First short writing assignment, spring 2009
Core 177-01 (Williams)

This paper deals with the play Copenhagen and the assigned readings from Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.  Your essay should include specific references to the readings and should, where possible, engage the discussions and topics we have dealt with this semester.  The paper is due on April 20 and should be 2-3 pages in length. This paper, your response to Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland’s  presentation, and the end-of-semester personal reflection are—as a group—worth 25% of the course grade.  You must complete all three assignments to earn the 25%.

Choose one of the topics below.

I.  What challenges arise when a playwright decides to make a play about real people or an historian tries to make real people human in the context of events?  (Distinguish at least three challenges.)   Illustrate how Frayn and Rhodes handle these challenges.  Quote from the texts to support your points. 

II.  In Copenhagen, scientific work is presented as contingent on many different kinds of circumstances—heritage, personality, the places where people receive their training, political issues, unforeseen occurrences, etc.  Show several ways in which the play makes this point, also describing how the play presents the science for an audience not necessarily well versed in nuclear physics.  How does this perspective square with the notion of scientific discovery as objective and impersonal?

III.  One reviewer of the play made this observation: “Frayn's emphasis on the terror of nuclear destruction itself seems oddly out of date, valid as it is for the characters. Chances of nuclear war have been considerably reduced; what's liable to destroy us all now are peaceful places like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.” 

Probably this remark refers to the play’s ending, especially the dialogue on p. 94. Based on this play and on any other materials you’ve read for the class, would you agree that we can stop worrying about the terror of nuclear destruction?  Develop your argument carefully and clearly cite the works that have contributed to your point of view.