07 agosto 2007

O Princípio da Incerteza *

Acreditar na incerteza do ser humano como o mais certo que temos.
Acreditar que essa incerteza não nos torna malvados, mesmo quando o final é horror puro.
Acreditar que é essa incerteza que nos permite arrepender.

Idylle Atomique - Salvador Dali


O encontro de 1941 de Bohr e Heisenberg continuará para sempre envolto em nevoeiro.
Certezas, apenas eles as terão e, com toda a certeza, serão diferentes.


Agrada-me pensar que o que me ficou da peça Copenhagen de Michael Frayn(vista há alguns anos no Teatro Campo Alegre no Porto) é uma certeza: que Heisenberg não construiu a bomba porque a sua consciência não o permitiu, e que Bohr e os restantes cientistas envolvidos no projecto Manhattan não sabiam de que forma essa mesma bomba seria usada.

Certezas? Nenhumas.


"In response to Bohr’s direct question as to why he didn’t make the crucial calculation, Heisenberg answers simply but convincingly.

H: Why didn’t you calculate it?

B: Why didn’t I calculate it?

H: Tell us why you didn’t calculate it and we’ll know why I didn’t.

B: It’s obvious why I didn’t.

H: Go on.

M: Because he wasn’t trying to build a bomb!

H: Yes, thank you. Because he wasn’t trying to build a bomb. I imagine it was the same with me. Because I wasn’t trying to build a bomb. Thank you.
(…)
Ironically, paradoxically, it was Bohr who, in a small way, contributed to the bombs that were dropped on
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Heisenberg’s wartime activities contributed to no one’s death.
(…)
Heisenberg was treated with undeserved hostility and contempt by many of the physicists who had been involved in the U.S. Manhattan Project, some of whom were his former students or friends. On this, Frayn has Heisenberg comment:

When I went to America in 1949 a lot of physicists wouldn’t even shake my hand. Hands that had actually built the bomb wouldn’t touch mine. " **


* http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princ%C3%ADpio_da_incerteza_de_Heisenberg

** excerto duma análise à peça em http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v21/v21n2p35_frayn.html; os excertos a itálico e negrito são retirados da peça.


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