Premiere Performance of Last Summer - A New One-Act Play by Jim Ottaviani

Fri, 12/27/2024 - 1:27pm

When: December 11, 2024

The University of Michigan Summer Symposium in Theoretical Physics brought great minds from all over the world to Ann Arbor for 15 years between WWI and WWII. One evening in 1939, Enrico Fermi tried to convince his friend Werner Heisenberg not to return to Germany, where he would certainly be compelled to help the Nazis develop nuclear weapons.

Last Summer is a new one-act play about this pivotal conversation, based on the physicists' own writings, written for the stage by award-winning science comics writer Jim Ottaviani, and produced in partnership with the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre.

Transcript

• [00:00:21] MAX DRESDEN: [APPLAUSE] From 1929, until the United States entered World War II, the University of Michigan hosted a summer symposia in theoretical physics. Visitors, including fifteen past and future Nobel Prize winners, came from all over the world. In 1939, the topic was...
• [00:00:36] WERNER HEISENBERG: Cosmic rays. Why can't we focus on that? I came here to discuss physics, not...
• [00:00:42] ENRICO FERMI: I know, Werner, but we've talked physics all day, all week. So tonight, I thought we'd discuss a loftier things than charged particles from outer space. We're off the clock after all.
• [00:00:54] WERNER HEISENBERG: "Off the...?" I do not understand the idiom.
• [00:00:55] ENRICO FERMI: It means that working hours are over. I want to talk about cosmic rays as much as you, but we can do that tomorrow.
• [00:01:02] WERNER HEISENBERG: I am leaving tomorrow.
• [00:01:04] ENRICO FERMI: I know that, but you're not leaving the country right away, yes? So before returning to physics, I'd like to talk to you about staying.
• [00:01:15] WERNER HEISENBERG: In Ann Arbor?
• [00:01:16] ENRICO FERMI: Not specifically, though if Sam here were to offer you a position, I would suggest taking it.
• [00:01:22] WERNER HEISENBERG: Noted. What specifically are you saying?
• [00:01:26] MAX DRESDEN: Dr. Fermi, Dr. Heisenberg. Can I get you anything else?
• [00:01:29] ENRICO FERMI: No, thank you. Please call me Enrico.
• [00:01:34] SAMUEL GOUDSMIT: I'll do with another, Max. This might be a while.
• [00:01:37] WERNER HEISENBERG: It will not, Sam. Enrico and I have already had this conversation once, so I do not understand.
• [00:01:41] ENRICO FERMI: Yes, but I think I surprised you when I brought it up the first time and you were understandably, no, I don't see, I don't understand how you see this turning out for you. So I don't see how you interpret me asking why you're returning as an attack.
• [00:01:56] WERNER HEISENBERG: It is not about me as such. It is about Germany. Germany needs me.
• [00:02:02] ENRICO FERMI: Werner, what does that mean?
• [00:02:04] WERNER HEISENBERG: It is my country. I have an obligation and I mean, I mean German physics. I, we must preserve it.
• [00:02:12] ENRICO FERMI: Have you asked yourself, why it needs preservation and from whom?
• [00:02:17] WERNER HEISENBERG: I'm sure you agree. Physics is the most important intellectual pursuit, and German physics must be kept pure.
• [00:02:23] ENRICO FERMI: Purity is a delusion, and your leaders delude the masses by pretending to pursue it. But let's say you're right and there is an actual Ivory tower, and physics, German physics, you called it? Belongs on the top floor. I can see you now inside the tower's thick walls. Are you free to talk to who you want about what you want?
• [00:02:46] WERNER HEISENBERG: Of course.
• [00:02:47] ENRICO FERMI: So you can teach all theories, classical and modern, without consequence? That's not what I heard.
• [00:02:54] WERNER HEISENBERG: Well, there are some restrictions.
• [00:02:56] ENRICO FERMI: Restrictions? On speaking the truth?
• [00:02:58] WERNER HEISENBERG: Of course not. I, we simply cannot say certain things.
• [00:03:03] ENRICO FERMI: Certain things being a name.
• [00:03:05] WERNER HEISENBERG: I can say names. Both names. Special and general relativity.
• [00:03:12] ENRICO FERMI: Werner, please. You've just admitted you know the name I mean. You could teach the truth of relativity theory, but not who discovered that truth.
• [00:03:23] WERNER HEISENBERG: Everybody knows who discovered it.
• [00:03:25] ENRICO FERMI: Not until you tell them.
• [00:03:30] MAX DRESDEN: Excuse me. Professor Fermi? Professor Heisenberg? May I?
• [00:03:36] ENRICO FERMI: Please, Max. Call me Enrico. And I'm all set. And so let me ask again, why do you think physics is the issue here?
• [00:03:50] WERNER HEISENBERG: Among the sciences, it is the most advanced. It is where all progress is made today.
• [00:03:55] ENRICO FERMI: What kind of progress can be made when you can't say a Jewish name that's attached to a proven and consequential theory?
• [00:04:02] WERNER HEISENBERG: Well, of course that's...
• [00:04:03] ENRICO FERMI: I'll answer that. No progress because these people, these fascists, have no principles. They will kill anybody, or anything that they see as a threat and they will not think twice about it.
• [00:04:14] WERNER HEISENBERG: I do not believe it is that bad.
• [00:04:15] ENRICO FERMI: It is exactly that bad. I had to leave my country because Laura is Jewish.
• [00:04:22] WERNER HEISENBERG: Had to? But Enrico, surely your stature was... your wife would not have...
• [00:04:27] ENRICO FERMI: Einstein left your country for America, and then they burned his home to the ground, and now they forbid you from saying his name.
• [00:04:35] WERNER HEISENBERG: It was only his summer home. Besides, I can say his name. I have a certain...
• [00:04:41] ENRICO FERMI: What Influence? For now, but only the influence they grant you.
• [00:04:48] WERNER HEISENBERG: I... besides, he is always on the move. Germany, Switzerland, Italy, for a time. A citizen of the world, that man.
• [00:04:55] ENRICO FERMI: Certainly. And Einstein jokes about it. Remember when he said that if relativity theory were proven true, that Germany would claim him a German, while France would say he's a citizen of the world? And if it weren't, Germany would declare him a Jew.
• [00:05:10] WERNER HEISENBERG: I remember.
• [00:05:11] ENRICO FERMI: It rarely happens. But this time, he was wrong. His theory is true, and Germany still declares him a Jew.
• [00:05:19] WERNER HEISENBERG: What does that have to do with...?
• [00:05:21] ENRICO FERMI: It's data. And when data disagrees with theory, it's the theory that's wrong. It shows that he was right to leave. Once Italy adopted similar laws, so was I.
• [00:05:31] WERNER HEISENBERG: Fine. Assuming for the sake of argument that I accept your reasoning, our circumstances are not equivalent. He is Einstein and you, you are Fermi.
• [00:05:42] ENRICO FERMI: Bravo, you've said his name.
• [00:05:44] WERNER HEISENBERG: Me, I am just.
• [00:05:46] ENRICO FERMI: What? Not as old? You and I are the same age. Never mind my receding hairline. So what you say is true, but only compared to Einstein. Not as famous? Well, true, again, compared to Einstein. But what scientist is? And so what does that leave us with. Not as influential? You've just implied to me that you are. Not as responsible? Well, to quote our mutual friend Pauli, "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; das it's nicht einmal falsch!"
• [00:06:23] WERNER HEISENBERG: What?
• [00:06:26] SAMUEL GOUDSMIT: Allow me Enrico. My German is better. "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; das its nicht einmal falsch!"
• [00:06:34] WERNER HEISENBERG: Yes, yes. I have heard that. What do you think it means? Not you, Sam. Enrico. And use American English since you love it so much here.
• [00:06:43] ENRICO FERMI: It means that thinking you're not responsible, or that you can fix your country's problems from within, with physics? That is not merely untrue; it is not. Even. Wrong.
• [00:06:56] WERNER HEISENBERG: I have never understood what "not even wrong" means.
• [00:06:58] ENRICO FERMI: It means that both your premise and your reasoning are so bad that your conclusion is meaningless. But I'm sorry. Pauli is often rude, and I am rude to quote him. So, instead of talking about why you will stay, let's discuss why you might leave Germany.
• [00:07:19] WERNER HEISENBERG: You are changing the subject without really changing the subject, Enrico.
• [00:07:23] ENRICO FERMI: Not at all. Hear me out. The United States is a country full of Europeans who fled their homes because they couldn't stand the petty restrictions, the constant quarrels among small nations, the persecutions, the revolutions, all that. Here in a larger, freer country, they...we are free to start fresh without being burdened by the past.
• [00:07:53] WERNER HEISENBERG: And if I do not consider that weight to be a burden?
• [00:07:55] ENRICO FERMI: Well, then consider this. In Italy, I was a great man, but here I am once again a young physicist. That is incomparably more exciting.
• [00:08:11] WERNER HEISENBERG: I am not so certain I wish to be young again.
• [00:08:13] ENRICO FERMI: I don't see why not. Face it. Your stature is not enough to prevent the war, but you're influential enough that if you stay, you will do and be responsible for things that you hate.
• [00:08:26] WERNER HEISENBERG: But...
• [00:08:27] ENRICO FERMI: But nothing. Even with all that, I might understand your staying if it might lead to the least bit of good. So tell me, what are the chances of that?
• [00:08:39] WERNER HEISENBERG: I hear you. I have told myself the same thing many times, thousands of times and I admit coming to the new world has been a constant temptation, ever since my first visit here.
• [00:08:53] MAX DRESDEN: Another, Herr Doctor Professor?
• [00:08:56] WERNER HEISENBERG: What? No. Wait, wait, yes. Just top this up.
• [00:09:08] WERNER HEISENBERG: Yes. So... instead, I have collected about myself a small circle of young people, students who wish to advance modern physics. Students who believe that uncontaminated physics can make a comeback after the war. If I should abandon them now? I would feel like a traitor.
• [00:09:23] ENRICO FERMI: A traitor? You're their leader, and they...
• [00:09:26] WERNER HEISENBERG: "They" what, Enrico? You speak of chances. Well, what are their chances? The young cannot emigrate so easily as you and I. The young have no pretense for leaving at all. No one is inviting them to give summer school lectures in...in Michigan's venerable Rackham Amphitheater. [LAUGHTER] And if they were, unlike you, they have no Nobel prize checks uncashed in their pockets. And even if they did, how long would that last them? "They" have no comfortable professorships waiting in America.
• [00:09:59] ENRICO FERMI: So they're your students until they're conscripts?
• [00:10:01] WERNER HEISENBERG: Yes. But no. No. There is hope. When I was a conscript myself, fighting communists after the Great War, I observed that only a handful of our people even favor war. It is possible that when the complete hypocrisy of Hitler becomes plain, the German people will make short shrift of him and his followers.
• [00:10:22] ENRICO FERMI: How certain of that are you?
• [00:10:26] WERNER HEISENBERG: I admit it does not look certain at the moment.
• [00:10:31] ENRICO FERMI: There is another problem. You talk about advancing physics, so you can't ignore Hahn and Meitner's discovery of atomic fission.
• [00:10:46] WERNER HEISENBERG: Yes, and?
• [00:10:48] ENRICO FERMI: Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Maybe not 1,000 times, but at least once? When war is declared, governments ask their scientists to develop new weapons. What comes next is obvious. Bohr saw it immediately.
• [00:11:06] WERNER HEISENBERG: Niels. I'm not surprised. That danger is, of course, real. But is emigration the answer? In any case, politicians can clamor for new weapons as hard as they please, but I am certain atomic developments will be slow. Assuming it is even possible, the war will be over before anyone can make such things.
• [00:11:27] ENRICO FERMI: With the winner being Hitler?
• [00:11:29] WERNER HEISENBERG: No. No. Hitler has cut Germany off from the rest of the world. Our technical potential is incomparably smaller than our opponents. This is so blatantly obvious sometimes I hope it will filter through to the Führer himself.
• [00:11:44] ENRICO FERMI: Seriously?
• [00:11:47] WERNER HEISENBERG: I admit this is likely the wishful thinking on my part. Hitler is irrational. Merely closes his eyes to anything he does not wish to see.
• [00:11:55] ENRICO FERMI: And yet, you still want to return? Why?
• [00:11:59] WERNER HEISENBERG: I do not see that I have much choice. I firmly believe that one must be consistent. Each one of us is born into a certain environment, a pattern of thought, a native language. He will be most comfortable and do his best work in that environment.
• [00:12:14] ENRICO FERMI: Wait, I thought we were talking about your students.
• [00:12:17] WERNER HEISENBERG: Sooner or later, every country has revolutions and wars. Whole populations cannot migrate every time. Obviously, people must learn to prevent such catastrophes, not to run away from them. Perhaps we ought to insist everyone brave what storms there are in their own country. That might encourage them to stop the rot before it can spread.
• [00:12:37] ENRICO FERMI: Again, who are we talking about here? You or your students?
• [00:12:40] WERNER HEISENBERG: But that might be going too far in the other direction. For, try as one might, we often cannot prevent the masses from taking the wrong path. So it would be wrong to expect them to sink or swim with those who have scorned wise advice. In short, there are no simple guidelines to cling to. We must decide for ourselves and cannot decide in advance whether we are doing right or wrong. Probably a bit of both. I decided years ago to remain in Germany, and even if my decision was wrong, I will stick to it. For I knew even then there would be a great deal of injustice and misfortune.
• [00:13:19] ENRICO FERMI: Years ago?
• [00:13:21] WERNER HEISENBERG: Yes. That is why I did not see the point in going over it again.
• [00:13:24] ENRICO FERMI: That is not the point. This January, Adolf Hitler gave us his answer to the so-called Jewish question. Annihilation. This January, Niels Bohr brings us news of atomic fission and everything that that entails.
• [00:13:40] WERNER HEISENBERG: One is just words. The other just a hypothesis.
• [00:13:43] ENRICO FERMI: Like I said, taken together, they are data. Theorist or not, if that's not enough to you, what is? Ask yourself that. Or ask somebody else. Niels, perhaps. He's still in Europe, for now. Look at the time. It's late.
• [00:14:05] WERNER HEISENBERG: But... but why can we not just...
• [00:14:12] WERNER HEISENBERG: Niels, I do not know when I will see him again. Yes, yes perhaps. If he will see me.
• [00:14:47] MAX DRESDEN: Thank you for inviting me, Professor, but I didn't have much to do here. They didn't even finish anything. They're still half full.
• [00:14:54] SAMUEL GOUDSMIT: Well, I'm glad you see it that way. [NOISE] [APPLAUSE]
• [00:15:33] MAX DRESDEN: Max Dresden finished his PhD at the University of Michigan in 1946 and went on to professorships at the University of Iowa, Northwestern University, the University of Kansas, and Stony Brook University.
• [00:15:48] SAMUEL GOUDSMIT: Samuel Goudsmit was born in the Netherlands and was a professor at the University of Michigan from 1927-1946. He was also a member of the Manhattan Project, most notably as the lead of the Alsos Mission in which he interviewed German physicists on their atomic research shortly after Germany surrendered, but before the end of the war in the Pacific.
• [00:16:13] ENRICO FERMI: Enrico Fermi became a US citizen on July 11th, 1944. He led the team that created the world's first self-sustaining nuclear reactor in Chicago and went on to join the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, which did indeed develop atomic weapons before the end of World War II.
• [00:16:30] WERNER HEISENBERG: There is some controversy as to whether Werner Heisenberg slow-walked aspects of developing atomic weapons during the war as a gesture of defiance towards the Nazis, or if he tried hard to succeed and simply misunderstood the difficulties. Regardless, he did return to Germany shortly after the meeting depicted here on the ship SS Europa. The ship was nearly empty. [APPLAUSE]