Films and Plays, Spring 2002

Thanks to Paula Apsell of NOVA for making available the NOVA and Frontline videos.

All physics students welcome to attend

14 Febuary 6PM. Room 229 Abelson. Pizza
The Genius behind the Bomb, NOVA, 1992.
Documentary tells the life story of Leo Szilard, the man who persuaded Albert Einstein to write President Roosevelt about the possibilities of atomic energy, and thus set in motion the massive effort leading to the first atomic bomb. Szilard, who patented the idea for nuclear chain reactor, and took part in the first nuclear chain reaction in 1942, later called it "a black day for mankind."

Tuesday, 16 April, 2002
3 PM. Room 229 Abelson.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. NOVA, 1983.
NOVA captivates a remarkably candid portrait of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, a man of few pretensions and tremendous personal charm, who speaks with the same passion about a child's toy wagon and the frontiers of subatomic physics.

Tuesday, 30 April, 2002
3 PM. Room 229 Abelson.
In the Shadow of Sakharov. Frontline, 1991.
Frontline recounts the saga of Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist turned human-rights advocate who became the father of the Soviet democracy movement. With unique access to Sakharov's family and friends, the film documents Sakharov's life across seven decades of Communist rule in the USSR and traces his struggle to teach his country and the world important lessons about the moral power of the human spirit.

Tuesday, 7 May, 2002
4 PM. Room 229 Abelson.
The Day after Trinity, Jon Else, 1980.
A documentary on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, focusing on his role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. People who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer discuss the man, his role in the development of the atomic bomb, his fall from grace during the McCarthy era, and his desire to see nuclear proliferation controlled.

TBA. Room 229 Abelson.
Nuclear Reaction. Frontline, 1997.
A report on why the United States seems ready to abandon nuclear power
Homepage of program. Interesting content and links here.

Thursday, May 16, 2002 8 PM
Michael Frayn’s play “Copenhagen”
at the Colonial Theatre after the final exam on May 16, 2002 at 8 PM.

Fill out this form, and follow these instructions in order to purchase tickets directly from the Colonial Theatre. You can buy tickets for any night of the performance (opens May 7), but we are going on May 16. Tickets are $35 and the seats will be on stage (see photo). These are both good seats and a low price.

Physicists discuss the play and the physics in the play
Niels Bohr Archive Release of documents relating to 1941 Bohr-Heisenberg meeting
What Bohr Remembered Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books
Copenhagen Revisited Michael Frayn, New York Review of Books
Copenhagen: An Exchange by Gerald Holton, Jonothan Logan, Reply by Michael Frayn, Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books
Secret letters cast light on Copenhagen
Secret Trove May Resolve 'Copenhagen'
A Historical Perspective on Copenhagen What was Werner Heisenberg trying to tell Niels Bohr during his visit to Copenhagen in 1941, and what did he want from Bohr? David Cassidy

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