Physics comes to the stage

The Théâtre de Carouge - Atelier de Genève is putting on two plays as part of the World Year of Physics in 2005, which marks the centenary of the discovery of relativity by Albert Einstein.

Both plays pay tribute to scientists past and future, and the decisive choices they are called upon to make when their discoveries affect the destiny of mankind.

"The Physicists" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt from 18 January to 20 February 2005

How can one control extraordinary and potentially dangerous discoveries? That is the question put by Friedrich Dürrenmatt in this thriller-cum-spy drama.

The play is set in a mental asylum to which three mad physicists have been committed. In fact, one of them is a physicist of genius who has realised that his fundamental discoveries, if put to use by unprincipled men, can bring about the destruction of the planet and mankind.

"Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn on 23, 29 January and on 4, 10, 15 and 16 February 2005

Why did Werner Heisenberg, who was involved in the Third Reich's nuclear research programme, visit his friend and mentor Niels Bohr in occupied Denmark in September 1941? Was it a deliberate attempt to mislead the allies, whose cause Bohr supported? Or was he really pursuing the utopian goal of halting the race to build the atomic bomb? The play "Copenhagen", in which the ghosts of the two great scientists try to fathom why they failed to understand each other all those years ago, explores a question that historians have never been able to explain fully (see also Bulletin n° 47/2003 17 November 2003).