Alan alluded to Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen in the previous post, warning those seeking an explanation to go read the play. Was he too tired, too busy, too distracted by things going on outside his office window, or had he forgotten what the play was about and even forgotten why he mentioned it? Maybe he had a school play to go to last night and at the same time realized he had just taken his last plug of Copenhagen chewing tobacco, and so imagined there was a play called Copenhagen written by someone who may or may not be Michael Frayn. Depends on your perspective. And Alan’s. And yours and Alan’s and mine, not to mention the fellow who vacuums the hallways after the lights go out and everyone goes home and has a glass of pinot noir. Or was it merlot?
I found this lecture on Copenhagen and think it provides the explanation of Alan’s thinking that he was unwilling to provide yesterday. It is not the Cliff Notes to Copenhagen. Or maybe it is. Just because it’s called a lecture doesn’t make it a lecture, nor does it mean it’s not Axl Rose’s uncompleted last album, or both.
It might have made sense to make this link available through the previous thread, but it is worth a read (maybe, depends) and I did think it worthy of a post of it’s own. Then again, maybe I just want to have a post of my own, couldn’t come up with any ideas of my own and stole one of Alan’s. Then again, I might just be killing time. Difficult to say.
It snowed eight inches today. Probably only six, but eight sounds better and that’s how I’m going to remember it.
I see the ambiquities even extend as far as the post title ...
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 8, 2005 12:10 PMLet me add one thought. It's sometimes alleged that Copenhagen is a work of historical skepticism because it suggests that "no-one really knows what happened" in the past. But that's not quite right. If you read the play carefully you see that there's no substantive disagreement amongst the characters about what actually happened, in a strictly factual sense, at the famous meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg (note that I'm talking only about the internal logic of the play here; historians differ about Frayn's interpretation). Every word spoken between the two physicists is laid out early on, and neither of them question the other's version of this transcript; indeed, the two transcripts are identical. The uncertainty concerns motive rather than fact; what did the characters mean when they said these things. This is a distinction worth making because Copenhagen suggests that you can have incontrovertible evidence about a historical event and still be completely in the dark about what really was going on.
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 8, 2005 12:22 PMI love the image of Alan with his last dip of Copenhagen under his lip, staring down at the empty tin in his hand and wondering where he'll be able to get any more "Long Cut" near campus.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 8, 2005 12:51 PMShouldn't worry. History fella like that probably has Prince Albert in a can.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 8, 2005 04:37 PMI'm sorry to disappoint everyone, but I've never so much as smoked a single cigarette in my life. Never saw the appeal.
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 8, 2005 04:44 PMBy the way, just before this gets lost in a slew of nicotine-flavoured puns, no-one has any excuse not to read Copenhagen in my opinion. You get get through the whole thing in one rainy afternoon, and it's such a common feature of college syllabi that the used bookstores are stuffed with it; you can probably pick up a second-hand copy for a couple of bucks.
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 8, 2005 04:47 PMHell, if you're that idle you can even rent the movie.
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 8, 2005 04:53 PM