Recommendations
Books Like Copenhagen
Best books to read after Copenhagen by Michael Frayn
Readers who love Copenhagen by Michael Frayn are drawn to its combination of quantum mechanics and theatrical structure, the historical mystery at its center, and the investigation of the relationship between scientific knowledge and moral responsibility — they want plays and novels that deal with the ethics of science, the history of nuclear weapons, and the tradition of the British intellectual drama that integrates scientific thinking into theatrical form.
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Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
Stoppard's companion integrating scientific thinking (chaos theory) into theatrical form. Copenhagen and Arcadia are the two British plays of the 1990s that most successfully integrated scientific thinking into theatrical form: Stoppard's with chaos theory; Frayn's with quantum mechanics
- 2Buy
Life of Galileo
by Bertolt Brecht
The companion in the tradition of the dramatic investigation of physics and moral responsibility — Galileo's recantation. Companion dramatic investigations of the relationship between scientific knowledge and political/moral responsibility; both organized around a meeting at which the scientist's moral choice is made
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The Physicist
by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The companion in the post-war Central European tradition of the drama about scientific knowledge and political power. Companion investigations of the same question: what is the scientist's responsibility when the knowledge they possess could be catastrophically misused?
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
by Richard Rhodes
Rhodes's companion Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Manhattan Project. Companion investigations of the same historical moment from opposite sides: Copenhagen investigates the German nuclear program and why it failed; Rhodes investigates the American program and how it succeeded
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Galileo's Daughter
by Dava Sobel
Sobel's companion investigation of the scientist at the center of a conflict between knowledge and institutional power — Sister Maria Celeste's letters to Galileo. Both are companion investigations of the relationship between the scientist's personal life and the historical consequences of their scientific work
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The Real Thing
by Tom Stoppard
Stoppard's companion in the British drama tradition of the intellectually sophisticated play that conceals an emotional core. Both Copenhagen and The Real Thing are organized around a central question whose investigation reveals the inadequacy of pure intellectual analysis for questions that are also emotional
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American Prometheus
by Kai Bird
Bird and Sherwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer — the full account of the American nuclear program and its moral consequences. The companion to Copenhagen from the American side: where Frayn investigates Heisenberg's failure and its ambiguous moral status, Bird and Sherwin investigate Oppenheimer's success and its devastating aftermath
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Inherit the Wind
by Jerome Lawrence
The companion in the American drama tradition about the conflict between scientific truth and authority — the Scopes Monkey Trial. Companion dramatic investigations of the conflict between scientific knowledge and the authorities that seek to control or suppress it: Frayn's from the perspective of twentieth-century physics; Lawrence and Lee's from the perspective of evolutionary biology
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