Books - Werner Heisenberg

Product Description:
The Tony Award—winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art, Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.

In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical—the very essence of human motivation.


Amazon.com Review:
For most people, the principles of nuclear physics are not only incomprehensible but inhuman. The popular image of the men who made the bomb is of dispassionate intellects who number-crunched their way towards a weapon whose devastating power they could not even imagine. But in his Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen, Michael Frayn shows us that these men were passionate, philosophical, and all too human, even though one of the three historical figures in his drama, Werner Heisenberg, was the head of the Nazis' effort to develop a nuclear weapon. The play's other two characters, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, are involved with Heisenberg in an after-death analysis of an actual meeting that has long puzzled historians. In 1941, the German scientist visited Bohr, his old mentor and long-time friend, in Copenhagen. After a brief discussion in the Bohrs' home, the two men went for a short walk. What they discussed on that walk, and its implications for both scientists, have long been a mystery, even though both scientists gave (conflicting) accounts in later years.

Frayn's cunning conceit is to use the scientific underpinnings of atomic physics, from Schrödinger's famous cat to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, to explore how an individual's point of view renders attempts to discover the ultimate truth of any human interaction fundamentally impossible. To Margrethe, Heisenberg was always an untrustworthy student, eager to steal from her husband's knowledge. To Bohr, Heisenberg was a brilliant if irresponsible foster son, whose lack of moral compass was part of his genius. As for Heisenberg, the man who could have built the bomb but somehow failed to, his dilemma is at the heart of the play's conflict. Frayn's clever dramatic structure, which returns repeatedly to particular scenes from different points of view, allows several possible theories as to what his motives could have been. This isn't the first play to successfully merge the worlds of science and theater (one is inevitably reminded of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Hapgood), but it's certainly one of the most dramatically successful. --John Longenbaugh



Customer Review: Demise of Determinism:
Why did Heisenberg come to Copenhagen? Was he there to prod his former mentor for information on America's nuclear program? Or, was he there to gloat? Perhaps to reach a bargain; we won't build it if you don't? Perhaps to warn Bohr: Leave now before it is too late. Or, merely to pick the brain of the old master? About that calculation, did you say two tons or two kilos? Then again, Bohr was a kind of deity. Could Heisenberg have come to him for absolution: Forgive me Father for I have sinned; the Nazis made me do it. Or, is it possible that a German could actually be a goodie. After all, Heisenberg never built "the" bomb. Indeed, after the war Heisenberg asserted that though he possessed the scientific ability to construct a bomb, he instead steered the Nazis towards the production of a reactor.
Uncertainty. It allows Frayne to explore science, morality, politics and memory, all of which are inexorably linked. Explore is the operative word, here. Nothing in the play is ever really resolved but Frayne does use Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" to consider and explore the subjective nature of observation, which in this case relates not only to the workings of the atom but to the human mind as well.

Customer Review: Intriguing.:
Michael Frayn, Copenhagen (Anchor, 1998)

Copenhagen 2000 Tony Award winner for best play, turns on a rather simple premise: Niels Bohr, his wife Margrethe, and Werner Heisenberg, who were all together at a brief meeting in 1941 which has confused historians ever since, are back together after death. They are trying to piece out what actually happened that night; it seems they don't remember what happened that night any more than do those who have written so many pages about it over the years. In the process, they also dissect quantum physics, argue the viability of the atomic bomb (and why Heisenberg didn't think it was possible, while Bohr ended up being a small, but instrumental, player on Oppenheimer's team), and in general behave like old friends who have grown old and crotchety.

Frayn is obviously coming from the Waiting for Godot school of drama here, as the play is absent any action whatsoever; all the events are described by the three players. This has been expressed by a large number of the play's critics as a weakness. Whether or not you see it as one is, well, pretty much up to you; in all honesty, it never really occurred to me to consider it a weakness while I was actually reading the play, which I take as a positive thing.

The real reason to pick this up, though, is in Frayn's rather long afterword. (One wonders if anyone considered having one of the actors come out and relate it after each performance.) While the play itself does a decent job at demystifying the physics and mechanics of the various details about which Bohr and Heisenberg spent most of their lives niggling, the play's afterword both puts these details, and the nigglers, into the larger picture of their culture and time and elucidates a few things that someone simply seeing the play is likely to still not understand (such as how much of Frayn's various ideas as to what happened in the mysterious conversation he pulled out from under his arm, and how much has actually been posited by scholars). While the play itself is interesting, the afterword is fascinating, and the two together make for a good read. *** ½

Customer Review: Intriguing concept - but is it drama?:
Reading a play poses challenges, as one must imagine it as a production while reading it as a book, and Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" is no exception. Written without stage directions or set descriptions, and relying solely on dialogue, this three-person play describes the complicated relationship between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, two physicists responsible for groundbreaking work in quantum physics. With Bohr's wife Margrethe acting as a fulcrum, the two great physicists discuss their lives before, during, and after World War II, using Heisenberg's visits to Copenhagen as focal points. Probably the most radical device Frayn uses is skipping around in time (appropriate given the mention of Einstein) where the characters speak after they have died as well as in the past, often with one describing to the audience what is happening or what something means while the other two interact; the reader has to be astute enough to "hear" the change in tone to know whether the characters are speaking in the past or as deceased observers, especially since the change can occur from one sentence to the next. This play gathers its power mostly near the end as certain principles of quantum mechanics, particularly the ability of an atomic particle to act like both matter and wave, clarify these relationships. Issues of personal responsibility and negligence ignite the last pages.

But is this drama? Frayn does not create scenes except through expository writing and discussions. Action is described rather than shown, and thematic development is contained solely in the words spoken by the characters. What's worse, the characters seem too aware of the implications of their actions, making the dialogue somewhat heavy-handed. I would expect skilled actors to be able to magnify the glimpses of deep emotion as well as enliven what is already an intriguing concept, but in lesser hands, this play could end up as a mere exercise. The cover perfectly describes the starkness of "Copenhagen": three industrial chairs on an empty stage, two characters talking while another looks on.

Frayn's postscript lends context to the play, and I recommend not skipping it since this is an intellectual play about an intellectual topic. Particularly interesting is Frayn's description of fact, background, interpretation, and pure imagination on his part.

The average play reader should find "Copenhagen" fascinating. The basics of quantum mechanics are rendered in understandable and digestible bits. If you are planning to see a production of "Copenhagen" in the near future, the book is worth purchasing for the postscript; it should enhance your enjoyment of the production.


Customer Review: The play and a fascinating postscript:
This book contains the text of Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning play (94 pages), a fascinating 38-page Postscript, and a two-page word sketch of the scientific and historical background to the play.

The play itself is brilliant (see my review of the PBS production directed by Howard Davies, starring Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig, and Francesca Annis available on DVD) and is the kind of play that can be fully appreciated simply by reading it. There are no stage directions, no mention of props or stage business. There is simply Frayn's extraordinary dialogue. A photo from the cover suggests how the play might be staged on a round table with the three characters, Danish physicist Niels Bohr, his wife Margrethe, and German physicist Werner Heisenberg, going slowly round and round as in an atom. This symbolism is intrinsic to the ideas of the play with Bohr seen as the stolid proton at the center and the younger Heisenberg the flighty electron that "circles." Margrethe who brings both common sense and objectivity to the interactions between the ever circling physicists, might be thought of as a neutron, or perhaps she is the photon that illuminates (and deflects ever so slightly) what it touches.

At the center of the play (and at the center of our understanding of the world through quantum mechanics) is a fundamental uncertainty. While Heisenberg and Bohr demonstrated to the world through the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics that there will always be something we cannot in principle know regardless of how fine our measurements, Frayn's play suggests that there will always be some uncertainty about what went on between the two great architects of QM during Heisenberg's celebrated and fateful visit to the Bohr household in occupied Denmark in 1941. There is uncertainty at the heart of not only our historical tools but at the very heart of human memory (as Frayn explains in the Postscript).

"The great challenge facing the storyteller and the historian alike is to get inside people's heads... Even when all the external evidence has been mastered, the only way into the protagonists' heads is through the imagination. This indeed is the substance of the play." (p. 97)

The three characters appear as ghosts of their former selves, as it were, and begin immediately an attempt to unravel and understand what happened in 1941. The central question is Why did Heisenberg come to Copenhagen? Was it an attempt to enlist Bohr in a German atomic bomb project? Was it to get information from Bohr about an Allied project or to pick his brain for ideas on how to make fission work? Or was it, as Margrethe avers, to "show himself off"--the little boy grown up, the man who was once part of a defeated country, now triumphant?

The play leaves it for us to find an answer, because neither history nor the recorded words of the participants give us anything close to certainty. With the conflicting statements of the characters Frayn implies that the truth may be a matter of one's point of view, that is, it may be a question of relativity. Ultimately it may even be that Heisenberg himself did not know why he came to Copenhagen.

Also being asked by Frayn's play is a moral question. Is it right for scientists to build weapons of mass destruction to be used on civilian targets? Heisenberg contends that this is the question he wanted to ask of Bohr. It is ironic that although Heisenberg was condemned by physicists around the world for his (presumed) unsuccessful attempt to build a fission bomb for Hitler, his work killed no one, while the universally beloved and admired Bohr had a hand in the Manhattan project that resulted in the bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities.

As the electron is seen and then not seen, its speed measured and then not measured, but never both at the same time, so it is with Heisenberg's character in life and in this play. We are never sure where he is. Is he working for the Nazis or is he only pretending to? Is he working on a reactor or is he working on a bomb? Did he delay the German project intentionally (as he claimed), or was the failure due to incompetence, or even--as Frayn suggests--to an unconscious quirk of Heisenberg's mind?

In the Postscript Frayn recalls the historical evidence he used in constructing the play and cites his sources and gives us insights into what Bohr and Heisenberg were like. He quotes Max Born, describing Heisenberg as having an "unbelievable quickness and precision of understanding," while "the most characteristic property" of Bohr, as described by George Gamow, "was the slowness of his thinking and comprehension." One can see where Frayn got his metaphor of the atom with its heavy nucleus and its speedy electron. But Bohr was also thoughtful and thorough while Heisenberg was "careless with numbers." And of course these are relative terms since both men were Nobel Prize-winning physicists, brilliant men who reached the very pinnacle of their profession.

Bottom line: one the great plays of our time on an epochal subject, fascinating and cathartic as all great plays should be.

Customer Review: Deserves a reading:
COPENHAGEN is a play that welcomes a reading. The structure of pure dialogue between the physicists, Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife Margrethe( who represents the non-physicists in the audience) lends itself to the closer examination the written word gives us. Michael Frayn brilliantly imagines a moment frozen in time- Heisenberg arrives from Germany in 1941 to discuss something with his mentor, Bohr in occupied Copenhagen. Seizing upon this historical event and its mysterious circumstances, Frayn recreates the event from a variety of perspectives in pursuit of a greater truth. Was Heisenberg a hero, who kept the Nazi's from achieving the ultimate weapon, or a victim of his own carelessness?
Reading the play, gives you the time to reflect upon how creatively Frayn frames each of his scenarios. The dialogue is never less than challenging, even while playing to the audience surrogate, Margrethe. Frayn uses these two great minds to introduce the audience into the realm of advanced physics and the moral ambiguities involved in the mixing of pure science with the nature of war. The forced civility between the two men emphasizes the underlying current of terror created by the Nazis rise to power and the oncoming dawn of an atomic age. Frayn does not offer any easy answers, to do so would be an insult to the wonderful work that has gone on before.
The postscript alone is worth the price of the book for any fan of the play. It sets up the historical context for the play's creation and gives the reader a much greater understanding of where Frayn came up with many of the issues he examines in this work.

Product Description:
Werner Heisenberg's genius and his place at the forefront of modern physics are unquestioned. His decision to remain in Germany throughout the Third Reich and his role in Hitler's atomic bomb project are still topics of heated debate. UNCERTAINTY is David Cassidy's compelling portrait of this brilliant, ambitious, and controversial scientist. It is the definitive Heisenberg biography, as well as a striking evocation of the development of quantum physics, the rise of Nazism, and the dawn of the atomic age.




Customer Review: Complete biography:
As the reviews in at the backcover stated, the writer deals thoroughly and fairly with the controversies surrounding this great scientist. This book gives a good overview of the man himself, his science, and the times he lived through. It is one of those works of enormous scope, that will probably not be topped. Just like the Making of the Atomic bomb or other alike tour the force works, it makes me wonder how many letters, sources, and interviews must have been worked through to make the picture come alive.
This is the definitive work on Heisenberg, and it gives also the best explanation of how the quantum Copenhagen interpretation as well as the uncertainty principle work! So it is recommended for historians, for scientists, or people who have an interest in both. Very highly recommended!

Customer Review: Great stuff!!:
"Uncertainty" is an outstanding piece of biographical and history of science writing. The only shortcomings of the book, in my view, are: 1) the short shrift it gives to WH's life and career post-WWII; and 2) its sometimes overly abstruse exposition of WH's science. Concerning this last point, Cassidy is clearly writing for an expert (or at least highly sophisticated lay) audience. Though I got the gist of much of the specialist detail in "Uncertainty", I would have appreciated and greatly profited from some more general discussion along the way. That said, Cassidy paints the science in sufficiently broad strokes that even the non-specialist can grasp (with some effort!) something of the beauty and complexity of quantum physics. I have always been fascinated with quantum physics. Having just finished "Uncertainty" I am all the more intent on brushing up my math and doing some serious study of the discipline. Books like "Uncertainty" inspire the quest for knowledge. Cassidy is to be commended.

Customer Review: WOW what a book - 5 stars*****:
A must for everyone. I would like to express my gratitude to his wife Janet for her many years of encourangement. If it was not for her would this great book have been created? Thank you Janet for the awesome book ( and i almost forgot to the author David Cassidy)

Customer Review: A very serious book about a very serious matter:
This book is not for the lighthearted. It is an excellent account of the life of Werner Heisenberg and of the strong nationalism that blinsided him to the situation in Nazi Germany. His brilliance as a first rate physicist notwithstanding, the book shows by example what happens to science when it becomes totally subservient to a totalitarian regime and shows the problems of regional politics overtaken by a ruthless dictator in the funding of science. The fine line that Heisenberg walked did not diminished his scientific accomplishment but did not excuse him from his participation in a scientific enterprise that could very well have changed the course of history had it been successful, a Nazi A-bomb. The book is also a lesson on the results of elitism in science and it shows how the Nazis cheated themselves from an even greater role in nuclear physics because of their policies.

Customer Review: Heisenberg is Great:
This book is superb as a biography and as history of Quantum Mechanics. As you read the pages you grow together with Heisenberg in his daily life and his achievements in Physics. You start to understand how the Quantum Mechanics was founded, how trial and error methods eventually developed into such a fundemental theory. The book is very voluminious but if you have patient in reading it on each line you live the life of a great man. I found it very interesting that even though he is one of the great founders of the Quantum Physics, he had more vacations than me and enjojed the life better than me. It shows that to be a good scientist you just have to carry your brain and think while wandering in the country side. Isn't it great. Apparently he did not even know Matrix Theory until Bohr showed him. Every page is full with history, science and suprise. Story is so vivid that you can even visualise the streets of Munich or other German towns as you read the book. Grat book,a lot of pages in fine print but worth of it.

Product Description:
The inspiration for Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen, Heisenberg's War tells of the interplay between science and espionage, morality and military necessity, and paranoia and cool logic that marked the German bomb program and the allied response to it. On the basis of dozens of interviews and years of research, Thomas Powers concludes that Werner Heisenberg, who was the leading figure in the German atomic effort, consciously obstructed the development of the bomb and in a famous 1941 meeting with his former mentor Neils Bohr in effect sought to dissuade the Allies from their pursuit of the bomb.



Customer Review: Dry and disappointing:
I read this in hardcover soon after it was published in 1993. It was a promising subject (did Nazi Germany get close to making an atomic bomb?). After laboring through a dry 434-page text that seemed to have more to do with espionage, I finished the volume, put it back in my shelves, was greatful to have survived the experience. Yes, Germany hadn't produced a bomb, and there was a lot of contemporary interest on their progress.

I only recently finished Richard Rhodes `Making of the Atomic Bomb' (published 1986) and urge interested parties to read it first. Rhodes lucidly documents the scientific principles and all contemporary development efforts (Germany, Japan, Britain, and the USA) up to and including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and beyond.

Oddly, Rhodes produced an advance quote for Power's back cover ("Important and original, another chapter in the epic story of how humankind achieved the means of its own destruction"). One wonders how much of this was professional courtesy from one Pulitzer winner to another. In any case, if you want to read remarkable book on the whole subject (not just a lengthy chapter saddled with minutia), read Rhodes.

Customer Review: The relative nature of history:
This is a solid, well-researched book that presents Heisenberg in a fair light, for once.

One of the problems with reader/reviewer bias is that many people are pre-disposed to finding fault with any suggestions that conflict with what they want to hear or believe. Regarding the Farm Hall recordings, some people have latched onto the idea that Heisenberg and others knew of the build up of the Holocaust, but continued to work for the Bomb project.

What they are usually referring to is a section in which Heisenberg talked about five Jewish scientists, whom he obviously cared about, who had been arrested and later killed; and even though Heisenberg was talking openly about putting out feelers to see if they could be helped or saved (which alone could have put him at great risk), this somehow translates into guilt in some people's eyes.

As for him 'not co-operating with Hitler'... nobody in their right mind could possibly think that was an option. As I believe the book shows, Heisenberg did the next best thing, which was to work half-heartedly on the German Bomb. He basically killed it in 1942.

The fact that Heisenberg could come up with the correct basic bomb structure - path and critical mass analysis, in very short order almost certainly means that he could have brainstormed the right methodology years earlier if the German scientists had been 100% committed to producing a bomb for Hitler. If they had been Nazis.

To me, this fine book is one more step in the right direction, in underscoring the very fact that not all Germans were Nazis.

Hitler may have been a charismatic leader, but he made so many catastrophic errors, such as the insane decision to declare war on the USA in the hope that the Japanese would help him against the Russians - they never lifted a finger - that it is as true to say that Hitler lost the War as to say that the Allies won it.

A fair and highly recommended book.

Customer Review: Somewhat dull / Unconvincing Theme:
My first criticism is that the book has way too much minutia which made it dull. I had to really plough through some of it and my reading was interruped by many naps.

The second criticism is of the main thesis: That Werner Heisenberg sabotaged the German bomb effort deliberately. I believe his comment at Farm Hall ("How could the Americans have separated two tons of U235?") was a spontaneous statement made by a man who had, until that moment, believed that he was the leader of the pack, and suddenly realized he was the Captain of the Bavarian Little League. It was a reflection of his confusion, shock and ego deflation, not a calculated deception of his fellow scientists. I just looked at the design specs of his Uranium machine in Haigerloch and it has no control rods. More confusion! It is difficult to recapture the total gestalt of the German scientist's predicament. Some of the parts of it were fear of failure. Associated with this is a lack of boldness on any of their parts. There was no Groves in Germany (as in Leslie R. Groves). If you work for Franklin Roosevelt and spend 2 billion dollars and fail, you would get fired and spend the rest of your life testifying before Congress. Do that with Hitler and you wouldn't get fired, you would get fired upon! There was a belief on the part of the nazi gov. that the war would be won soon. The held from 1930 until 1942. No sense of urgency! But Heisenberg was not an engineering physicist. He was no Fermi. That is part of it too. To say he sabotaged the German program as part of a heroic effort is simple historical revisionism for the purpose of presenting a new twist.

If you read this, read "Hitler's Uranium Club" by Jeremy Bernstein to get the right balance on this.

Customer Review: Scholarly but unpersuasive -- and heavy with details:
While I found this book interesting and informative when it dwelled upon the personalities and contributions of the physicists who discovered and explored the field of quantum mechanics prior to WW2, I found two problems with the book as it entered the war. First, it spent too much time, at least for me, on the details of minor episodes and players. In this sense, I might have appreciated the treatment had I been a scholar researching the field - but I wasn't. Hence, I often found the reading dull. Second, I found Powers' ultimate thesis - that Heisenberg purposefully delayed the German atomic bomb program - unpersuasive. It appeared to me that Powers often strained his interpretation of the facts to make them conform to his thesis. For example, when reviewing Heisenberg's "Farm Hall" statement in August 1945 that two tons of U235 was required to make an atomic bomb, Powers suggests that because Heisenberg articulated the appropriate lesser amount a week later, and because he purportedly suggested at an earlier date that a bomb could be the size of a football, his "two ton" statement was a purposeful "error." Equally persuasive, if not more, is the simple thought that Heisenberg did indeed grossly overestimate what was required, thereby prompting him to tell Speer in 1942 that a bomb was impractical. This is not to say that Powers is necessarily wrong. I simply believe that based on the facts he presents, the issue remains debatable.

Customer Review: One of the best written books I have ever read!:
This book is amazing on so many different levels I am not really sure where to begin. It is an amazingly well written, compelling, insightful, and utterly fascinating book on it's own. Fortunately, it is so much more than just a really well written book, it is TRUE story that everyone needs to read. It is book about a true hero, a courageous man who risked his life and his reputation to save tens of millions of lives. I don't really want to give too much away, but it answers a question that many World War 2 historians want to know: WHY didn't the Germans create the Atomic Bomb? Well, there is one word for why, Heisenberg. This man stayed in Germany and deliberately sabotaged the Nazi's attempts to make the bomb.
In a world where people struggle to find heroes and gather up courage it is a shame not many people know this story. I think many people would be amazed at the sacrafices one very proud man would endure to save the world. Please read this book, you will not be disappointed.

Product Description:
No one better represents the plight and the conduct of German intellectuals under Hitler than Werner Heisenberg, whose task it was to build an atomic bomb for Nazi Germany. The controversy surrounding Heisenberg still rages, because of the nature of his work and the regime for which it was undertaken. What precisely did Heisenberg know about the physics of the atomic bomb? How deep was his loyalty to the German government during the Third Reich? Assuming that he had been able to build a bomb, would he have been willing? These questions, the moral and the scientific, are answered by Paul Lawrence Rose with greater accuracy and breadth of documentation than any other historian has yet achieved.

Digging deep into the archival record among formerly secret technical reports, Rose establishes that Heisenberg never overcame certain misconceptions about nuclear fission, and as a result the German leaders never pushed for atomic weapons. In fact, Heisenberg never had to face the moral problem of whether he should design a bomb for the Nazi regime. Only when he and his colleagues were interned in England and heard about Hiroshima did Heisenberg realize that his calculations were wrong. He began at once to construct an image of himself as a "pure" scientist who could have built a bomb but chose to work on reactor design instead. This was fiction, as Rose demonstrates: in reality, Heisenberg blindly supported and justified the cause of German victory. The question of why he did, and why he misrepresented himself afterwards, is answered through Rose's subtle analysis of German mentality and the scientists' problems of delusion and self- delusion. This fascinating study is a profound effort to understand one of the twentieth century's great enigmas.



Customer Review: oh puhleeze...don't waste your $$$:
R. Rose has a personal axe to grind and it distorts this entire book. His attempt to be a "historian" is undermined by any serious attempt to look at the evidence and to use objective facts to guide his interpretation. No serious historian would ever endorse this book and it is fatally flawed by Rose's bias.

Customer Review: Flawed:
Supposedly the author is a historian, however, nothing in terms of research method has been applied; this is a work of journalism, and very much on the simplistic side.
The book contains some very selective use of sources, to prove the objective stated at the onset (in preface): That Heisenberg was morally corrupt, and at that a representative for German culture.
It does not get more advanced than that in the rest of the book, so one can basically stop reading after the preface.

Customer Review: Will the Real Werner Heisenberg Please Stand Up?:
In the immortal words of Gene Autry: How can anyone be right, when everybody's wrong? Mr. Garea's (Amazon's Spotlight review) thoughtful, well written critique on the Heisenberg portrayed in Mr. Rose's book is "compleat" (yuck yuck), and there is nothing I need to add. Mr. Rose's slashing attack on Mr. Heisenberg is too simplistic, fails to take into account the impact of the political, economic and moral collapse of Weimar Germany on the German people, and plays too heavily on what Mr. Rose sees as 400 unchanging years of Germanic totalitatian culture. Heisenberg's harshest critics, the Nobel Laureates Lenard and Stark with their Newtonian cause & effect "German Physics" (as opposed to "Jewish Physics" ie relativity & disputes about quantum mechanics a la Einstein and Niels Bohr), they were the ones falsely tied to a vision of Germanic Culture. Not Heisenberg.

Where I part ways with Mr. Garea is in Mr. Garea's tounge in cheek portrayal of a Werner Heisenberg qua James Bond (maybe not Sean Connery or Roger Moore--more like a Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby) from Thomas Powers "Heisenberg's War: the Secret History of the German Bomb." Whatever else he was, Mr. Heisenberg was no smoothie--a common denominator for Bondness. However, I am convinced by Mr. Powers's thesis that Mr. Heisenberg did retard Germany's development of the atomic bomb. No, Heisenberg did not "fake" math calculations or create false evidence, but as Mr. Powers carefully documents, Heisenberg did work hard to create a false impression of the feasibility of creating an atom bomb. Of the different opportunities that Heisenberg had for pushing development of a German A-bomb, none could have been as fortuitous as the June 1942 meeting with Albert Speer. Speer had just been appointed Hitler's honcho to get the economy on a war footing, and develop some answer to the allies increasingly relentless and unanswerable bombing missions. Additionally, the Nazi regime needed to do something about the military reverses at Moscow. If Heisenberg wanted to build an atom bomb, Speer was ready to fund one. Instead, Heisenberg gave a deliberately obtuse presentation about the atom bomb. Heisenberg was well aware that a reactor would create the fissonable element 94 (plutonium), but instead spoke generally of "transuranics." This conscious fogging of the science intentionally left a false impression on Speer's science advisor, a physical chemist named Lieb. After the meeting, Lieb (incorrectly) believed that only U-235 could be used for a bomb, and that there was no viable way to separate U-235 from U-238. Heisenberg knew better--plutonium could replace U-235--and how much fissonable material was needed for a critical mass: about the size of a pineapple. Finally, Heisenberg told Speer that perhaps a working reactor could be built in 1942, but a bomb could not be built before 1945. These dates are key for two reasons. First, the dates are outside the parameters that Speer needed, and second: they were also damn good guesses. Mr. Fermi created the world's first sustained chain reactor in Chicago in December, 1942 and the US blew up the first bomb in July 1945. Finally, if Heisenberg really wanted to go all out on a German bomb, there was Speer ready to write the big checks. Instead, Heisenberg & his people asked for piddling amounts of funding to continue basic research--so small that Speer promptly lost interest in atom bombs. The importance of this June 1942 Meeting, and the difference between what Heisenberg knew and what he told Speer is lost on Mr. Rose.

Heisenberg did consciously retard German developments of an A-bomb, if only by deliberately creating several key false impressions--not exactly the stuff that wins hearts of Ursula Andress, Jill St. John or even Sophie Marceau, but it still counts.

Nevertheless, how should we account for Heisenberg's inconsistent actions both during and especially after the war? Mr. Powers suggests several reasons, but I do not believe he gives enough creedence to Heisenberg's (and most Germans) fear & distrust of Soviet Russia. Many individuals in the West initially excused Nazi excesses in the name of restoration of the economy (if only taming rampent inflation), and creating a bulwark against Stalinism. One of Heisenberg's key co-workers was a (now former) communist sympathizer who returned to Nazi Germany after two & a half years in a Soviet prison, with a forced bogus confession of being a Gestapo-Trotsky-Bukharin spy. Something needed to be done about Stalin. Moreover, post WWI Germany featured seemingly endless rises and collapses of Governments. At the time, it was not unreasonable to believe that Hitler's thousand year reich would be replaced in next year's coup by the Christian Democrats, or the Weirmarcht would throw out the Nazis, and continue a secular (as opposed to Nazi racist paganism) military dictatorship. The post WWII alibi of the "good germans" was not only that they "didn't know," but that "someone" needed to stop Stalin (not to mention the crap about building the autobahn, but we digress).

Finally, Heisenberg's seemingly inconsistent statements after the war are probably a combination of his foolish pride (OF COURSE he could have built a bomb--if he REALLY wanted to), and his awkward speaking style. This last point is more of an impression--but Heisenberg was a physicist, not a politician or a public speaker. He could talk about science with exactness--but outside of that realm, he left much to be desired.

In short, I am convinced by Mr. Powers's arguments and the breath of his documentation. Mr. Rose needed to pay closer attention to Powers's book, and the documentation used by Powers.

As a final note on both this book and Mr. Powers's book--indeed, since Heisenberg's death in 1976, any book about Heisenberg--an important source as to Heisenberg's postwar views is the 1967 book "The German Atomic Bomb," and a battery of extensive personal interviews, all by David Irving. Mr. Powers merely cites this source--an undisputedly important source--without comment. Still, as a historian, there is no question that Mr. Irving's reputation has taken a beating. See, for example, "Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial" by Richard J. Evans. Mr. Irving has recently been sentenced to three years imprisonment in Austria as a "holocaust denier." What all Mr. Irving's personal beliefs, credentials, and current legal woes add to the discussion of Heisenberg's activities from 1939 to 1945, I do not know. I have no idea what Mr. Irving's views were in 1965-1967, when Mr. Irving extensively interviewed Heisenberg and wrote his book--and if Heisenberg was aware of those views in giving such time and access to Mr. Irving. I only mention this as an additional piece of the Heisenberg puzzle that may (or may not) mean anything.

Be that as it may, the bottom line is: Read Powers's book, and not this one. And Amazon is damn lucky to have thorough reviewers like Mr. Garea.

Customer Review: a waste of time and money:
this book is so deeply biased and prejudiced against its main subject (Werner Heisenberg) that it cannot be taken seriously even for the few relevant things it has to say. Moreover the author is so aggressive (almost violent)against what he calls "german culture" (this label already suggests a lot) that his criticism borders on cultural racism. I deeply regret the time and money I spent in reading and buying this book.

Customer Review: Mixed feelings:
After having read this book, I am left with very mixed feelings. First the good stuff: This book gives a thorough account of the german A-bomb project during WW2. Lots of original documents are provided, so that one can form an own oppinion. Also the technical aspects are quite well captured for a non-physicist.

For the bad stuff: This book is thoroughly racist. I am flabbergasted, that a major publisher is willing to print a book that, in its foreword, already contains a statement about the deep hatred of the author not against Heissenberg or the Nazi regime, but against German culture and Germans as a whole. Also the treatment of Heissenberg as a physicist is certainly not adequate. It may very well be true, that he was morally corrupt or overly proud and arrogant, but statements like that he did not understand the concept of critical mass just because he never explicitly wrote down the exponential growth of neutrons in a bomb are at best uninformed and childish. Especially disgusting however is the authors revelation of 'the truth about the german mind', which traces a line of evil from Hitler back to Martin Luther.

For all its qualities as a source of information, this is the worst kind of a historical book: One that was written to judge. And this it does not only based on facts, but largeley on the authors all too apparent prejudices against a whole culture, which are labeled as 'the truth'.

Product Description:
Over 40 renowned scientists from all around the world discuss the work and influence of Werner Heisenberg. The papers result from the symposium held by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Heisenberg's birth, one of the most important physicists of the 20th century and cofounder of modern-day quantum mechanics. Taking atomic and laser physics as their starting point, the scientists illustrate the impact of Heisenberg's theories on astroparticle physics, high-energy physics and string theory right up to processing quantum information.

Product Description:




Customer Review: Don't bother:
A bad hoax and a book that probably shouldn't
have been written.
It does no one proud and is pretty much a waste of time to read.
No one but a famous man could get trash like this published.

Customer Review: A Sly Meditation On The Nature Of Reality:
This is a marvellous entertainment - I'm not sure whether I should correctly describe it as either a memoir or novelette - which explores the nature of reality. It's not really a sequel to Michael Frayn's splendid play "Copenhagen", but does delve into some of the same terrain as the play. Instead, it is a witty exchange of thoughts and letters sent between Michael Frayn and actor David Burke (He portrayed physicist Niels Bohr during the play's original London production) about a set of manuscripts which allegedly date from the internment of German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his colleagues at Farm Hall immediately after the end of World War II. What follows is a terse, spellbinding mystery which is well told by both writers, replete with ample doses of English humor.

Customer Review: Not What I Expected:
I thought COPENHAGEN was a great play, and I picked up this
book thinking it was background for the play (the bookjacket
gives some hints that that isn't the case, but I didn't bother
to read that. Anyway, it turns out to be less than that, and
also much more. I was sucked into the mystery along with
Michael Frayn, and read it in one sitting (it's short). I
highly recommend it for pure entertainment.

Customer Review: Not really a companion to the play...:
I loved the play Copenhagen - saw it four times, and it re-sparked my interest in physics, which I read about as a hobby. I know, weird, but whatever, I'm a smart chick.

Anyway, this book isn't about the play at all, really, it's about an exchange of letters between the author and one of the actors in the London production of Copenhagen. And it's well-crafted, I think anyone who enjoys a good mystery, and a bit of the backstage goings-on would enjoy the book. It certainly captivated me and both Michael Frayn and David Burke write well and with a good deal of dry British humor.

Customer Review: A very thoughtful work.:
I have only read the original german edition of this book ("Das Politische Leben Eines Unpolitischen" --Piper). Even though the book was written by his widow Elisabeth, it struck me as a serious and thoughtful attempt to provide a balanced picture of Heisenberg's actions and motivations during the war. Anyone interested in Heisenberg and/or the story of a good man faced with an impossible moral dilemma will enjoy this book.

Product Description:
This digital document is an article from Queen's Quarterly, published by Queen's Quarterly on December 22, 1999. The length of the article is 2933 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Heisenberg and the Nazi atomic bomb project: a study in German culture.
Publication: Queen's Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1999
Publisher: Queen's Quarterly
Volume: 106 Issue: 4 Page: 534-43

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Product Description:
This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on April 11, 2001. The length of the article is 1653 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Copenhage: El teatro de la incertidumbre.(dilemas morales de la investigación física representados por obra teatral)(TT: Copenhague: theatre of the unknown.)(TA: moral dilemma of physics research as expressed in theatre play)
Author: José Gordon
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: April 11, 2001
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: 47 Issue: 2495 Page: 50

Distributed by Thomson Gale