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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What uranium isotope is most common?

2. How has Bohr been treated by the occupying Germans?

3. What happened after the SS brought Heisenberg in for questioning?

4. Where did Bohr have his most important insight, according to Heisenberg?

5. What does Bohr compare his partnership with Heisenberg to?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Bohr think the Allied scientists were working on the bomb?

2. What joke does Bohr make about skiing?

3. What is the uncertainty principle?

4. What is the familial relationship between Bohr and Heisenberg that is alluded to throughout the play?

5. When was fission invented?

6. What role does Heisenberg think Bohr could have played, but didn’t, in the atomic project?

7. How does the audience know when fission was invented?

8. What wartime experience has Heisenberg had that Bohr has not?

9. What does Heisenberg claim are the political implications of what he was saying to Bohr?

10. Where have most of the German physicists gone?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Heisenberg makes various explanations for his question to Bohr. What was this question, and how does Heisenberg try to explain it away at various points in the play? Why is it important that he come up with an explanation?

Essay Topic 2

Many titles are possible for this play. Why has Frayn chosen to title it after the city of Copenhagen when so many other issues are at stake?

Essay Topic 3

Skiing is used as a metaphor throughout the play. Discuss Heisenberg’s assertion that making no decision would lead to death. What is the significance of “swerving” in the context of Copenhagen?

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