics. It was excellently done. But the main reason for this blog entry is that I happened to watch the film adaptation of Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen beforehand. I’d not seen this before, and I am completely bowled over by it. It is, on the face of it, a simple three-hander; three actors playing the Danish atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, his wife, and the German atomic physicist Werner Heisenberg. It is based on a brief meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in Copenhagen during 1941, and Frayn has used this simple fact to spin a marvelous exploration of human motivation and potential outcomes.
The film adaptation is very well done, and the actors are top notch: Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig and Francesca Annis. Absolutely superb, and the implications of what might have happened in the meeting are mind-blowing. If you haven’t seen this film, go forth and do so at the earliest opportunity. Simply amazing.
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