Werner Heisenberg
Heisenberg comes to Copenhagen to discuss with Niels Bohr…something. Possibly, he may be letting the Jewish Bohr know that he isn’t actually collaborating with the Nazis despite his being German. Or, equally possible, he has come to rationalize to his former student how he can still be a good person despite actually trying to help the Nazis get the atomic bomb first, which in truth is pretty much the whole point of the play.
Niels Bohr
Bohr is the father of quantum physics. Since that statement is utter meaningless to most people, more importantly for understanding the dynamics of the play, Bohr was also at one time the teacher of Heisenberg. From that relationship developed the deeper and more complex relationship of mentor to the younger scientist. Bohr, living in Copenhagen under surveillance, is also Jewish, thus making the relationship even more profoundly complicated.
Margrethe Bohr
The wife of Niels Bohr, but more importantly an active, interested and aware partner in his scientific pursuits. Her role here is as a sort of mediator in the narrative, which is structured in terms of a memory by those in the afterlife. Margrethe stimulates conversation out of discourse bogs and jogs the clogged memories of two geniuses who sometimes miss the details as they survey the big picture.
