Panel talk: Frayn’s COPENHAGENA Drama More Timely Than You Might Want

17. Juni 2025

Although the subject of Michael Frayn's drama is ostensibly set in the history of the Second World War, it fits better into the present day than one might wish. Advances in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and biotechnology over the past decades either have already made possible or will enable the development of more dreadful weapons threatening humankind. The questions of scientific ethics raised in the drama are therefore more topical than ever for the general public and for researchers in the relevant fields in particular.

This Interdisciplinary panel discussion on the unsettling relevance of COPENHAGEN features these experts:

• Prof. Dr. Luisa Lucie-Smith (Hamburg Observatory)
• Prof. Dr. Michael Rübhausen (Institute for Solid-State and Nanostructure Physics and Centre for Hybrid Nanostructures)
• Prof. Dr. Robin Santra (Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at DESY and I. Institute for Theoretical Physics)
• Prof. Dr. Matthias Schemmel (Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences)
• Marlon Hoffmann (director of the COPENHAGEN production)

When: 20.06.2025, 6.00 - 7. 00 PM (18:00 - 19:00 Uhr)
Where: Audimax, Von-Melle-Park 4, 20146 Hamburg

Organized and hosted by Verein der Förderer und Freunde der Physik an der Universität Hamburg e.V. The panel will be held in English and is free free of charge. If you'd like to support the organisers, you can buy a voluntary ticket here.

Further information can be found here.