The Copenhagen Interpretation

by Geoffrey Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2020. The Copenhagen Interpretation. Polar Borealis 13:17-19.

Scene: A room in Elsinore (Kronborg) Castle, Copenhagen. Hamlet, the moody Danish prince, enters, followed by the ghost of Niels Bohr.

Hamlet: “To be, or not to be—that is the question.”

Bohr (nodding tolerantly): “Yes, yes. There are only two possibilities: yes or no.”

Hamlet (startled, looks around him; when he sees nothing, he continues): “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...”

Bohr: “Again, a simple binary: it is noble, or it is ignoble.”

Hamlet (resolutely pressing onwards): “Or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.”

Bohr (sarcastically): “And we’re back with the binary again.”

Hamlet (squinting at the physicist’s dim outline): “Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd?”

Bohr (proudly): “Neither.” Then, chuckling and with a wry grin: “Or perhaps both.”

Hamlet: “Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?”

Bohr: “Do? Cease thinking in binary terms! I’m here to broaden your options—to help you solve your dilemma.”

Hamlet (glares defiance at the ghost, then gets a grip on himself; he looks upwards as if trying to remember where he’d left off, repeats a few key words to remind himself): “Aye: To die, to sleep—no more—and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—to sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.”

Bohr (clearing his throat and startling Hamlet): “I have this colleague, Schrödinger, who would say that until we observe your decision, you may be live, dead, or just dreaming, which is somewhere in between. We’ll only learn which outcome you’ve chosen when we observe you.”

Hamlet (gamely continuing, but with a nervous eye cocked towards the ghost): “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time... when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?”

Bohr (sotto voce): “And here again, we insist on only two solutions. I propose a thought experiment: Consider, rather, a revolver and the game of Russian roulette. To the uninitiated, the outcome still seems binary, bodkin or not: the chamber contains, or does not contain, a bullet, and you die or do not die. But to the physicist, there are at six possibilities: five with no bullet and one with. Also, you might miss your target and only wound yourself. And in that insight, we catch a glimpse of infinite possibilities.”

Hamlet emits a squeak of horror, and rapidly exits stage right; Bohr rolls his eyes towards the heavens, waits a beat, and then pursues the prince. After a pause, Hamlet enters stage left accompanied by Horatio and trailed by Bohr. Hamlet is already conversing with Horatio.

Hamlet (with a tremor in his voice): “... As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on.”

Bohr: “Aha! A light dawns in our protagonist’s mind.”

Horatio (clapping hand to his sword): “Did you hear aught, my prince?”

Hamlet (shuddering): “Methinks it be the ghost of my late father. Soonest ignored, soonest done with the matter at hand.”

Horatio (looking nervously around): “If you say so, my lord.” Horatio lifts his hand from his sword, replaces his hand upon its hilt, pauses a moment, lifts his hand, hesitates, and then with a decisive gesture, claps his hand upon the hilt.

Hamlet (frowning at his friend): “Swear that you’ll say naught of this.”

Horatio (solemnly, looking appalled at the notion): “I so swear.”

The two friends clasp hands, and with a nervous look about them, move to stage left, where they continue their conversation, unheard to the audience.

Bohr (moves to center stage, where he addresses the audience): “And thus, we have our answer: Hamlet shall be both coldly sane—sane as death!—and yet feel the heat of madness. Both at the same time, and thus we shall learn the virtues of superposition!” He tilts his chin in the air, with a knowing and somewhat superior air. “And so it shall be that generations of scholars will debate whether Hamlet is sane, or mad. And few will suspect the truth: that he is neither, or both, and that we shall never learn the truth of it until we see the outcome.”

Bohr bows deeply, and moves to stage left. He places a friendly arm around Hamlet’s shoulders, causing the prince to shudder. Gently, Bohr leads Hamlet offstage. Horatio shudders too, takes a step back, then claps hand to swordhilt once more and resolutely follows his friend.

The stage remains empty just long enough for the audience to grow restless and begin murmuring. Then, unheralded, the ghosts of Louis de Broglie and David Bohm enter, stage right. They bow to the audience, then de Broglie bows to Bohm with a sweeping gesture, clearly urging him to speak first.

Bohm (returning the bow and clearing his throat): “Of course, it’s also plausible that the truth exists independently of the observer.”

de Broglie: “In which case, Hamlet is sane, mad, or neither. Perhaps even sane initially, the gradually growing mad. Who can say?”

Bohm (smiling at his colleague, then at the audience): “We’re just physicists. How should we know? Observe the rest of the play, and you be the judge.”

The two physicists bow again to each other, then to the audience. Exeunt omnes.

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