All language subtitles for Copenhagen 2002 Daniel Craig (English)

- But why ?
- You're still thinking about it.

Why did he come to Copenhagen ?

Does it matter, my love, now that we're
all three of us are dead and gone ?

Some questions remain long after
their owners have died.

Some questions have no answers to find.

Why did he come ? What was he trying to tell you ?

- He did explain Iater.
- He explained over and over again.

Each time he explained it became more obscure.

It was probably very simple
when you come right down to it.

He wanted to have a talk.

A talk ? To the enemy ? In the middle of a war ?

Margrethe, my love, we were scarcely the enemy.

It was 1941.

Heisenberg was one of our oldest friends.

Heisenberg was German.

We were Danes.

We were under German occupation.

It put us in a difficult position, certainly.

I've never seen you as angry with anyone
as you were with Heisenberg that night.

Not to disagree, but I believe
I remained remarkably calm.

I know when you're angry.

It was as difficult for him as it was for us.

- So why did he do it ?
- I doubt if he ever really knew himself.

And he wasn't a friend.

Not after that visit.

That was the end of the famous friendship
between Niels Bohr...

and Werner Heisenberg.

Now we're all dead and gone, yes...

and there are only two things
the world remembers about me.

One is the uncertainty principle.

The other is my mysterious visit
to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941.

Everyone understands uncertainty, or thinks he does.

no one understands my trip to Copenhagen.

Time and time again, I've explained it.
To Bohr himself and Margrethe...

to interrogators, and intelligence officers,
to journalists and historians.

The more l explained,
the deeper the uncertainty has become.

Well, l shall be happy to make one more attempt.

Now we're all dead and gone.
Now no one can be hurt, now no one can be betrayed.

I never entirely Iiked him, you know.

Perhaps I can say that to you now.

Yes, you did.

When he was first here in the '20s ?
Of course you did.

On the beach at Tisvilde, with us and the boys.

- He was one of the family.
- There was something alien about him, even then.

Well, he was a very great physicist,
I never changed my mind about that.

They were all good, all the people
who came to Copenhagen to work with you.

You had most of the great pioneers
in atomic theory here at one time or another.

The more I look back on it, the more I think
Heisenberg was the greatest of them all.

So what was Bohr ? He was the firrst of us all.

The father of us all.

Modern atomic physics began
when Bohr realised that quantum theory

applied to matter as well as to energy.

1913. Everything we did was based
on that great lns/ght of his.

When you think that he first came here
to work with me in 1924

and in just over a year,
he'd invented quantum mechanics.

Came out of his work with you.

Mostly out of what he'd be doing with Max Born
and Pascual Jordan at G�ttingen.

Another year or so and he'd got uncertainty.

- And you'd done complementarity.
- We argued them both out together.

We did most of our best work together.

And we went on working together
long after he ceased to be my assistant.

Long after I'd left Copenhagen
in 1927 and gone back to Germany.

Then the Nazis came to power.

Then the war broke out
and it became more and more difficult.

- Until that day in 1941...
- When it finished forever.

Yes... why did he do it ?

September 1941, Copenhagen.

And at once, here I am,
getting off the night train from Berlin.

A plain civilian suit in a raincoat

among all the fi�eld grey Wehrmacht
uniforms arriving with us.

All the naval gold braid,
all the well-tailored black of the SS.

- He wants to see you ?
- I assume that's why he's come.

You're not really thinking
of inviting him to the house ?

- That's obviously what he's hoping.
- Niels, they've occupied our country.

He is not... they.

He is one of them.

First of all, there's an official visit
to Sam's workplace

the Institute for Theoretical Physics.

No doubt an awkward lunch
in the old familiar canteen.

The lunch was a disaster.
He made a very bad impression.

Occupation of Denmark, unfortunate.

Occupation of Poland, however,
perfectly acceptable.

Germany now certain to win the war.

Our tanks are almost at Moscow.
What can stop us ?

Well, one thing perhaps... One thing.

He knows he's being watched,
of course, one must remember that.

He has to be careful what he says.

Or he won't be allowed to travel abroad again.

My love, the Gestapo planted microphones
in his house.

He told Goudsmit when he was in America.

The SS brought him in for interrogation.

And they let him go again.

- I still think of him as a boy.
- He's nearly 40.

A middle-aged professor,
fast catching up with the rest of us.

You still want to invite him here ?

Let's... add up the arguments in a...
reasonably scientific way.

Firstly, Heisenberg is a friend.

Firstly, Heisenberg is a German.

A white Jew... That's what the Nazis called him.

He taught relativity and they said
it was Jewish physics.

He couldn't mention Einstein by name,
but he stuck with relativity

in spite of the most terrible attacks.

All the real Jews have lost their jobs.

He's still teaching.

He's still teaching relativity.

Wouldn't leave Germany.

He wants to be there to rebuild
German science when Hitler goes.

And if he is being watched,
it'll all be reported upon.

Who he sees, what he says to them

and what they say to him.

l carry my surveillance around
like an infectious disease.

But then l happen to know that Bohr
is also under surveillance.

You know you're being watched yourself ?

By the Gestapo ? I've nothing to hide.

By our fellow Danes.

It would be the most terrible
betrayal of all their trust in you

if they thought you were collaborating.

Inviting an old friend to dinner
is hardly collaborating.

It might appear to be collaborating.

Yes.

He's put us in a difficult position.

I shall never forgive him.

He must have good reason.

- He must have very good reason.
- You won't talk about politics ?

We'll stick to physics. I assume it's physics
he wants to talk to me about.

I think you must also assume that you
and I aren't the only two people

who hear what's being said
in this house.

If you want to speak privately,
you'd better go out into the open air.

I shan't want to speak privately.

You could go for another of your walks together.

I don't think we'll be going for any walks.

Whatever he has to say,
he can say where everyone can hear it.

Some new idea he wants
to try out on you, perhaps ?

What can it be, though ?

Where are we off to next ?

So now, of course, your curiosity
is aroused. In spite of everything.

So now here I am walking out
through the autumn light

to the Bohrs‘ house at Ny Carlsberg.

Followed, presumably, by my invisible shadow.

What am I feeling ? Fear, certainly.
The touch of fear that one always feels

for a teacher, for an employer, for a parent.

Much worse fear about what I have to say,
about how to express it.

How to breach it in the first place.

Worse fear still about what happens if I fail.

It's not something to do with the war ?

Heisenberg is a theoretical physicist.

I don't think anyone has yet discovered a way
you can use theoretical physics to kill people.

Could it be something about fission ?

Fission ? Why would he want
to talk to me about fission ?

Because you're working on it.

- Heisenberg isn't.
- Isn't he ?

Everybody else in the world seems to be,
and you're the acknowledged authority.

He hasn't published on fission.

It was Heisenberg who did all the original work
on the physics of the nucleus.

- He consulted you then, consulted you at every step.
- That was back in 1932.

Fission's only been around for the last three years.

But if the Germans were developing
some kind of weapon based on nuclear fission...

My love, no one is going to develop
a weapon based on nuclear fission.

But if they were trying to,
then Heisenberg would be involved.

There's no shortage of good German physicists.

Oh, there's no shortage of good
German physicists in America and Britain !

The Jews have gone, obviously.

So... Heisenberg would be in charge of the work ?

Margrethe, there is no work.

There's no way in the foreseeable future

in which fission could be used
to produce any kind of weapon.

Then why is everyone still working on it ?

Because there's an element of magic in it.

You fire a neutron at the nucleus of the uranium atom

and it splits into two different elements.

It's what the alchemists were trying to do...
to turn one element into another.

So, why's he coming ?

I crunch over the familiar gravel
to the Bohrs‘ front door

and tug at the familiar bell pull.

What am I feeling ? Fear, yes.

And another sensation that's become
painfully familiar over tne past year.

A mixture of self-importance
and sheer, helpless absurdity

that of all the 2,000 million people in this world...

I'm the one who's been charged
with the impossible responsibility.

My dear Heisenberg !

- My dear Bohr.
- Come in. Come in.

Thank you.

And of course,
as soon as they catch sight of each other

all their caution disappears.

The old flames leap up from the ashes.

If we can just negotiate
all the treacherous little opening civilities.

I'm so touched you felt able to ask me.

We must try to go on behaving like human beings.

I do realise how awkward this is.

We scarcely had a chance to do
more than shake hands at lunch.

- Margrethe, I haven't seen since...
- ...you were here four years ago.

Niels is right... You look older.

I had been hoping to see you both in 1938...
at the congress in Warsaw.

- I believe you had some personal trouble ?
- A little business in Berlin.

And the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse with the SS ?

A slight misunderstanding.

- We heard, yes, I'm so sorry.
- These things happen.

The question is now resolved. Happily resolved.

- We should have all met in Zurich.
- In September 1939.

Only of course...

There was an unfortunate clash
with the outbreak of war.

- Sadly.
- Sadly for us, certainly.

A lot more sadly still for many people.

Yes, indeed.

- Well, there it is.
- What can I say ?

What can any of us say in the present circumstances ?

No.

- And your sons...?
- Are well, thank you.

- Elizabeth ? The children ?
- Very well. They send their love, of course.

They so much wanted to see each other,
in spite of everything.

But now the moment has come,
they're so busy avoiding each other's eye

they can can scarcely see each other at all.

I wonder if you realise quite how much it means
to me to be back in Copenhagen in this house.

I've been rather isolated over these past few years.

I can imagine.

Me, he scarcely notices.

I watch him discreetly from behind
my expression of polite interest as he struggles on.

Have things here been difficult ?

Difficult ?

Of course he has to ask,
he has to get it out of the way.

Difficult ? What can I say ?

We've not so far been treated to the gross abuses

that have occurred elsewhere.

- The race laws have not been enforced.
- Yet.

A few months ago, they started departing Communists

and other anti-German elements.

- But, you personally...?
- Have been left strictly alone.

I've been anxious about you.

Kind of you.

No call for sleepless nights in Leipzig so far, though.

Another silence. He's done his duty.

Now he can beg/n to steer the conversation
round to p/easanter subjects.

- Are you still sailing ?
- Sailing ?

Not a good start.

No. No sailing.

- The Sound is...
- Mined.

Of course.

I assume he won't ask Niels if he's been skiing.

You... have managed to get some skiing ?

Skiing ? In Denmark ?

Norway.

You used to go to Norway.

- I did, yes.
- But since Norway is also...

- Well...
- Also occupied ?

Yes, that might make it easier.

In fact, I suppose we could now holiday
almost anywhere in Europe.

I'm sorry. l... hadn't thought of it
quite in those terms.

Perhaps I'm being a little oversensitive.

Of course not. No, I should have thought.

He must almost be starting to wish he was back
in the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse with the SS.

I don't suppose you feel
you could ever come to Germany ?

The boy's an idiot.

My dear Heisenberg.

It would be an easy mistake to make
to think that the citizens of a small nation...

a small nation overrun,
want only and cruelly overrun...

by its more powerful neighbour

don't have exactly the same feelings
of national pride as their conquerors.

- Exactly the same love of their country.
- Niels, we agreed...

To talk about physics, yes.

- Not about politics.
- I'm sorry.

No, no, I was simply going to say

that I still have my old ski hut in Bayrischzell.

So, if by any chance... at any time...

For any reason...

Perhaps Margrethe would be kind enough
to sew a yellow star on my ski jacket.

Yes... yes... Stupid of me...

Those first brief sparks have disappeared

and the ashes have become very cold indeed.

So now, of course, I'm starting
to feel almost sorry for him.

He looks younger again.
Like the boy who first came here in 1924.

Younger than Christian would have been now.

Shy and arrogant and anxious to be loved.

Homesick and pleased
to be away from home at last.

And yes, it's sad. Because Niels loved him.

He was like a father to him.

- So... what are you working on ?
- Fission, mostly. And you ?

- Various things.
- Fission ?

Sometimes, I'm very envious of your cyclotron.

Why, are you working on fission yourself ?

There are over 30 in the United States.

Whereas, in the whole of Germany...

Well...

Whereas, in Germany... you were saying ?

There is not one single cyclotron.

You haven't come to borrow the cyclotron, have you ?

That's not why you've come to Copenhagen ?

No. That's not why I've come to Copenhagen.

I'm sorry, we mustn't jump to conclusions.

No, we must none of us jump
to conclusions of any sort.

We must wait patiently to be told.

It's not always easy to explain
things to the world at large.

I realise we must always be conscious
of the wider audience our words may have

but the lack of cyclotrons in Germany
is surely not a military secret.

I've no idea what's a secret and what isn't.

No secret either about why there aren't any.

You can't say it, but I can.

It's because the Nazis have systematically
undermined theoretical physics. Why ?

Because so many people
working in the field were Jews.

- Physics, yes, physics ?
- This is physics.

Also politics.

The two are sometimes
painfully difficult to keep apart.

Are you in touch with any of our friends in England ?
Born ? Chadwick ?

Heisenberg, we're under German occupation.

Germany's at war with Britain.

I thought you might have contacts of some sort.

People in America, we're not at war with America.

Yet.

You've not heard from Pauli in Princeton ?

- Goudsmit, Fermi ?
- What do you want to know ?

I was simply... curious.

You realise we both have good friends
in the German Embassy here ?

Who are quite... old-fashioned
in the way they use their influence.

They would certainly be trying to see
that distinguished local citizens...

were able to work undisturbed.

Are you telling me that I'm being protected...

by your friends in the Embassy ?

All I'm saying is...
you might find congenial company there.

I know people who would...

feel very honoured if you were able
to accept the occasional invitation.

To cocktail parties in the German Embassy ?

Coffee and cakes with the Nazi plenipotentiary ?

Lectures, perhaps.

Discussion groups.
Social contacts of any sort could be...

helpful.

- I'm sure they could.
- Essential, perhaps, in certain circumstances.

- What circumstances ?
- I think we both know.

Because I'm half-Jewish ?

We all, at one time or another,
may need the help of our friends.

ls this why you've come to Copenhagen ?

To invite me to watch the deportation
of my fellow Danes

from a grandstand seat in the windows
of the German Embassy ?

Bohr, please... please ! What else can I do ?

How else can I help ?

It's an impossibly difficult
situation for you, I understand that !

It's also an impossibly difficult situation for me.

I'm sure you have the best of intentions.

Forget what I said.

- Unless...
- Unless I need to remember it.

In any case, that's not why I've come.

- Do you remember where we first met ?
- Of course, Gdttingen, 1922.

At a lecture festival held in your honour.

It was a high honour, I was very conscious of it.

You were being honoured for two reasons,
firstly because you were a great physicist...

- Yes, yes.
- ...and secondly

because you were one of the few people in Europe

who was prepared to have dealings with Germany.

The war had been over for four years...
we were still lepers.

- You held out your hand to us.
- You bit it.

Bit it ?

Bit my hand, you did.

I held it out in my most statesman-like
and reconciliatory way

and you gave it a very nasty nip.

I did ?

First time I ever saw you... one of those lectures
I was giving in G�ttingen.

What are you talking about ?

You stood up and laid into me.

I offered a few comments...

Beautiful summer's day, scent of roses
drifting in from the gardens.

Rows of eminent physicists and mathematicians

all nodding approval at my benevolence and wisdom.

Suddenly, up jumps a cheeky young pup
and tells me my mathematics are wrong.

They were wrong.

How old were you ?

20.

Niels has suddenly decided to love him again...

in spite of everything.

Why ? What happened ?

Was it the recollection
of that summer's day in G�ttingen ?

Or everything ? Or nothing at all ?

Whatever it was,
by the time we sat down to dinner

the cold ashes had started into flame once again.

You were always so combative.

It was the same when we played
table tennis at Tisvilde.

- You looked as if you were trying to kill me.
- Well, I wanted to win !

Of course I wanted to win, you wanted to win !

I wanted an agreeable game of table tennis.

- You couldn't see the expression on your face.
- I could see the expression on yours !

What about those games of poker, then ?
At the ski hut, Bayrischzell ?

You once cleaned us out, remember that ?
With a non-existent straight.

We're all mathematicians, we're all counting cards.

We're all 90% certain he hasn't got anything !

But on he goes ! Raising us and raising us.
This insane confidence !

'Til our faith in mathematical
probability begins to waver

and one by one, we all throw in !

I thought I had a straight,
I misread the cards, I bluffed myself !

- Poor Niels !
- Poor Niels ? He won ! He bankrupted us.

You're insanely competitive !

At Bayrischzell we'd ski down
from the hut to get provisions

and he'd make even that into some kind of race !

Do you remember when we were there
with Weizs�cker or someone...

- You had a stopwatch !
- Took poor Weizs�cker 18 minutes.

- You were down there in 10, of course.
- 8 !

- I don't recall how long I took.
- 45 !

Thank you.

Some rather swift skiing
going on here, I think !

Your skiing is like your science.
What were you waiting for ?

Me and Weizs�cker to come back
and give you a slight change of emphasis ?

- You were doing 17 drafts of each slalom.
- At least I knew where I was.

At the speed you were going,
you were up against uncertainty relationship.

If you knew where you were when you were down,
you didn't know how fast you'd got there.

If you knew how fast you'd been going,
you didn't know you were down.

The faster you ski, the sooner you're over
the cracks and crevices.

And the faster you ski,
the better you think !

Uh, not to disagree, but...

that is most, most interesting.

By which he means, it's nonsense !
But it's not nonsense !

Decisions make themselves
when you're coming downhill

at 70 kilometres an hour.

Suddenly, there's the edge of nothingness... swerve left, or swerve right.

Or think about it and die !

I've always been envious of the way

you and Margrethe manage to
talk to each other about everything.

Your work, your problems...
Me, no doubt.

I was formed by nature to be
a mathematically curious entity.

Not one... but half of two.

Mathematics becomes...
very odd when you apply it to people.

One and one can add up to...
so many different sums.

Silence.

And of course, they're thinking
about their children again.

Silence.

What's he thinking about new ?
His life ?

Or ours ?

So many things we think about at the same time.

Our lives and our physics.

All the things that come
into our heads out of nowhere.

Our private consolations.

Our private agonies.

The same bright things. The same dark things.

Back and back they come.

Their four children living...
and their two children dead.

Harald... lying alone in that ward.

She's thinking about Christian and Harald.

The two lost boys.

Harald...

All those years
alone in that terrible ward.

...and Christian.
The first born. The eldest son.

And once again, I see those
same few moments that I see every day.

Those short moments on the boat

when the tiller slams over in the heavy sea

and Christian is falling...

If I hadn't let him take the helm...

Those long moments in the water.

Those endless moments in the water.

About some things, even we only think.

Because there's nothing to be said.

You suggested a stroll ?

- We shan't be long.
- A week at most.

- What ? Our great hike through Zealand ?
- We went to Elsinore.

I often think about what you said there.

- You don't mind, my love ? Half an hour.
- An hour, perhaps.

The whole appearance of Elsinore you said

was changed by knowing
that Hamlet had lived there.

Every dark corner there reminds us
of the darkness inside the human soul.

So, they're walking again.

He's done it.
And if they're walking, they're talking.

Talking in a rather different way,
no doubt.

I knew Niels would never hold out
if they could just get through

the first few minutes.

If only out of curiosity.

Now they're started, ah hour
will mean two of course, perhaps three.

First thing they ever did
was to go for a walk together.

In G�ttingen, after that lecture.

Niels immediately went to look for
the presumptuous young man

who'd queried his mathematics

and swept him off
for a tramp in the country

walk, talk, make his acquaintance.

And when Heisenberg arrived here
to work for him

off they go again
on their great tour of Zealand.

A lot of this century's physics
they did in the open air

strolling around
the forest paths in Tisvilde.

Going down to the beach
with the children

Heisenberg holding Christian's hand.

Yes. And every evening
in Copenhagen after dinner

they'd walk around Fae/led Park.

Walk and talk.

But this time...

Heisenberg wants to say goodbye.
He's leaving.

Thank you for a delightful evening.
Almost like old times.

It was kind of you.

You'll have some coffee...
a glass of something ?

I must prepare for my lecture.

But you'll come and see us again
before you leave ?

He has a great deal to do.

Forgive me if I've done
or said anything...

Yes, yes.

Perhaps when this war is over...

If we're all spared...

Goodbye.

- Politics ?
- Physics.

- What did he say ?
- Nothing.

I don't know.
I was too angry to take it in.

Something about fission ?

But what exactly had Heisenberg said ?

That's what everyone wanted to know.

Then and forever after.

That's what the British wanted to know

as soon as Chadwick
managed to get in touch with me.

What exactly did Heisenberg say ?

And what exactly did Bohr reply ?

That was, of course,
the first thing my colleagues asked me

when I got back to Germany.

What did Heisenberg tell you ?

What did you reply ?

The one person who wanted to know
was Heisenberg himself.

You mean when he came back
to Copenhagen after the war in 1947 ?

- I think he wanted various things.
- Two things.

Food parcels.

For his family in Germany.
They were on the verge of starvation.

And for you to agree on what
you'd said to each other in 1941.

The conversation went wrong
almost as fast as it did before.

You couldn't even agree
where you'd walked that night.

Where we walked ? Faelled Park, of course.
Where we went so often in the old days.

No, no, no, not Faelled Park,
that's behind the Institute.

4km away from where we lived.

But I can see the street lamps
by the bandstand.

It was 1941.

No street lamps.

I thought we hadn't
got further than my study.

I can see the drift of papers
under the reading lamp on my desk.

It must have been outside.

What I was going to say was treasonable.

If I'd been overheard,
I would have been executed.

- What was this mysterious thing you said ?
- There's no mystery about it.

There never was any mystery.

I remember it absolutely clearly.

Because my life was at stake
and I chose my words very carefully.

Does one, as a physicist,
have the moral right

to work on the practical exploitation
of atomic energy ?

The implication was obvious,
that you were working on it.

And you jumped to the conclusion

that I was trying to provide Hitler
with nuclear weapons !

- And you were.
- No !

A reactor, that's what
we were trying to build !

A machine to produce power,
to generate electricity. To drive ships !

But then I asked you...

Do you actually think uranium fission
can be used for the construction of weapons ?

- I now know that it can be.
- This is what really horrified me.

What happens in fission ?

You fire a neutron at a uranium nucleus,
it splits and it releases energy.

A huge amount of energy, yes.

About enough to move a speck of dust.

But it also releases
two or three more neutrons.

Each of which has the chance
of splitting another nucleus.

So then those two or three split nuclei
each release energy in their turn ?

And two or three more neutrons.

If you start a trickle of snow sliding as you ski,
the trickle becomes a snowball.

An ever-widening chain of split
nuclei forks through the uranium

doubling and quadrupling in millionths of a
second from one generation to the next.

The thunder of the gathering avalanche
echoes from all the surrounding mountains.

Until eventually, after let's say 80 generations,
280 specks of dust have been moved.

Enough specks of dust
to constitute a city and all who live in it.

But there is a catch.

There is a catch, thank God.

Natural uranium consists of two
different isotopes... U238 and U235.

Less than 1% of it is U235.

And this tiny fraction is the only part
that's fissionable by fast neutrons.

What we'd realised, though...

that if we could once
get the reactor going...

The 238 and the natural uranium
would absorb the fast neutrons

and be transformed by them
into a new element altogether.

Plutonium.

Plutonium.

If we could build a reactor,
we could build bombs.

That's what had brought me to Copenhagen.

But none of this could I say,
and at this point, you'd stopped listening

the bomb had already
gone off inside your head.

Because I'd grasped
the central point already

that one way or another, you saw the possibility
of supplying Hitler with nuclear weapons.

You'd grasped at least
four different central points.

All of them wrong !

You told Rosenthal that I'd tried
to pick your brains on fission.

You told Weisskoff that I'd asked you what you
knew about the Allied nuclear programme.

Chadwick thought I was hoping to persuade
you that there was no German programme.

But then, it seems, you told some people
I tried to recruit you to work on it !

Very well, let's start all over again
from the beginning.

No Gestapo in the shadows this time,
no British intelligence officer...

- ...no one watching us at all.
- Only me.

Only Margrethe.

We're going to make the whole thing
clear to Margrethe.

You know how strongly I believe that we
don't do science for ourselves.

- That we do it so that we can explain to others...
- In plain language.

In plain language.

Not your view, I know.
You'd be happy to describe

what you were up to purely
in differential equations if you could.

- But for Margrethe's sake...
- In plain language.

Plain language.

Alright, so, here we are,
walking along once more.

And this time I'm absolutely calm.
I'm listening intently.

- What is it you want to say ?
- It's not just what I want to say.

The whole German nuclear team in Berlin

they all wanted me
to come and discuss it with you.

Go back to Germany, Heisenberg.

Gather your colleagues together
in the laboratory

get up on a table
and tell them... what ?

Niels Bohr says that,
in his considered judgement...

supplying a homicidal maniac with
an improved instrument of mass murder is...

What shall I say ? An... interesting idea.

No, not even an interesting idea.

A really rather seriously
uninteresting idea.

- What happens, you all fling down
your Geiger counters ?
- Obviously not.

- Because they'll arrest you ?
- My one hope is to remain in control.

So you don't want me to say yes
and you don't want me to say no ?

What I want is for you to listen
very carefully to what I'm going to say next.

Very well, here I am,
listening most carefully, as you tell me...

- That nuclear weapons will require
an enormous technical effort.
- True.

- That they will suck up huge resources.
- Huge resources, certainly.

That sooner or later,
Governments will have to turn to scientists

and ask them whether it's worth
committing those resources

whether there is any hope of producing
the weapons in time for them to be used.

Wait, so they will have to turn
to you and me.

We are the ones who will have to
advise them whether to go ahead or not.

In the end, the decision will be
in our hands... whether we like it or not.

- And that's what you want to tell me ?
- That's what I want to tell you.

That's why you've come all this way
with so much difficulty ?

That's why you've thrown away
nearly 20 years of friendship ?

Simply to tell me that ?

Simply to tell you that.

But Heisenberg,
this is more mysterious than ever.

What are you telling me it for ?

What am I supposed to do about it ?

The government of occupied Denmark
isn't going to come to me and ask me...

- ...whether we should produce nuclear weapons.
- No !

But sooner or later, if I manage
to stay in control of our programme

the German government
is going to come to me.

They are going to ask me
whether to continue or not.

I will have to decide what to tell them !

Then you have an easy way
out of your difficulty.

You tell them the same truth
that you've just told me.

You tell them
how difficult it would be.

And perhaps they'll be discouraged,
perhaps they'll lose interest.

There was a report
in a Stockholm newspaper

that the Americans are working on...
an atomic bomb.

Now it comes. Now it comes,
now I understand everything.

You think I have contacts
with the Americans.

Oh, you may.

It's just conceivable, If anybody
in occupied Europe does, it will be you.

So, you do want to know
about the Allied nuclear programme ?

I simply want to know if there is one,
some hint, some clue.

I've just betrayed my country
and risked my life

to warn you of the German programme.

And now I'm supposed to
return the compliment ?

Bohr, I have to know !

I'm the one who has to decide !

If the Allies are building a bomb,
what am I choosing for my country ?

Germany is where I was born.

Germany is where I became what I am.

Germany is all the faces of my childhood,
all the hands that picked me up when I fell

all the voices that encouraged me,
that set me on my way.

All the hearts that speak to my heart !

Germany is my widowed mother,
my impossible brother, my wife !

Germany is our children ! I have
to know what I'm deciding for them.

Another defeat ? Another nightmare
like the nightmare I grew up with ?

Bohr, my childhood
ended in anarchy and civil war.

Are more children
going to starve as we did ?

But my dear Heisenberg,
there's nothing I can tell you.

I have no idea whether there's
an Allied nuclear programme.

But that Allied nuclear programme
is just getting underway even as we're talking

and the bomb they're building
is to be used on us.

On the evening of Hiroshima,
Oppenheimer said it was his one regret

that they hadn't reduced the bombing time
to use on Germany.

- He tormented himself afterwards.
- Afterwards, yes.

At least we tormented ourselves
a little beforehand.

Did a single one of them stop to think even
for a brief moment about what they were doing ?

Did you when you went to Los Alamos ?

My dear good Heisenberg,
we weren't supplying the bomb to Hitler.

You weren't dropping it on Hitler, either !

You were dropping it
on anyone within reach !

On old men and women in the street,
on mothers and their children.

And if you had produced it in time,
they would have been my fellow countrymen

my wife, my children !

- That was the intention, yes ?
- That was the intention.

You never had the slightest conception

of what happens
when bombs are dropped on cities.

Even conventional bombs.

None of you ever experienced it !

You know why Allied scientists
worked on the bomb.

Of course, fear.

The same fear that consumed you.

Because they were afraid
that you were working on it.

But Bohr, you could have told them.

- Told them what ?
- What I told you in 1941.

That the choice is in our hands.
Mine and Oppenheimer's.

That if I can tell them
the simple truth when they ask me

the simple discouraging truth,
so can he !

This is what you wanted from me ?

Not to tell you what the Americans
were doing but to stop them ?

To tell them we can stop it together.

I had no contact with the Americans.

You did with the British !

Only later.

The Gestapo intercepted the message
you sent them about our meeting.

And passed it to you ?

Well, why not ?
They began to trust me.

That's what gave me the opportunity
of remaining in control of events.

Not to criticise, Heisenberg, but...

if this was your plan
in coming to Copenhagen, it's...

What can I say ?

It's most interesting.

It wasn't a plan, it was a hope !

Not even a hope.
A microscopically fine thread of possibility !

A wild improbability.

Worth trying though, Bohr.
Worth trying, surely.

But already you were too angry to
understand what I was saying !

No, no, why he was angry was
because he was beginning to understand !

The Germans drive out most of their
best physicists because they're Jews

America and Britain give them sanctuary

and now it seems, that this might offer
the Allies a hope of salvation.

And at once, you came howling here to Niels,
begging him to persuade them to give it up !

Margrethe, my love, perhaps we should
express ourselves a little more temperately.

But the gall of it.
The sheer breath-taking gall of it !

Bold skiing, I have to say !

But Bohr, we weren't skiing then !

I refused to believe it
when I first heard the news of Hiroshima.

I thought it was
just one of those strange dreams

we were living in at the time.

- You'd done it. You'd built the bomb !
- Yes.

- And you've used it on a living target.
- On a living target.

You're not suggesting that Niels did
anything wrong by working at Los Alamos ?

Of course not.

The decision had been taken
long before Niels arrived.

The bomb would have been built
whether he'd gone or not.

In any case, my part was very small.

Oppenheimer described you
as the team's father oonfessor.

It seemed to be my role in life.

- He said you made a great contribution.
- Spiritual, possibly, not practical.

Fermi said it was you who worked out
how to trigger the Nagasaki bomb.

I put forward an idea.

You're not implying that there's anything
Niels needs to explain or defend ?

No one has ever expected him
to explain or defend anything.

He is a profoundly good man.

It's not a question of goodness,
I was spared the decision.

Yes, and I was not.

So explaining and defending myself

was how I spent
the last 30 years of my life.

When I went to America in 1949

a lot of the physicists
wouldn't even shake my hand.

Hands that had actually built
the bomb, wouldn't touch mine.

Let me tell you, if you think
you're making yourself

any clearer to me now, you're not.

- Margrethe, I understand his feelings.
- I don't.

I'm as angry as you were before.

It's so easy to make you feel
conscience-stricken.

Why should he
transfer his burden to you ?

Because what does he do
after his great consultation with you ?

He goes back to Berlin and tells the Nazis
that he can produce atomic bombs.

But what I stress is the difficulty
in separating 235.

You tell them about plutonium ?

I tell some of the minor officials,
I have to keep people's hopes alive.

And you ask Albert Speer
for the funding to continue ?

To continue with the reactor,
of course I do.

But I ask him for so little that he
doesn't take the programme seriously.

Do you tell him the reactor
will produce plutonium ?

I don't tell him the reactor
will produce plutonium, not Speer.

No, I don't tell him the reactor
will produce plutonium.

- A striking omission, I have to admit.
- And what happens ? It works !

He gives us barely enough money
to keep the reactor programme ticking over

and that is the end
of the German atomic bomb.

That is the end of it.

- You go on with the reactor, though.
- We go on with the reactor, of course.

Because now there's no risk
of getting it running in time

to produce enough plutonium for a bomb.

No, we go on with the reactor, alright.

I keep that programme going,
I keep it under my control until the bitter end.

- Everything was still under your control ?
- Under my control, yes, that's the point !

Under my control.

Nothing was under
anyone's control by that time.

Perrin examined it
after the Allied troops took over.

They said it had no cadmium control rods

there was nothing to absorb
any excess of neutrons

to slow down the reaction
when it overheated.

You were no longer running that program,
Heisenberg, the program was running you !

We were almost there !

Two more weeks.
Two more blocks of uranium

and it would have been German physics

that achieved the world's first
self-sustaining chain reaction.

Except that Fermi had already done
it in Chicago two years earlier.

- We didn't know that.
- You didn't know anything.

Perrin said there wasn't even anything
to protect you all from the radiation.

We didn't have time to think about it.

So if it had gone critical ?

You'd have all died
of radiation sickness.

My dear Heisenberg.

My dear boy.

Yes, but...

By then the reactor
would have been running.

I should have been there
to look after you.

It's all we could think about at the time...
to get the reactor running.

To get the reactor running.

You always needed me there
to slow you down a little.

If I had died then,
what should I have missed ?

30 years of attempting to explain,
30 years of reproach and hostility.

Even you turned your back on me.

Look at him. He's lost.

He's like a lost child.

So, Heisenberg... why did you
come to Copenhagen in 1941 ?

It was right that you told us
about all the fears you had.

But you didn't really think I'd tell you whether
the Americans were working on a bomb ?

No.

- You didn't seriously hope that I'd stop them ?
- No.

You were going back
to work on that reactor whatever I said.

Yes.

So, Heisenberg... why did you come ?

- Why did I come ?
- Tell us once again.

Another draft of the paper
and this time we shall get it right

this time we shall understand.

You might even understand yourself.

Why did I come ? Once again
l go through that evening in 1941.

l crunch over the familiar gravel,
tug at the familiar bell pull.

What's in my head ?

Fear, certainly. And the absurd
and horrible importance

of someone bearing bad news.

But yes... something else as well.

Here it comes again.
I can almost see its face.

Something good, something bright
and eager and hopeful.

I open the door.

And there he is.

I see his eyes light up
at the sight of me.

He's smiling his wary schoolboy smile.

And I feel a moment of such consolation.

A flash of such pure gladness.

As if I've come home after a long journey.

As if a long-lost child
had appeared on the doorstep.

Look at them, father and son still.

Just for a moment.

For a moment, yes, it's the 20s again.

And we shall speak to each other

and understand each other
in the way we did before.

- My dear Heisenberg.
- My dear Bohr.

Come in. Come in.

It was the very beginning of Spring,
the first time I came to Copenhagen.

1924. March.

Raw, blustery, northern weather.

But every now and then,
the sun would come out

and leave that first marvellous warmth
of the year on your skin.

That first breath of returning light.

- What did we do ?
- Put on our boots and rucksacks...

- Took the tram to the end of the line.
- And start walking.

- Northwards, to Elsinore.
- If you walk, you talk.

Walking, talking.

- For 100 miles.
- After which, we talked more or less...

non-stop for the next three years.

Those years. Those amazing years.

- Those three short years.
- From 1924 to 1927.

From when I arrived
in Copenhagen to work with you.

To when you departed
to take up your chair in Leipzig.

Three years of raw, bracing,
northern springtime.

At the end of which we had
quantum mechanics, we had uncertainty...

We had complementarity...

We had the whole
Copenhagen interpretation.

Europe in all its glory again.

A new Enlightenment.

With Germany back
in its rightful place at the heart of it.

And who led the way... for everyone else ?

You and Niels.

- Well, we did.
- We did.

And that's what you're
trying to get back ?

To something we did in those
three years. Something we thought.

I keep almost seeing it out of
the corner of my eye while we're talking.

Something in the way we work,
something in the way we did all those things.

- Together.
- Together, yes, together.

No.

No...? What do you mean... no ?

Not together, you didn't do
any of those things together.

Yes, we did, of course we did.

No, no, you didn't. Every single one of them,
you did when you were apart.

You first worked out
quantum mechanics on Helgoland.

I remember the evening when the mathematics
first began to chime with the principle.

- On Helgoland.
- On Helgoland.

On your own.

On my own.

I was happy...

Happier than when you came back to us all
in Copenhagen the following winter.

- All that Schr�dinger nonsense.
- Nonsense ? Come, come.

Schr�dinger's Wave Formulation.

Yes, and suddenly everyone turned their backs
on your wonderful new matrix mechanics.

They couldn't understand it.

They could understand
Schr�dinger's wave mechanics.

- Because they'd learned it in school !
- Well, you described it as... repulsive.

Schr�dinger's said my mathematics were... repulsive.

They simply thought you were jealous.

You'd gone mad by this time,
you'd become fanatical.

You were refusing to allow wave theory
any place in quantum mechanics at all.

You'd completely turned your coat.

I said that wave mechanics and matrix mechanics
were simply alternative tools.

Something you were always accusing me of.
If it works, it works, never mind what it means !

- Of course I mind what it means.
- What it means in language.

- In plain language, yes.
- What something means...

is what it means in mathematics.

You think, so long as the mathematics
works out, the sense doesn't matter.

Sense is mathematics ! That's what sense is !

Yes, you are far better apart, you two.

You actually love the paradoxes.
That's your problem !

You revel in the contradiction !

Yes and you've
never been able to understand

the suggestiveness of paradox
and contradiction. That's your problem !

Having him out of town was as liberating
as getting away from my hay fever in Helgoland.

I actually started to think at last !

I wouldn't let you even sit anywhere
near each other if I were the teacher.

That's when I did it,
that's when I did uncertainty.

Walking around Faelled Park
at night, on my own !

It's very late and as soon as I've
turned off into the park

I'm completely alone in the darkness.

I stop to think about what you'd see
if you could train a telescope on me

from the mountains of Norway.

You'd see me by the street lamps
on the Blegdamsvej.

Then nothing,
as I vanished into the darkness.

Then another glimpse of me as I passed
the lamppost in front of the bandstand.

Then nothing again.

And that's what we see
in the cloud chamber.

Not a continuous track,
but a series of glimpses.

A series of collisions
between the passing electron

and various molecules of water vapour.

I don't know why
we hadn't thought of it before.

Except that we were too busy
arguing to think at all.

You seem to have given up
on all forms of discussion.

By the time I get back from Norway,
I find you've done a draft

of your uncertainty paper and
you've already sent it for publication.

And an even worse battle begins.

My dear, good Heisenberg,
it was not open behaviour

to rush a first draft into print
before we'd discussed it together...

- ...it was not the way we worked.
- No.

The way we worked
was that you hounded me...

from first thing in the morning
until last thing at night.

The way we worked
is you drove me mad !

Yes, because the paper
contained a fundamental error !

Here we go again.

I show him one of the strangest
truths about the universe

that any of us have
stumbled across since relativity

that you can never know everything
about the whereabouts of a particle

or anything else, even Bohr now
as he prowls up and down the room

in that maddening way of his...

because we can't observe it without introducing
some new element into the situation.

A molecule of water vapour
for it to hit, a piece of light.

Things which have an energy of their own,
which therefore have an affect on that they hit.

I shatter the objective universe
around you and all you can say is...

- There's an error in the formulation !
- There was !

Listen, in my paper what we were
trying to locate is not

a free electron off on its travels
through a cloud chamber

but an electron when it's at home
moving around inside an atom.

And the uncertainty arises,
not as you claim, through its indeterminate

recoil when it's hit by
an incoming photon...

- Plain language, Plain language ?
- This is plain language.

- Listen.
- The language of classical mechanics.

Copenhagen is an atom.
Margrethe is its nucleus.

- It's about the right scale... 10,000 to 1 ?
- Yes, yes.

Now Bohr is an electron.
He is wandering about the city.

Somewhere in the darkness.

No one knows where.

He's here, he's there...
he's everywhere and nowhere.

Up at Faelled Park,
down at Ny Carlsberg

passing City Hall, out by the harbour.

I am a photon. A quantum of light.

I have been despatched
into the darkness

to find Bohr.

And I succeed. Why ?
Because I've managed to collide with him.

But look, what's happened ?
He's slowed down.

He's been deflected.
He's no longer doing exactly

what he was so maddeningly doing
when I walked into him.

But Heisenberg, Heisenberg...
you also have been deflected.

If people can see what's happened to you...
to their piece of light...

then they can work out
what must have happened to me.

The trouble is
knowing what happened to you.

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 a great
new cathedral for us to wonder at.

The laws of classical mechanics

that exist whether we exist or not.

And then we come to the beginning
of the 20th century...

and we're suddenly forced
to rise from our knees again.

It starts with Einstein.

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.

And then... here in Copenhagen
in the mid '20s...

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.

If it's Heisenberg at the centre of the universe

then the one bit of the universe
he can't see is Heisenberg.

Forgive me, but you don't even know
why you did uncertainty in the first place.

And I'm sorry, but you want to
make everything seem...

so heroically abstract and logical.

I look around me
and what I see isn't a story.

I see confusion and rage
and tears and jealousy and...

no one knowing what things mean
or which way they're going to go.

- All the same, it works. It works.
- Oh yes, it works.

It works wonderfully.

Within three months of publishing
your uncertainty paper

you're offered the chair at Leipzig.

I didn't mean that.

And if you want to know why you've come here
to Copenhagen, I'll tell you that as well.

You're right,
there's no great mystery about it.

You've come to
show yourself off to us !

Margrethe...

When he first came in 1924,
he was a humble assistant lecturer

from a humiliated nation,
grateful to have a job.

Now he's here, back in triumph.

The leading scientist in a nation
that's conquered most of Europe.

He's come to show us
how well he's done in life.

This is so unlike you.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
But isn't that really why he's here ?

Because he's burning to let us know
that he's in charge

of some vital piece of secret research.

And that even so, he's preserved
a lofty... moral independence.

Preserved it so famously that
he's being watched by the Gestapo.

Preserved it so successfully

that he's now also got a wonderfully
important moral dilemma to face.

Yes, well, now you're
simply working yourself up.

A chain reaction ?

You tell one painful truth
and it leads to two more.

And as you frankly admit,
you're going back to continue doing

precisely what you were doing before,
whatever Niels tells you.

Yes.

Because you wouldn't dream of giving up
such a wonderful opportunity for research.

Not if I can possibly help it.

Also, you want to demonstrate to the Nazis
how useful theoretical physics can be.

You want to save
the honour of German science.

You want to be there
to re-establish it in all its glory

as soon as the war is over.

All the same,
I won't tell Speer that the reactor...

Will produce plutonium ? No.

Because you're afraid of what will happen
if the Nazis commit huge resources

and you fail to deliver the bombs.

Please, don't try and tell us that
you're a hero of the resistance.

I never said I was a hero.

Your talent is for skiing too fast
for anyone to see where you are.

For always being in more
than one position at a time.

Like one of your particles.

I can only say that it worked.

Unlike most of the gestures made
by the heroes of the resistance, it worked.

Oh, I know what you're thinking.

I should have joined
the plot against Hitler.

- Got myself hanged like the others.
- Of course not.

You don't say it, because there are things
that can't be said

- But you think it.
- No.

What would it have achieved ?

Really, it is... ridiculous.

You reason your way, both of you,
with astonishing delicacy and precision

into the tiny world of the atom.

And now it turns out that
everything depends on these

really rather large
objects on your shoulders.

- And what's going on there is...
- Elsinore.

Elsinore.

- Yes.
- Maybe you're right.

I was afraid of what might happen.

I was conscious
of being on the winning side.

Why didn't you kill me ?

- Why didn't I...?
- Kill me, that night in 1941 ?

My dear Heisenberg,
the suggestion is of course...

Most interesting.

So interesting, in fact,
it didn't even occur to you.

Complementarity once again.
I'm your enemy, I'm also your friend.

I'm a danger to mankind,
I'm also your guest.

I'm a particle, I'm also a wave.

We have one set of obligations
to the world in general

and other sets, never to be reconciled,
to our fellow countrymen.

To our neighbours, to our family,
to our friends, to our children.

All we can do is look afterwards
and see what happened.

I'll tell you another reason
why you did uncertainty.

You have a natural affinity for it.

I must have been gratifyingly
chastened figure when I returned in 1947.

Crawling on my hands and knees,
my nation back in ruin.

Not really.

Once more you demonstrated
how you personally came out on top.

- Enough, my love, enough.
- No.

I've kept my thoughts
to myself for all these years

but it's so maddening
having this clever son

forever dancing about
in front of one's eyes.

Forever demanding our approval.
Forever struggling to shock us.

Forever begging to be told
what the limits to his freedom are

if only so he can
go out to transgress them.

I'm sorry, but really.
On your hands and knees...

It was my good, dear, kind husband
who was on his hands and knees.

Literally !

Crawling down to the beach
in the darkness in 1943.

Fleeing... like a thief in the night
from his homeland

to escape being murdered.

I warned you in 1941
but you wouldn't listen.

- At least Bohr got across to Sweden.
- And where were you ?

I can only say I didn't do it.

- I didn't build the bomb.
- No. And why didn't you ?

I'll tell you that as well,
because you couldn't !

You didn't understand the physics !

I understood very clearly.

I simply didn't tell the others.

I understood, though.

But... secretly.

You can look it up,
if you don't believe me.

- There's evidence for once ?
- It was all most carefully recorded.

- Witnesses even ?
- Unimpeachable witnesses.

- Who wrote it down ?
- Who recorded it and transcribed it.

Even though you didn't tell anyone ?

I told one person.

I told Otto Hahn.

That terrible night after we heard
the news of Hiroshima

somewhere in the small hours
I gave him a reasonably good account

of how the bomb had worked.

- After the event ?
- After the event, yes !

When it didn't matter any more !

The critical mass.

That was the most important thing.

The amount of material you needed
to establish the chain reaction.

Did you tell them the critical mass ?

I gave them a figure, yes.

You can look it up.

We were all rounded up
by the British.

The whole team... everyone
who worked on atomic science.

And we were spirited away
to Farm Hall in Huntingdonshire.

Hahn asked me, when we first arrived

whether I thought there were
any hidden microphones, I laughed.

I said the British were too old-fashioned
to know any Gestapo methods.

I underestimated them.
There were microphones everywhere.

They recorded everything.
So, look it up !

But the critical mass.

You gave them a figure,
what was the figure you gave them ?

- I forget.
- Heisenberg...

It's all on record,
you can see for yourself.

- The figure for the Hiroshima bomb was...?
- 50 kilogrammes.

So that was the figure you gave Hahn ?
50 kilogrammes ?

I said about a ton.

About a ton ?

A thousand kilogrammes ?

Heisenberg, I believe I am at last
beginning to understand something.

The one thing I was wrong about.

- You were 20 times over.
- The one thing.

But Heisenberg, your mathematics...

Your mathematics, how could they
have been so far out ?

They weren't.

As soon as I calculated the diffusion,
I got it just about right.

As soon as you calculated it ?

I gave everybody a seminar on it
a week later, it's in the record, look it up.

- You hadn't calculated it before ?
- There was no need, it'd already been done.

For natural uranium. You needed
to calculate the figure for pure 235.

- Obviously.
- And you didn't ?

I didn't.

So, all your agonising in Copenhagen
about plutonium was beside the point ?

You could have done it
without ever building the reactor.

You could have done it
with 235 all the time.

- Almost certainly not.
- Just possibly, though.

Just possibly.

And that question was settled
long before you arrived in Copenhagen.

Simply by failing to try
the diffusion equation.

Such a tiny failure.

But the consequences
kept branching out, over the years

doubling and redoubling.

Until they were
large enough to save a city.

Which city ?

Any of the cities
that we never dropped our bomb on.

London, presumably,
if you'd had it in time.

If the Americans
had already entered the war...

- ...and the Allies had begun
to liberate Europe, then...
- Who knows.

Paris as well, Amsterdam.

Perhaps Copenhagen.

So, Heisenberg,
tell us this one simple thing.

Why didn't you do the calculation ?

I don't know.

I don't know why I didn't do it.

Because I never thought of it.
Because it didn't occur to me.

Because I assumed
it wasn't worth doing.

Assumed ?

Assumed ?

You never assumed anything.

That's how you got uncertainty,
because you rejected our assumptions.

You calculated, Heisenberg,
you calculated everything.

The first thing you did with a problem
was the mathematics.

You should have been there
to slow me down.

Yes.

You wouldn't have got away with it
if I'd been standing over you.

Though in fact, you made exactly
the same assumption.

You thought there was no danger
for exactly the same reasons as I did.

Why didn't you calculate it ?

Why didn't I calculate it ?

Tell us why you didn't calculate it
and we'll know why I didn't.

It's obvious why I didn't.

Well go on.

Because he wasn't trying to build a bomb.

Yes ! Thank you !

Because he wasn't trying
to build a bomb !

I imagine it was the same for me.

Because I wasn't trying to build a bomb,
thank you !

So you bluffed yourself.

Like I did at poker
with the straight I never had.

But, in that case...

Why did I come to Copenhagen ? Yes...

Why did I come ?

One more draft.
Yes, one final draft.

And once again l crunch over the
familiar gravel to the Bohrs‘ front door...

and tug at the familiar bell pull.

Why have I come ?

l know perfectly well.
Know so well that I've no need to ask myself

Untill once again
the heavy front door opens.

He stands on the doorstep.

Until this instant, his thoughts
have been everywhere and nowhere

like unobserved particles through all
the slits ih the diffraction, grating simultaneously.

Now they have to be observed and specifi�ed.

My dear Heisenberg !

My dear Bohr.

And at once, the clear purposes
inside my head lose all defi�nite shape.

The light falls on them and they scatter.

How difficult it is to see even
what's in front of one's eyes.

All we possess is the present and the present
endlessly dissolves into the past.

Bohr has gone,
even as I turn to see Margrethe.

Niels is right. You look older.

I believe you had
some personal trouble ?

Margrethe slips into history,
even as I turn back to Bohr.

And yet how much
more difficult still it is

to catch the slightest glimpse
of what's behind one's eyes.

Here I am, at the centre of the universe,
and yet all I can see...

are two smiles that don't belong to me.

- Elizabeth ? The children ?
- Very well. They send their love, of course.

l can feel a third smile
in the room, very close to me.

Could it be the one I suddenly see
for a moment in the mirror there ?

And is the awkward stranger
wearing it in any way connected

with this presence
that I can feel in the room ?

This all-enveloping
and observed presence.

I watch the two smiles in the room.

One awkward and ingratiating.

The other rapidly fading from
incautious warmth to bare politeness.

There's also a third smile in the room I know.

Unchangingly courteous, I hope,
and unchangingly guarded.

You've managed to get some skiing ?

l glance at Margrethe

and for a moment I see
what she can see and I can't.

Myself and the smile vanishing from my face

as poor Heisenberg blunders on.

I look at the two of them looking at me

and for I moment I see the third person
in the room as clearly as I see them...

their importunate guest...

stumbling from one crass and unwelcome
thoughtlessness to the next.

I look at him looking at me,
anxiously, pleadingly

urging me back to the old days
and I see what he sees.

And yes, now it comes, now it comes.

There's someone missing from the room.

He sees me, he sees Margrethe...

He doesn't see himself.

You suggested a stroll.

- We shan't be long.
- A week at most.

What ?

- Our great hike through Zealand ?
- You remember Elsinore ?

The darkness inside the human soul ?

And out we go under the autumn trees.

Now there is no one in the world
except Bohr and the invisible other.

Who is he... this all-enveloping
presence in the darkness ?

The flying particle wanders the darkness.
No one knows where.

It's here, it's there, it's everywhere...

and nowhere.

With careful casualness, he begins
to ask the question he's prepared.

Does one, as a physicist, have the moral right

to work on the practical exploitation
of atomic energy ?

The great collision.

I stops, he stops.

This is how they work.

He gazes at me, horrifi�ed.

Now at last he knows
where he is and what he's doing.

And even as the moment
of collision begins, it's over.

He turns away.

Already I'm hurrying back towards the house.

Already they're both flying away
from each other into the darkness again.

Our conversation is over.

Our great partnership.

All our friendship.

And everything about him
becomes as uncertain as it was before.

Unless...

yes, a thought experiment.

Let's suppose for a moment
I don't go flying off into the night.

Let's see what happens if, instead, I remember
the paternal role I'm supposed to play

If I stop and control my anger

and turn back to you and ask you...

- Why ?
- Why ?

Why are you confident it's going
to be so reassuringly difficult

to build a bomb with 235 ?

ls it because you've done the calculation ?

- The calculation ?
- Of the diffusion in 235 ?

No, it's because
you haven't calculated.

You haven't considered calculating.

You haven't consciously realised
there was a calculation to be made.

And of course, now I have realised.

In fact, it wouldn't be all that difficult.

Let's see... the scattering cross section's
about six times 10 to 24

so the mean free path would be...

Hold on.

And suddenly a very different,
very terrible new world begins to take shape.

That was the last and greatest demand

that Heisenberg made
on his friendship with you.

To be understood...

when he couldn't understand himself.

That was the last and greatest act
of friendship for Heisenberg

that you performed in return.

To leave him misunderstood.

Yes.

Perhaps I should thank you.

Perhaps you should.

Anyway, it was the end of the story.

Though, perhaps there was also
something I should thank you for.

That summer night in 1943 when I escaped
across the Sound in the fishing boat

and the German freighters arrived.

What's that to do with Heisenberg ?

When the ships arrived on the Wednesday...

there were 8,000 Jews in Denmark
to be arrested and crammed into their holds.

The following day,
on the eve of the Jewish new year

when the SS began their round up,
there was scarcely a Jew to be found.

For a handful of us in one fishing smack

to get past the German patrol boats
was remarkable enough.

For a whole armada to get past
with the best part of 8,000 people on board...

was...

like the Red Sea parting.

So, perhaps I should thank you.

For what ?

My life.

For all our lives.

Nothing to do with me by that time

I regret to say.

But after I'd gone,
you came back to Copenhagen.

To make sure our people didn't take
over the Institute in your absence.

I never thanked you for that either.

You know they offered me your cyclotron.

You could have separated
a little 235 with it.

Meanwhile, you were going off
from Sweden to Los Alamos.

To play my small but helpful part
in the deaths of 100,000 people.

Niels, you did nothing wrong.

- Didn't I ?
- Of course not.

You were a good man from first to last
and no one could ever say otherwise.

Whereas I...

Whereas you, my dear Heisenberg

never managed to contribute to the death
of one single, solitary person in all your life.

Before we can fay our hands
on anything, our life's over.

Before we can glimpse who or what we are,
we're gone and laid to dust.

Settled among all the dust we raised.

And sooner or later there will come a time

when all our children are laid to dust,
and all our children's children.

When no more decisions,
great or small, are ever made again.

When there's no more uncertainty
because there's no more knowledge.

And when all our eyes are closed...

when even the ghosts are gone,
what will be left of our beloved world ?

Our ruined and dishonoured and beloved world ?

But ih the meanwhile,
in this most precious meanwhile, there it is.

The trees in Faelled Park,
our children and our children's children...

preserved, just possibly,
by that one short moment in Copenhagen.

By some event that will never
quite be located or defi�ned.

By that final core of uncertainty
at the heart of things.